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Fiction: Daddy



Paperback, 130 pages
        She’d dreamed she was back at Montgomery: they were sitting together under bleachers, holding hands. He said he missed her and still loved her. He told her Michelle was making his life miserable. Brenda held him, and promised never to leave him again. She swore her love for him, and said she could never love anyone more. She stroked his low cut hair over and over again, as she had many times before, in reality. It felt so real, and in those moments she no longer mad at him, or even at herself for still loving him.
        Suddenly, Michelle was there. She sat in a shiny black car, filled with children. She looked right at Brenda, and in an instant, Kevin was gone from her. He was inside the car, his arm over Michelle. He turned around to smile and play with his children. He didn’t look at Brenda again.
        She heard a voice call “Daddy.”
        Then, there was darkness, and she was awake.
        Brenda sat up, trying to catch her sobs before she woke her niece and nephew. She made her way to the kitchen for some water or alcohol. She’d dreamt of Kevin before, but it’d never made her cry that way.
        She thought she'd gotten over everything that happened, how things had ended. Now she knew she hadn’t. That it could still make her cry to remember how much she’d loved him proved as much.