Without sound, the lights of the Ford truck fan out in the
fog hanging low in the valley. From my perch on the hill, I don’t hear the engine rumbling along,
sputtering in the cold night. I don’t hear the father’s hand running through
his little girl’s hair, and I don’t hear her soft breaths on his thigh. Her
lips are closed, and dry enough to keep them stuck together. The soft glow from
the radio dial casts a green light over the tan leather, and her nose takes in
the perfume of coffee, dirt, and diesel. It’s the smell of home, and it has
calmed her to sleep. The father keeps his eyes on the road, but his mind is
elsewhere. The plastic pink backpack in the back of the truck, flooded with the
cold air, shakes next to three loose bolts.
It’s my weekend, he thought. The words didn’t seem right. My
weekend? My weekend? Like this angel
is some property I have to share? What about other weekends? Is she not mine
then? This is my baby. My beautiful baby girl. Forever and always.
His eyes blur more than the fog on the road, but he wipes
them clean, momentarily moving his hand from his daughter’s hair. He doesn’t
sniffle, and wipes his hand on his jeans before returning to her warm body.
A world of pain and love, and the only thing to see is a fan
of white light, moving without sound through the valley.
It soon passes on, leaving only the darkness again. A
cricket chirps in the void, perhaps the last one until spring next year. Then,
nothing again.
I pull my hand away from the blind, and let the plastic
blades bump against one another. I slip backwards into bed, and stare up at
the blank ceiling.
Another stream of light slips though the blinds, and walks
slowly along the far wall. It gets quicker as it moves along the wall, and all at once it
leaps forward and disappears. Who was this light from?
A drunk husband?
An overworked mother?
A nervous teen?
A policeman?
The light didn’t differentiate, and I suppose it didn’t
matter.
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