Drowning Utopia

Chapter 32: Loss and Revile

"There is just never enough!" Roger Copperfield fumed, hunched over his desk in the pit of the boiler room below Croft University. Eight-year-old Tessa watched hidden in the crutch of the stairwell as her father stared at the pile of bills on his desk. He pulled a cork off a large bottle of rum and swallowed the last of its contents. Wiping his face on his sleeve, the disgruntled man stared at the bottle a long moment. In a fit of rage, the mechanic hurled the glass container into the boiler. The fire hissed and snapped. The shattering glass punctuated the man's anger and despair as he shouted, "It wasn't supposed to be like this!" Shoving all his paperwork to the ground, he overturned a bookshelf and punched the wood frame. The weak man staggered, clutching his hand, sinking into the rickety chair with a pitiful whimper. He sat there for a long moment before slowly opening his desk. Staring at its contents, Tessa's father absentmindedly began fingering something within its drawer.

Tessa recalled how nervous she felt as she slowly crept down the stairs. How she would later understand the significance of her father's expression as he withdrew his pistol, the polished steel glinting off the lantern light. But at the time, when she was still too young to grasp his train of thought, she asked nervously, "Papa? Are you all right?"

Jumping at the sound of her voice, Roger Copperfield turned to face Tessa, tears brimming in his emerald eyes as he put the gun down onto the desk. "Tessa, what are you doing here so late? I thought you went home hours ago."

Tessa shook her head as she looked down at her feet. "I came to bring you dinner," she said, handing him the basket with a few slices of meat, cheese, and bread. "I...know it's not much, but it's something." She felt her freckled face flush before wringing her hands and admitting, "I may have had some of it on the way over...."

"Oh, my dear Tess," The thin man looked at the offered meal and grimaced, "But where did you get this?"

Tessa's heart sank. "The lunchroom."

His tone grew stern. "Tess, the lunchroom has been closed for hours. Even if it wasn't, how could you have afforded it?"

Tessa looked down at her feet again, feeling her cheeks burn with color. "I'm sorry. I just thought that you were hungry. I know we, we don't have much, but what we do have— you haven't been eating, so I thought...."

Her father sighed before setting aside the basket. But instead of reprimanding her as she had feared, he spread his arms and embraced her. "Thank you so much, my little sprout. You are too good to me." He tried to hold back the tears streaming down his gaunt cheeks as he asked kindly, "What did I ever do to deserve you?"

The young girl began to cry too, the hot tears rolling down her round face as she blubbered, "I'm sorry, Papa. I'm sorry that we never have enough."

Sitting up, he grasped her shoulders and said with a stern conviction, "Now you listen to me, Tessa C. Copperfield, I want you to pull yourself together! Things might be hard right now, but that doesn't mean you give up, feeling, feeling sorry for yourself." He cleared his throat as he wiped her face, choking on his own emotion.

Tessa looked up into his loving emerald eyes, as he gave a rare smile, "After all, what can we do but, hope for the best, and, and keep moving forward?" Her father stood, putting the gun back into his desk. "Yes. No matter what, we must keep moving forward..."

Ever since that night, Tessa tried her best to take that lesson to heart. She only wished her father had listened to his own advice, instead of finally pulling the trigger.

The morning after she got back from being fired from Higgins Manner, she had gone home, hoping to find solace and comfort from her parents. Instead, she discovered the place was a wreck, and that all of her mother's things were gone.