The Day my Daughter Died
She was five years old. I was trying to remember everything about the last time I was with her. The Woman Scorned only let me visit her at her daycare. I hadn’t seen her since before the christmas holidays and she was only in the daycare a few hours a week because the x put her into that stupid little miss flower festival pageant or whatever it’s called again. It took my time together away last year and once more ‘round the sun here we go again. I have a picture of her, wearing lipstick that’s way too red—for a four year old at least, from the fucking pageant (fugeant…haha) last year and the only reason I can’t burn it is its one of the two pictures I have of my baby and somehow, burning a full 50% of her pictures seems wrong to me…so there it sits on my bookcase, whorish lipstick and all. But her smile shines through. It’s a very unforced smile and she should have won the fugeant because of that quality alone. Her smile, which she got from me =) blew away that dammned lipstick and made her angelic again, prostitute mouth paint notwithstanding. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve killed to kiss a pretty lady with lipstick like that but not on a four year old, jesus on a stick!
I missed the question and answer portion. I would have loved to see it but I was starting a meat smoking business and had a sample tasting to attend. I tried to buy a copy of the video but never had enough money…No, the business didn’t work out even if I missed my baby’s Q&A because of it. Thinking back, selling expensive, value-added food to try and put cheap food on my kids’ plates was too ironic to have worked out in the real world anyhow.
Because of my class schedule and the stupid daycare visitation, coupled with its mistress, the fugeant, I only got to see her on February 13th. That was three weeks ago. There was a time the other year I didn’t see either of my kids for nine months. Now, with her in that silly coffin thing—the most expensive thing that was ever hers and she wasn’t even enjoying it-- those three weeks automatically become longer than that nine month period. The instant she died those 21 days became forever.
So help me I can’t put together a decent picture of what that last day with her was like. I came out here to the garden with my glass of White Castle just to be able to think without all the x’s relatives milling around me—none of them sure what to say even after they’d said it. Words: “Oh, cj, it’s such a tragedy. But remember she is with God now. We’re so sorry; we’re here for you, ha?” Their thoughts: “god I wonder if that sounded right. He’s smart. He knows we’re being plastic…Oh good! There’s my friend…escape, escape!...” My thought: “You know damn well I hate god you dumbass! How dare you mention that fucking name at my baby’s funeral. Go run to your friends. Leave me the hell alone. I wish none of you had come here. This is my house! Last time you were here you were packing up all my things and taking them and my children away! Fuck you talaga!”
The garden didn’t bother me that way. I took a sip of whiskey to keep the tears away a little longer so I could think. I couldn’t concentrate on the sequence of events that day. I couldn’t recapture the plot and all the wonderful moments we shared at that stupid day care center. I could remember her smiling and laughing as we played but I wanted—needed more—I needed her emotions to be inside me now…only her happiness on that day could neuter this death wish that was beginning to take root in me. We were playing with a doll. I was going to give them a rabbit each for xmas. That was all I could afford. But the person who owed me 300 never gave me the two rabbits promised nor the money; but my ex-girlfriend (we were still together over xmas) had bought her a doll and I made a 26 hour bus trip, standing half the time, to get it—and to visit my girlfriend over xmas, and brought the doll home with me. I burned my son a game that I downloaded for free…something he was waiting for for a long time. That I stuck in her bag for her brother (I was not allowed to see him and he never took the short jeep ride to come over and visit). So, today, a million days after xmas, and with so little time to enjoy it, I gave her her doll, which was bought by my ex-girlfriend (how weird is that) and we were trying to fix her hair. I remember brushing the doll’s long hair with her. We tried to braid it but my braid was even worse than hers (and her braid was mostly knots…She had just learned to tie a square knot and practiced on everything she could—and as Holden would say: that just killed me.) Then we brushed the hair smooth again and I suggested we try a simple pony tail. No success…
I gave up on the doll with my big clumsy hands and told her she could knot away. I noticed her mother had fixed her hair nicely today, well she always fixed nicely, she was good at that, but it looked especially special today so I thought she may have practice for the fugeant later. Waiting until she was preoccupied with a particularly troublesome knot I asked her, “Hey, Riva Diva! How about while you fix Dollie’s hair I fix yours?! Ya?!” and busy as she was, she forgot about her pageant, “Ya, sure dad,” and in passing, being preoccupied with what was turning out to be a successful gift, “Don’t call me Riva Diva.” So I undid whatever her mom spent time being late for work doing that morning, took her brush out of her bag and brushed her hair over her shoulders. I hated it when her mother cut the front of her long hair off. She always looked so good with her long hair falling all over her face, like a little mountain girl—my mountain kid. But from behind I could pretend it was still long in front. So I relaxed in that thought and brushed away. I knew I was no good with fixing hair so I didn’t try to tie it up or do anything fancy with it. I brushed 'til it was shiny and straight and I was surprised that I hadn’t cried at all during the whole visit. I hated doing it because she always asked me why I was crying and the only honest answer I could give her was that I missed her terribly, but since I was always with her when I said I missed her I didn’t want to confuse the little thing so I hated crying in front of her.
I could cry here though. I couldn’t hold it back anymore and the whisky stopped helping, maybe because the glass was empty. I had to be content with what I had captured and it would have to last me the rest of my life, and who knows, maybe much longer. Or longer than that. So I cried and remembered her tying knots in the doll’s hair, and cried some more. Her birthday gift to me last year was a long string with maybe a hundred square knots tied in it. It looked almost like a ball of knots. I had it in my pocket and my non-drinking hand brought it out and I looked at the teardrop-shaped thing in the moonlight. I couldn’t see well enough through the tears so I held it against my face and felt on my cheek all the little knots it must’ve taken her hours to tie for me. It occurred to me that the only real knot I knew how to tie was the square knot too. More tears came.
When my unpleasurable, yet somehow fulfilling ocular piss had finished raising the level of the Balili River I wiped my face as dry as I could and went inside to refill my glass. I don’t know if I went in for the company of the few real friends I had there, to help the whisky help me forget for a while, or to look at her again, or walk in with my buneng and chase out all the assholes who were there, or just to fill my glass with more White Castle.
Sipping on a fresh glass I was talking with a friend in the kitchen. I can’t tell you what the dialogue was about because I was preoccupied with other thoughts. I remember reading this novel about this magical burial ground where you could inter your loved ones and they would come alive again. In the story one of the protagonist’s children inevitably died and he made the long journey, first to dig up the first grave to retrieve his baby boy from a selfish grave that would keep his son from him forever and give it piecemeal to the maggots—fucking maggots—and then to hike past the Pet Sematary to the magical Mic-Mac gravesite (where there were graves…but no remains…)
Louis knew that they never came back the same—not evil—just different, their characters and moods in life somehow magnified in this next life. But his son was a good and happy boy and his corpse was fresh. If you waited too long they might turn out like Church the cat whom Louis also buried there after a little fence-sitting. Church wasn’t too happy—although he kept leaving little gift animals outside the front door. My cat used to do that before it died. Maybe rebirth the Mic-Mac way isn’t such a bad thing. So he reburied little Gage and little Gage came back a little evil and killed his mother and the neighbor, probably because it was he who told Louis about the Magic place. I’ve always wondered why he killed his mother though.
Anyhow, feeling my glass light in my hand, its emptied contents heavy in my head, I wondered what I would do if there were a Magical piece of real estate like that around these parts. My buddy looked at me funny. I must’ve laughed out loud. I cashed in another get out of jail free coz my kid just died card and skipped explaining to him my little hiccough. I continued thinking. All the bad people in the room would probably not notice the fact that Riva was alive again; they’d probably pass the buck to their god and call it a miracle or something—but never speak to her or let their kids play with her again. But the liability they’d leave with me. In fact I’m sure that he, she, whatever you want to call it, would get credit for the resurrection but I would be left with the blame of somehow contriving to make my daughter kill her mother. I laughed again. This time I tried to explain why to my friend but I realized pretty soon it was funnier as a private joke. It was difficult to explain properly anyway. I dropped it.
The front door opened. It was their mother. My son was with her. She had a late night at work and kept him away from me until she was off. Ask her why. I walked briskly over, and kneeling, I gave my boy a hug.
“Where’ve you been, son? I missed you.” I said into his jacket.
“Oh, I was at my dad’s house.” He said, moving away to find his favorite cousin.
I looked over at that overpriced cadaver display case called a coffin. She might have admonished him but she could protect me no longer, against anything. I stood up and looked around the room. There wasn’t much to see. I turned back to the fuffin. I didn’t want to look inside. Her mother made sure she looked like she was about to attend a fugeant in Heaven or something; I didn’t want to see that—not without a smile on her face to dull the pain of the face paint.
She whimpered. I distinctly heard a sound coming from inside the box. It was like the sounds she made as a baby just before she started screaming for me at 2 a.m. I remembered I was the parent she wanted to hold and dance her when she woke in the night.
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