A Few Words

The Prompt: He had his daughter's handwriting tattooed on his left forearm.

It said I love Daddy in the messy script of a young child. He'd taken it from a picture she'd drawn him in art class a few years back for father's day. She'd been eight at the time. Her eyes were like blue diamonds and she was missing a front tooth so whenever she smiled there was a gap. She lisped her words ever so slightly in that cute way kids have and she always hugged him when he picked her up from school, even though her friends were reaching the point where they didn't hug their parents in front of each other anymore.

Her favorite place was the playground. That wasn't too different from most kids, but she'd always beg him. Her wide eyes would stare up at him, pleading silently to take her and he'd have to relent. No one could say no to those eyes. He would always be rewarded for relenting when she beamed up at him and threw her arms around his midsection. He could still feel the ghost of those arms when he closed his eyes at night.

Sometimes he dreamed of her. She would be on the swings, pumping her legs back and forth and pushing the swing ever higher. He'd call to her to be careful, but she wouldn't listen and just swing higher. She was unfearing, unrelenting. She'd swing higher and higher into the sky, her shrieking laughter infectious and he couldn't help but smile. Then he'd wake up, the alarm clock muting her laughter all too soon.

He kept pictures in his apartment, though he no longer lived in the house she'd grown up in. She was everywhere. First her as an infant, wrapped in a green blanket. Green's the new pink, his wife had told him. Unisex, perfect for their daughter. It wasn't the blanket he looked at now, though. It was her face. Then her at age two, four, six and her first day of school. She stood proudly with her backpack on the front porch. Six and a half. Seven. Eight. Eight. Eight. She froze at age eight.

The photographs captured moments, her smile, mouth open in mid laugh, but they couldn't capture her. Couldn't bring her back. She was a photograph forever now. Nothing but a photograph and a few words on his arm.