Worth the Trouble ✓

12 | just a kid

I ANNOUNCE MY ARRIVAL HOME by slamming the door.

That's the first thing I do—fling the door into its frame so furiously that the slam ricochets. Second thing, I unbuckle my belt and sling it over the coat rack. That's not the proper place for it. Suki will be fucking pissed she has to pick up after me, but I'm too tired to walk anywhere other than straight to the couch.

After I grab a beer from the fridge and mold my entire backside to the sofa, the pitter-patter of small feet sounds on my left. A high, airy voice asks, "Daddy?"

I glance that way, and there's my daughter. Light hair but dark eyes, cute as a button. "Yeah, bub?"

"I had a nightmare."

There's a teddy bear clutched in her hands. I vaguely remember that teddy bear from my childhood, but can't fathom why my daughter has it. I threw it away years and years and years ago. This must be a dream.

"Come here." I stretch my arms open, and my daughter clambers into my lap. We watch football for exactly ten seconds before her chiming voice returns.

"This is boring."

I sigh heavily, chest sinking. Glancing down the plane of my torso, I find that my abdomen has expanded several inches in circumference. I'm nearly circular, like a barrel of beer.

"I know."

What does she want me to do? Football is scintillating; she should just give it a chance. Girls can play sports, too.

"Can you tell me a story?"

I ponder for another ten seconds. Nothing comes to me. "I can't think of anything. Sorry, bub."

My brain is fried and rubbery from an eight-hour shift at the construction site. The cramping in my back has returned, but a doctor's appointment is out of the budget at the moment. "Just watch the TV. Imagine the story behind the scenes."

Thankfully, my daughter is well-behaved. She resigns herself to quietly staring at the screen, but I can tell she is restless. Every three seconds, she wriggles in my lap or picks at her hair. Are children running in an alternative universe where time passes slower? Is that why they move around so much?

"Wow," a feminine voice snaps. "You're home late."

I expect it to be Suki, even though her voice has never been that mean or husky. When I throw my head over the back of the sofa—finding with a groan that my range of movement has drastically shrunk since I was sixteen—I find a familiar woman wearing three-inch pumps.

"Mom?"

Mom smiles wearily. "Hey, Ter Bear."

I scoff, returning to football. Definitely a dream.

"Nana!" My daughter leaps from my lap with impossible energy for so late in the night. "Can you tell me a story?"

"Of course, baby bear."

Mom enfolds my daughter into her arms, letting her press her face into her stomach. I remember doing that when I was a child and wasn't aware of my proximity to a heartless demon. "Why don't you get in bed and I'll follow you up?"

Somehow, my daughter listens. She scampers up the stairway with footsteps as light as when she entered the living room, leaving Mom with me. Mom takes a seat on the other armchair, watching the football with glassy, unblinking eyes.

I cough. "You know, I get it now. Why you left."

I feel tired. Sore. Without inspiration, purpose, or joy. Making a new life, and doing it justice, means giving up your own. Everything I do is for my daughter, and even my football time is not sacred. Nothing belongs to me anymore.