The Wide Wide Ocean

Chapter 8

We spent hours at that park. My feet hurt. The rides scared me. And the food was too sweet. We looked stupid with lollipops shaped like hearts. But I said nothing.

Because dad was smiling. And I couldn't spend as much time with him... as I used to. However, I wished we could be at home. Not with mom. But with each other just like in the past.

Me. Sitting on his thigh as he talked for hours. He could talk for days, telling me stories, made up or real or something halfway. Repeating my favourite stories and telling me scary ones... just to make me laugh. And you may ask. How can a scary story make one laugh? You wouldn't understand. You... are not me. And you are not my dad either.

As he helped me put my seatbelt on for the ride to his house, he said:

Mommy gets all the work. And I get all the fun, right, darling?

It was then I fully realised, that it took only a few weeks to forget what our little moments meant. Dad and I... we didn't have fun. We weren't fun. We were company. Stories and quiet.

He used to know this. All of this.

My dad used to know I wasn't in need of talking or fun as much as I needed his company.

We used to be daughter spending time with her dad because sometimes when she was all alone in her room, the only way to feel less lonely would be to snuggle against him, in the muted hum of TV and it would all feel like home. He and I never were fun rides, trips and money.

We used to be home.

I suppose we've grown, I told myself as we rode home. When you get old, you have less time to do what you love. There was no time for TV. No time for stories. No time for silence and home.

Because I needed to brush my teeth and fall asleep, crying, reminiscing about the things we used to be.

Am I a bad daughter?

The question sounded strange in the quiet. Evie looked up from her book, staring at me with those mossy, big eyes. She stayed silent. I wondered if this was how it felt when she asked me questions. The staring and the waiting.

Because when one asks, they never voice out the full questions. And I knew it. She knew it.

Dad spends all his money on things we could do... because he only has weekends to spend with me and two days are very little to do all the things he had been thinking of doing, the whole week. But I'd rather not have fun at all. I would rather stay at home like any other day. Just with him. But he wants to do all these things... and I do not enjoy them. And the things we used to do, there aren't there anymore. Just like me. It feels like the part of his life that was me... is gone, Evie. So tell me, please...

Am I a bad person?

Evie closed the book. Her thoughts, scrunching her eyebrows until her whole face wrinkled in an unflattering way and gazed upon me.

When I was in a theme park for the last time, I was so surprised there were so many adults, she told me.

I asked if it was a long time ago.

Evie said yes.

I asked mom why there were so many grownups, all alone in a theme park, she told me. Do you know what she said, Evie asked.

I shook my head and so she continued. She said:

Even adults want to have fun, sweetie, sometimes we need to be reminded of what we once were of the joy we had as children.

And I listened to every word Evie said. Yes, I listened well. Her eyes softened and so did my heart as she told me:

Your dad would've gone to a theme park without you if he had wanted. Instead... he went with you. Running away from a reminder of his lost family. Running away from his house which never felt like

Home, I said.

I understood. And Evie understood as well as I...

The next time, dad took me to the aquarium. And I asked him when was the last time, he saw the ocean. Because it didn't need to be on a smelly couch in a warm living room. I wanted to hear dad's stories just like I did every day since my mom gave birth to me.

And my dad smiled...

And he told me a story of a Wide Wide Ocean he saw from a beach where the Sun always shone... and dreams always bloomed.

Follow @SeraphineDarcy for more updates :)