A Moment in Time [X-Men First Class]

The Beginning

Summer 1955

      Sticky. Hot. Stifling.  Just a few of the words that could be pulled out of a hat to describe the weather.

      "Dad, you really had to pick the hottest day of the year to go hiking?"  The thirteen year old girl whined.  She was antsy and irritated. Legs sticking and practically melting (as she liked to put it) to the leather seats.

      "Don't flip your lid, Gracie —we always go on Saturdays, you know this."  It's true. He was a man of routine. From his early wake time to check, check, checking the mirrors while driving.

      Grace couldn't pinpoint when their father-daughter tradition started. Actually that was a lie; she knew exactly when it started. Her 8th birthday. It was an easy guess as to why. His little girl was growing up so fast; there will never be more moments like these.

      A lie again. Grace's mother, her birth mother that is, had passed away.  All too young she couldn't understand what was happening, however, as the years passed she understood that her father needed her, needed something to hold onto, something to distract him from the chasm growing in his chest.

      "Dad cut it out!"

      He was a creature of routine.  Unfortunately for his daughter that routine included tickling. Strange to see him take his eyes off the road though. It broke his routine.  Today was a big break for him.  Breaking the routine and the taboo.  Breaking and rebuilding the mold of the nuclear family all in one.

       Mr. Harvel would ask his sweetheart to marry him. No one knew of his previous marriage. New state, new town, new faces, new life, new wife.  The perfect all rounded and happy family.

         Once her father stopped the attack, the young girl sighed and laid her head back on the car seat feeling the sweat on her scalp.  It felt like she was roasting alive in this car. This misery was a perfect path to a great idea.

           "Dad can we please stop by the ice cream shop?" Batting eyelashes and clasped, pleading hands.

      "Oh I don't know," he said jokingly pretending to debate it in his mind, "How about this? We can swing by if, and only if you give me a hug, shine my shoes, and get the paper every morning now until the sun stops shinin'!" 
      
          He swung his head towards his daughter for the last part, eyebrows playfully raised waiting for an answer.  

           The kid scoffed, rolling her eyes closed and settling her head back on the seat. There was a pause.  Grace opened one eye to see her father still patiently waiting for her answer to the prior proposition.

          She caved.  The cool ice cream was decidedly worth it. 

         "Ugh, fine!"

          Shifting back upright in her seat, Grace's eyes refocused on the road.  Eyes heals heartedly darting to and from the road back to his daughter, Mr. Harvel held a smug expression on his face.

         He should've never broken his routine. A split second is all it ever takes.

            You see in his giddy excitement for the announcement and the haze of the air the rigid wall of his routine cracked and crumbled unbeknownst to him.