When The Sun Rises | ✔

00 | Prologue

Prologue | The Beginning of the End

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        I don't like to think about Daddy if I don't have to, but once a year I can't stop myself.

        Subtle moonlight fights through the partially cracked blinds and makes itself at home in my bedroom. I latch my eyes on to the striped silhouette highlighting the round white rug splayed across the wood flooring.

        I figure if I stare aimlessly for long enough, my mind will go blank and I can escape his memory.

        But, that one day is hours away and my heart aches to feel that love again, for things to be the way they once were. Even though I haven't seen his face in almost nine years, when I close my eyes I can still see him just as vividly as I can see the blades of the ceiling fan circling above me.

        I sigh and roll over onto my side. At seventeen, my biggest problems should be acne, prom, and college applications, but instead I'm being kept up by thoughts of the father stripped away from me nine years ago.

        His hair is the first thing I think of. Picked out into a low curly afro – as he so lazily kept it – because he still had his hopes up that they would make a comeback. The feeling of his cotton candy textured strands is ingrained in the contours of my palm, etched into every crease and lining.

        I picture him, tall and poised, standing over me in his signature dark clothing, like a gallant oak tree. He didn't like to wear many colors outside of blue and black – if he did, it was something Ma bought him because she thought he'd look fine in it. And every day after work he would sit in his chair, read his Bible, and listen to old Prince and Bob Marley songs.

        The dips and falls of their voices are littered throughout memories from my childhood, groaning and crooning me into states of calm. They are the birds chirping, grass rustling, and water sloshing, of an afternoon spent lakeside.

        I kick my legs from beneath the swathe of covers needing the relief of cool air. Warmth permeates my skin causing misty beads of sweat to swell on my back, and my shirt sticks to me.

        The corners of my lips twitch when I recall a time in my childhood when I wouldn't have dared to do this. A highly imaginative kid, I always thought some kind of creature would grab me by the ankle and drag me into the shadows, but Daddy was always there to calm me down. He would kiss me on the forehead and in his best Marley voice badger me with the same line: And the three little birds sang. He would repeat it over and over until I said, "Don't worry about a thing."

        And memories like this continue to pop up like Georgia gnats, leaving me to swat them away one by one.

        I think back to the myriad of evenings when I was six and still falling asleep in his lap, eager for the warmth of his chest and the rhythmic thump of his heart to lull me to sleep. It was borderline hypnotism, rising and falling gently with each of his breaths, my ear pressed against his heart, enamored by the steady ba-dump.

        His long arms would cradle me like an antique vase and I clung to him.

        Growing up, I never knew how he carried himself when I wasn't around, but when he was, he was the gentlest man anyone could hope to encounter. And if there is one thing I can say for certain about him, it's that he was someone you couldn't help but smile around because his spirit was so damn infectious.

        Everywhere he went he made a point to crack a grin out of at least one person he spoke to because he believed that a good laugh was powerful enough to make even the worst of days just a little bit brighter.

        A trip to the grocery store was incomplete without him burdening the cashier with one of his Dad jokes.

        Whenever we bought milk and the cashier asked if we wanted it in a bag, his response was always the same: “No, just leave it in the jug.”

        The only time this gift for making bad jokes was useful was when he wanted to get Ma to stop being mad at him. When they argued – which they rarely ever did because they were so stuck on each other – he tried to make her laugh in any way he could find.

        He would tickle her, perform ear-splitting renditions of her favorite love songs, give her lap dances, or simply remind her of some of the silly insiders from the early years of their relationship.

        If his usual antics failed, he made sure to come home with a bushel of lilacs – her favorite flower – and make her sit at the table and talk to him until they came to an understanding. Or at least agreed to disagree on the topic.

        That's one thing I admired about him – his refusal to harbor anger. His emotions seeped from his pores like a faulty dam. Daddy couldn't yield a malicious bone in his body if he wanted to and his list of enemies was nonexistent. And much like enemies, he didn't have many hobbies either, but Saturdays were the days he mowed the lawn and washed the cars. He stayed outside for hours waxing and wiping, wiping and waxing until the sun baked him into a beautiful golden brown.

        Sometimes, he would call me out to help him work because he said he never wanted me depending on a man to do things for me. At the time, I was too young to recognize the heart of his intentions, but I didn't care to. I was content just spending time with him.

        Every Sunday, me, him and Ma went to church and sat beside the window at the end of the third pew.

        The church was always cold so I sat on the side closest to the window to catch the warmth fighting its way through the stained-glass. Every now and then Ma would wave her hand and shout, "Amen, Pastor!"

        Some Sundays she cried, but Daddy was always quiet just nodding to himself and so I stayed quiet, too. I never understood what the pastor was yapping about so I stared out the window and watched the birds. They landed on the power-lines – dozens of them – and sat around, like they were at church, too. I imagined they were having their own kind of bird church. Chirping about how birds of a feather flocked together and other bird business.

        Once I allow my thoughts to veer to our mornings in church I know I will inevitably begin a recap of the last day I saw him. The last day I saw my real mother.

        Sheila.