Praying and Waiting

Praying and Waiting

She sits up until the late hours of the night praying and waiting for Daddy to come back home. It's been fourteen years and still she waits and waits and prays and prays for him to come back to her and Mommy. Maybe then Mommy wouldn't be so sad all the time. Maybe then she wouldn't be sitting alone at the table eating dinner while Mommy had to work three jobs just to pay for the small two-roomed apartment. Maybe then she'd have a family.

Finally, after fourteen years of praying and waiting for Daddy to come back, he finally does. He pulls her into a big hug, a hug that the girl has been waiting for fourteen years. Tears are spilled as she holds her daddy tight, afraid that he will just pick up and leave again. She's happy to have him back, to have Daddy back. But Mommy isn't happy at all. She took one look at him and screamed at him to stay away from her daughter. Daddy says he has as many rights as she does to see his daughter. Mommy tells him that he's not her father and that he threw that right out the window the day he ran out on her.

"She's not your daughter," Mommy yells. "You are not her father. All you're going to do is spend a few days out here, promise to be her father, and then once you've got all her hops up, you're going to bring them down and walk out on us again! On her! I won't let you do that to her again! Do you have idea how many how many times she's asked me 'When's Daddy coming home?' How many times I had to tell her that I didn't know? Do you have any idea how many tears she's cried over you?"

Daddy didn't say anything. Mommy told him to get out and he did, only to come back the next day. The teenaged girl woke up to the sound of his voice. She prays at night that the next morning she'll wake up to his voice again.

Mommy doesn't like it that he's always over, that he's been spoiling the young girl, that he's 'getting her hopes up for nothing.' But the girl doesn't believe it. She doesn't want to believe it. Daddy came back. Daddy loves her. Daddy wants her.

She wakes up to Daddy's voice for five days, and then the sixth day, it not Daddy's voice. It's Mommy's. The girl can't help but wonder why. She walks around the house calling out for him because she knows he's there. Daddy has to be there. But she doesn't hear his voice. She asks Mommy why Daddy isn't there.

That question brings back painful memories to Mommy. Even though Mommy hadn't lied that Daddy had come back, she had prayed that she would never hear that question again. She remembers how sad her daughter had been every time she had to tell her that she didn't know. She remembers crying after it.

"I don't know when Daddy's coming back," Mommy says softly.

"Sorry, I'm late," Daddy's voice comes from the doorway. The girl runs into his arms and hugs him, almost crying. She tells him how glad she is that he's back and that she thought he had left again for another fourteen years.

"You've always been late," Mommy whispers. Daddy frowns but doesn't say a word about it.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he says as he looks back down to his daughter. "But I have to leave."

The girl wants to cry, but won't. "Why," is all she asks, taking a step away from the man in front of her.

"I got a job in the America's," he tells her. "But I promise to be back in a few months. It was great seeing you, sweetheart. I do love you."

"Yeah, you too, Mr. Greengrass," Daphne says. Mr. Greengrass nods, turns away, and walks away from her again.

Mommy hadn't stuck around for that part. She had gone to Diagon Alley. Daphne was left alone in the house.

She pulls out her notebook and tore out all the pages about Mr. Greengrass coming back home and being her father. She begins to write:

Dear Diary,

He left again. He took his sorry arse and left. But at least he said good-bye this time.

It's okay though. I've made it through everything without him. I said my first word without him, I learned how to ride a bicycle without him; I had fourteen great birthdays without him! I don't need him. I don't.

I won't pray for him to come back home anymore. I won't wait anymore.

Finally, Daphne cries, tears splash onto the notebook and soak through the pages making the words hard to make out.

"Why doesn't he want me," Daphne whispers.