The car couldn't stop. I know this. I know she always wore her seatbelt. I know the car had state-of-the-art airbags. I know she was always careful, never on her phone, hands at ten and two. I know all these things, and I know that despite diminished speed and halogen high beams and steel belted radial snow tires, none of it was enough. The conditions weren't great to start with and had deteriorated as the night wore on, the icy road too slick.
The car couldn't stop.
My wife was killed.
That was six months ago. Six long months of mourning and loss, of grief and pain. Six months of know all those things, and knowing that the car couldn't stop.
It may have been even harder on my daughter Jessica. She was away at school when it happened, and due to their highly competitive academic nature—these were the schools where the girls all wore uniforms and boys were not allowed on campus save for special visiting hours under supervision—it was thought best if she returned to school after the funeral to finish out the semester. So while I had six months of living with ghosts in the house, the spirits in the bed, Jessica was away and shielded from it all.
This made her loss and emptiness even greater.
We connected that semester while she was away, through letters and over the phone. We were close before—as close as any father and daughter can be—but evolved way beyond the norm through our correspondence. When the term was over, I picked her up from the airport desperate to see her again. What walked off the jet way shocked and astounded me.
My little girl had grown up. Her neck length strawberry blonde hair framed her beautiful face—so like her mothers, but everything else had changed. She was tall, so much taller now, her height accentuated by the white knee high stockings and short plaid skirt that for some reason those highly competitive academic schools still saw as learning appropriate. Her chest had filled out, and was visibly straining against the white button down shirt and matching plaid vest that accompanied the skirt. Several young men were ogling her, and I found myself sliding from inappropriate erotic fantasy to enraged father mode very quickly. She smiled when she saw me, but it was the sad weary smile of one who simply has seen too much, worn down by the weight of the world. She ran the last few feet and we embraced fiercely. To my horror, I found the feel of her body pressed up against me was swinging back to erotic again, and a sizeable bulge was forming in my pants.
"Dad, it's so good to see you." She said, parting from the hug. If she noticed anything amiss, she gave no sign.
"Good flight? What do you want to do first night back? Dinner?" I asked, grabbing her carry on and holding it in front of me to hide any inappropriateness.
"Actually, I just wanna grab a pizza and go home." She sighed and tugged on the collar of her blouse. "I'd like to get out of these clothes."
And now it was my turn to smile, knowing what she meant. "Whatever my baby wants."
An hour later with pizza in hand, we arrived home. We chatted a lot in the car en route, playing catch up and as we drew closer to the house, I could feel the tension between us start to build. She was nervous about coming home, distracted by the thought of her mother not being there.
She paused by the garage door that lead into the kitchen. "I can't shake the belief that mom will be in the kitchen baking cookies and waiting to give me a big hug as soon as I open this door."
I put my arm around her and hugged her close. "I have the same feeling every time I come home. I keep expecting to see her. Sometimes I can smell her perfume, or I'll hear her voice calling me... and there's never anyone there."
She hugged me back, and after a moment, we braved the doorway together.
