UPDATED I Want Her Back

Subject: UPDATED I Want Her Back Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:57 am

Prolouge:

Sometimes, when I squeeze my eyes hard enough, and concentrate with all my might, I can remember life when it was different for my family. Much different than it is now.
I remember hearing stories of a daughter diagnosed with diabetes, a grandfather devoloping Alzheimer's, a distant cousin killed in a motorcycle crash. I remeber telling my four children these stories, remember asking them to say a prayer for those people's families. I remember caring.
But then I also remember secretly thanking God when I heard these stories. Tradjedies have to happen, and when they didn't happen to my family, I rejoiced.
I believed we would always be safe.
I believed that these tales of distaster, disease and death only struck those in a faraway land.
I believed.
But I believed wrong.

Heather:
Occassionally, I think about going to work again. Not often, but there are the times when I feel as if those hours when the three older kids are in school, I could be out making something happen, making something change. The town we live in is full of stay-at-home moms, but I never have fit in well among them. I mean, we get along. But their pristine ways of tennis and yoga classes have never fit my lifestyle.
I work from home because I love my kids. I love being with them, and I want to make sure I spend every second of their short childhoods with them.
But still.
When you have a crying toddler screaming her head off after three loud kids barge into the house after school, and more than enough money in the bank for hired help, work doesn't seem like such a bad idea. But then five-year old Ellie bounces over into my arms, her rosy cheeks flushed with pride and her blue eyes glimmering, and displays yet another abstract art painting that was made today in kindergarten. And sure enough, somewhere in the art work, you can identify some sloppy, lopsided letters that read, "I love you, Mommy" followed by a crooked heart. And as I praise her over and over again, telling her how lovely the art is and how much I adore it, I imagine her furrowing her brow, bent over a piece of paper with a brightly colored crayon clutched tight in her pudgy hand, putting every amount of effort into writing those words. She gives everything to make me a beautiful painting, every single day.
And then I rememeber why I am home.

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Kaylee:
Being an only child was nice. Out of four kids, I'm the only who got to expeirience this luxury.
Sometimes I miss it.
Sometimes I don't.
My last day as an only child was heaven. Each smell, taste and touch is forever engrained in my mind. I can still taste the sweet strawberry ice cream- and I swear, I have never had ice cream as amazing and creamy as I had on that day. I can still feel the sunshine dancing on my back as Mom and Dad chased me around the daisy meadow, and I remember being so proud that I could outrun my mom. Well no duh I could. She was nine months pregnant with my sister. My parents had decided to take me on a super-special day out, to celebrate me about to become a big sister. I wouldn't have cared if they had decided to celebrate because a volcanoe had just destroyed our town. It was just the three of us. And that was how I liked it.
After a day of ice cream and daisies, of carousels and puppets, of homemade chocolate chip cookies and lemonade stands, of bubbles and hulahooping, I was exhausted, but not ready to surrender this day to my memory. I wanted it to be my present, not my past. So, after a little pleading, my parents decided to plan one last activity. We were going to go sit on the shore of the nearby lake under the stars. My dad offered to carry me. I knew that if he did, I would be sound asleep by the time we got there. So I said no thanks, and instead chose to walk between them, holding both of their hands at the same time.
My dad set up the blanket on the sand as my mom unpacked a small snack from a basket she had brought and I flitted back and forth between them. We all laid down together, side by side, me in the middle, holding hands. We counted the stars, made wishes, told stories. I was in heaven.
A firey ball of light sprinted across the sky. A shooting star.
"Make a wish, Kaylee, baby." My mom whispered in my ear.
I closed my eyes and wished for this day to never end. And as I opened them, my mother screamed out.
"Rob, I think it's time. The baby's coming." She panted, trying to stay calm.
Dad's eyes popped out of his head, and he rushed to her side. "Heather, honey, hold on, I'm here."
I knew my fairytale had ended.

~*~

Rob:
A few days ago, I decided to be very nosy. I knew I should have respected her privacy, given her her space, but I couldn't resist. I had to know.
A deep purple sky hung over our house like a veil, with luminscent sparkles of light piercing through. All was still in our house. Even though it had taken a while, Heather and I had gotten the kids to bed. Ellie had had a rough time going down again.
~*~
"Elle, honey, Mommy and Daddy are right across the hall. We can you from our bed." Heather promised our squirming five-year old.
"No, Mommy, no. Please, please don't turn out the lights!" Ellie pleaded. I didn't voice my thoughts, but I could hear real anxiety in her little squeals. She was honestly scared.
"Baby, you're brave! You've always been our little lion heart! Why all the sudden are you so nervous?"
Ellie's face went blank for a moment and she stared across the room at the wall. Without moving her head, she lifted her eyes up to meet my wife's and my own gazes. "In the night, you close your eyes and don't know if you will open them again. When you turn out the light, you are letting the dark in. Mommy, all the bad things in the world happen when it's dark. The light is what keeps them away. The light can't get them out, once they've already gone in."
We finally got her to sleep. It took a while, but we gently coaxed her to bed.
But I knew, sometime later in my future, I would wish I had listened to her words.
~*~
I stared across the bed toward my sleeping wife. Her breath rose and fell steadily, a sign that she was in a deep sleep. Should I really wake her for my own selfish need?
My better-half said no. I should respect her and not sneak around to ask my wife the question I was dying to know.
But my larger and less-than-noble said told me to do it. I wanted to know the answer about my baby. And so, I reached across the bed and gently placed my hand on her shoulder. "Heth? Heather, honey, can I ask you something?"
Like blinds slowly exposing a window, Heather's eyelids crept open to reveal her sparkly green eyes. "Sure," She mumbled. She coughed once and tried to sit up, but I gingerly pressed her down against the pillows.
"No, no, stay down. This will only take a second."
"K," She yawned.
I took a deep breath. IT was the moment of truth. "Has Kaylee, you know, um..., gotten like her, period?"
"Of course she has, Rob. She's almost 14." Her words tripped over each other as she fell back asleep, like clumsy puppies trying to play Leap Frog. But I understood them and what they meant. My baby, my Kaylee, wasn't a little girl.
But I wasn't ready for her to be a woman! When did she ask my permission? When did she grow up?
It wasn't fair. I had only had such a short time with my little girl, and now apparently she was all grown up. I wanted those days back when she thought I was Super Man, that I could do anything, that my very presence could keep all the scary things away.
If I could give advice to any father on daughters, it would be to keep your eyes open and your fingers closed. Because in just one blink, your three year old's now thirteen. And just a little gap in your fingers is enough her to slip right through them.
~*~

Ellie:
He looked like a nice man. He had blonde hair, the color of corn on the cob, and green eyes, like a frog. His car was a pretty blueish color, and he looked so scared.
Mommy warned me not to talk to strangers. That they were dangerous.
But he couldn't be dangerous. I mean, he looked so scared. He said his daughter had wandered off, and he wondered if I had seen her at school of on the playground. He wanted to show me a picture, to see if if I knew her.
So I skipped over, the little white flowers I had snuck out of the house to pick for mommy clutched tight in my hands, and reached up to take the picture from him.
His hand closed around my wrist, too tight. I didn't like it. His kind eyes turned into fire, and he suddenly looked very scary. His grip on my wrist got tighter, tighter, until I started crying. I tried to get away, but he opened the door, and lifted me in so effortlessly, like I was a paper bag and not five years old.
He threw me into the back, after tying a black cloth over my eyes. My head pounded, from where I was slammed into the ground of the car, and my wrist had a dark purple circle around it from his hand.
The car started, rolling down the street faster than I had ever gone.
And then I made a mistake.
I screamed, openeing my mouth as wide as it would go, pleading with the world to send an angel to save me.
In the beat of my heart, he whippped around, whacking his hand into my mouth. The rusty taste of blood flooded my mouth, and my front tooth wiggled, threatening to fall out. My mouth snapped shut, as blood coated my teeth and tongue, and silent tears streamed down my face. The flowers I had picked for mommy slipped from my hand, onto the car floor. The tears fell harder, and I tried to close my eyes and go to sleep. Mommy once told me that if I was having a bad dream, all I had to do was open my eyes, and the scary things would go away.
But my eyes were already open.
So maybe, if I closed them instead, everything would be okay.
I let my eyelids slip shut, struggling to go to sleep in the wildly bouncing car.
I was so alone.

Guest

*waits behind a firewall expectantly awaiting more*

Please, I love this story. If I were as creative as you, I would've made one exactly like this years ago. FINISH IT! MOO!

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:06 pm

Lol, thankss sunny and hola! I will write more soon!
Moo? Very effective word choice, sunny dahling. Smile

Guest

Ask Smiley, I like the word "moo". This story reminds me of my life, my life listening to my mom talk on the phone. . . and she'll gasp and say, "Who got what?" Someone somewhere had died, or gotten hit by a car, or was diagnosed with breast cancer. GOD. I don't want to be a copycat, but I could write a novel on this subject.

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:57 am

Omg, I know! Sitting and lstening to one end of the conversation and you are like, "Oh my gosh...". Yeah, ummm, thanks for the compliment, buuutt, lol, I may try to tweak this eventually and write a book.

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:02 am

I LIKE IT!!! MORE!

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:42 am

thanks. =) i updated

Guest

This is written like My Sister's Keeper, aka my favorite author <3

Cant wait to see where your going with this loveyy. (:

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Mon Jun 08, 2009 7:50 am

I retyped the part that was lost. It's not as good, but whatev

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Mon Jun 08, 2009 9:19 pm

How long did it take you to write this?

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:55 am

it must have taken a while, but i like it

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Wed Jun 10, 2009 12:38 am

Actually not too long. Why?

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:35 am

just wondering

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:39 am

I thought it wouldve taken a while.

Subject: Re: UPDATED I Want Her Back Sat Jun 13, 2009 1:25 pm

Updated

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