Everlasting Beauty (Free Ebook)

Chapter Two

Father

I didn't know why, but as I sat down in my couch I began to think about my daughter and her dream of going to College. I stood up and went into my bedroom and walked in front of the dressing table. I opened the top drawer where I placed all of my crap, including an old photo album of my beloved wife, God rest her soul and of my two children Brian and Anabella. I sat on my bed and opened the album. The first picture that I looked at was the one of my wife. I still remember that day like if it were yesterday. We were in the mountains with the kids and I remember that I took that picture of her without her noticing. In the next picture her hand was placed in front of the camera because she wanted to hide her face from me, but it was difficult to hide a beautiful face like hers. I wasn't her only admirer, which made me jealous for years until I finally came to the realization that she was a good woman and that I was the insecure son of bitch that was ruining the entire relationship. Before she died of cancer I begged her to forgive me. I can still remember holding her cold hand. I somehow knew that she was nearing death. All of her hair had fallen out of her head, her weight had washed away and her skin was icy pale. She was basically a bag of bones. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I was reminded of her illness.

"Don't remember me like this," she said to me. 

 "Remember me beautiful, healthy, happy and with a set of long brown hair as I used to be."

"You're beautiful to me no matter how you look and right now baby, you're glowing," I said. I remember kissing her hand, her lips and telling her to be strong. Four hours later I had received the call. Katherine was dead. In this picture, however she had not yet been consumed by the illness. She was healthy. Her cheeks were chubby and her hair was long and strong. She wore a blue buttoned shirt and khaki pants. She looked sensational and in my eyes, she would always be my baby, my queen. I will always remember her this way, but it was impossible for me to forget about her. I couldn't wipe her away even if I wanted to and in her illness, I loved her more than ever because I loved her in all of her stages. Her demeanor didn't matter to me. I loved her with or without the hair. She was not just my lover, but my best friend and she had accepted all of my hideousness without judgment or question. She could never be ugly, no matter what the illness did to her.I passed the plastic page of the album to look at the picture of my children. In the picture, Brian was holding a stick in his hand like if it was a sword. He always liked to pretend to be a martial artist and Anabella was next to her mother with her nose pressed on a book. I looked at her for a moment, my baby girl and I knew that as she dived into the world of books she remained a happy child. However, today she wasn't as happy and it killed me because I knew it was my God damn fault. I hadn't been the father I wanted to be. I couldn't provide for the family the way I really wanted to and to have that damn heart condition just made things worse. What kind of a father was I to be receiving money from my own daughter? I was nothing, but a scumbag, a loser. I couldn't believe that the compensation checks weren't enough after I had worked for twenty-five years in that damn factory. I was a working man. I wanted to work. I was used to working, but now my doctor insisted that I had to look for another job because lifting heavy machinery was out of the question. I didn't know what I was going to do because jobs were scarce and health benefits sucked because I wasn't fully covered. I looked at my daughter's picture and prayed to God. "Please help my daughter fulfill her dreams. I just want her to be happy. Is that too much to ask?"

 I was an arrogant man. That much I knew. It was hard to receive any good advice from anybody which was maybe the reason why I ended up the way I did, but that didn't matter to me anymore. I lived my life. I did what I thought was right and regardless of the situation I gave it my best. However, I felt that my daughter didn't deserve what was happening to her. 

 She deserved a full life, a marriage, a real home and not that one room apartment where she was living. Many times, she came here to visit and I could see the starvation in her face, the black bags under her eyes. I knew she was suffering even if she didn't say it, even if she didn't want to admit it and it killed me. Every time she gave me those two hundred dollars I wished I was dead under a rock. I always told her to put her money away, but she always insisted that I needed it more than she did.

"What about your dream Anabella? What about your dream to go to College?" I would ask her."Dad, would you stop worrying about that. I'm fine," she would say to me, but I knew that she wasn't fine at all. She could apply for some financial aid, but the problem was that she'd still be short and wouldn't be able to make the payments with me being a load on her shoulders. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do about it. My daughter wouldn't even hear about it. Now I know from whom had she inherited such arrogance. God help her.