Sweet Soul

                                                           

"Sweet Soul"

by: Missbeenaroundtheworld

Every morning, I have stood on my balcony, breathing in fresh air, watching them at exactly 7:25 am. Every morning, the eight year old girl runs outside grasping her father’s hand.  

For eight years, I had watched them. Now, she is sixteen. She no longer embraces, jokes or laughs with her father. Now, they simply share a loud silence.

I am 63 years old. Every morning, except holidays, weekends, and days of speculative circumstance, the two march out. I had never seen her mother before.

It seems strange that even as a senior in high school, she shuns her father verbally but still enjoys his silent company. Her father, always smartly dressed in suits, always had the same brown, worn leather briefcase with a perpetually tired expression.

Saturday. 
Unconscious, lying like a rag doll on the bottom of the apartment staircase, is the girl.

The ambulance comes.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“What is your grand daughter’s name?”

“I’m not her grandmother.”

“Where does she live?”

“B-154.”
An hour and a half passes. The hospital's emergency waiting room. The smell of rubbing alcohol. The smell of soap.

The vending machine has Hot Cheetos, Snickers, and Welch’s Gummies. Two boys, one fat, one smaller, debate about what they should get.  

The girl’s father arrives. The sweat of his armpits soak the sides of his shirt.

“Where can I find Kathleen Kretchmer?”

“Are you an immediate family member to Ms. Kretchmer?”

“Yes, I’m her father.”

“Can you sign here, please?”

“Ok.”

“Please have a seat.”

He approaches me.

“Thank you.” He exhales.

He sits on a seat and rubs the sweat from his forehead.

The fat boy puts a dollar into the vending machine. The two boys race to push one of the buttons on the dial. The smaller boy screams.

“MOMMY!!! Danny bought the chocolate!”

The fat boy bites the Snicker’s bar while the small boy starts hitting the fat boy.

“Danny, you fat idiot! Why did you buy the chocolate?! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”