Under the Mask

Skies

A peach orange sun sets behind the vast sea of sand. The wind was cool and carried a hint of a floral smell from the cacti being in bloom. She and her father sat in lawn chairs at the end of a dirt road they used to stargaze on before the incidents.

It had been three months since the brunette's father had been released.

Her mother had seen him once.

She had said it been a short, numbing experience. The older woman grumbled something about just listening to an apology and leaving. She didn't feel like he warranted a response at that time.

The younger brunette agreed. She even refused to see him when he was incarcerated.

Yet here she was. With a cursed caregiver heart just like her mother. Believing that maybe there was a chance that the man that had abused her had changed.

Her father had gotten thinner since the day they took him over 4 years. She found it oddly comforting. When her dad started his endless rage, his thin gangly build morphed into an unrecognizable bulky mass of muscle.

He looked weak now. The daughter noted to herself feeling more confident about the situation knowing that she could defend herself when he was in this condition.

Her father cracked open two vintage orange sodas and handed her a glass bottle.

She chuckled dryly but took it.

When she was younger her dad would sneak her small glasses of orange soda because her mom said it would rot her teeth.

But her father loved the way the carbonation made his daughter scrunch her face up and giggle about how the bubbles made her mouth feel fuzzy.

The doe-eyed girl tucks some rouge strains of hair picked up by the wind behind her ear and took a tentative a sip deciding if it was a heartfelt gesture or if there was something else.

"I am sorry for everything Lily." Her father choked out the words staring down the neck of his untouched drink.

The small girl's ears perked to his voice that seemed to be genuinely laced with regret.

She simply let out a huge sigh, "We know."  The girl keeps her gaze fixed on the waves of sand afraid she would only remember the father he once was and not the monster he had become.

Her father nodded thoughtfully still staring downwards.

It was a tense silence as they sipped their sodas as the sun lowered farther in the sky.

Her small body was consumed with rage but her heart pinged with hope. She scratches her head roughly in disbelief that she was going to open her mouth and offer, "Neither of us is going to trust you again unless you prove to us you have changed and you go and get some help."

Her dad gave her a wide closed-eyed smile behind his glasses. One that she had seen in many happy family photos, "I know. I will do my best for my girls."

"Promise?" She pointed at her father with a bottle in hand making eye contact with his hazel eyes for the first time in over four years.

"Promise." He clinked his bottle against hers with a small laugh.

At that moment nothing seemed to be hidden in his eyes, so the daughter relaxed a bit and told him what had been happening in her life.

The blonde did love his wife and his daughter with everything he had but it wasn't enough to combat his corrupted mind.