The One who got Away

I could hear Kelly shift in the seat, moving about loud enough to reflect her discomfort before she followed it with a deep and annoyingly loud sigh. The trip to Connecticut was taking its toll on the both of us, and between cheap motels and hours on the road, we were this close to snapping at each other.

She’s just a child, Alex.

My wife Janice’s soft voice whispered in my ear. It was so real I turned toward the passenger seat, almost believing I’d find her sitting there.

I let out my own sigh. No, she wasn’t there. She’d never be there again. It was a fact I was still trying to reconcile, her death, even after all these years. I glanced in the rearview mirror at Kelly, the physical clone of her mom. Twelve-year-olds were the new sixteen, and this early bloomer was quickly turning into a miniature copy of yours truly. She had her mom’s beauty and my bad attitude. It was turning out to be a scary combination.

“Dad?”

“We’re an hour away, sweetheart,” I replied, trying to smile as best as I could.

“You said that an hour ago!”

“Then I guess it’s obvious that asking me that question over and over again will get you the same reply,” I shot back.

I caught her in the rearview mirror, rolling her eyes and folding her arms across her chest. “Walking would probably be faster than this.”

“I can always pull over and put that to the test,” I said.

“Or you could step on it, grandpa,” Kelly said.

Whoever said that being a single dad was hard had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Hard didn’t even scratch the surface. No, it was not cute when random women came up to me in the street and oohed and aahed at me after I had spent a night cleaning up baby barf. It was never easy being called into the school because my daughter had punched a classmate, only to get that condescending nod of understanding when I told them that Kelly’s mother was no longer with us. Nothing about raising a little girl alone was easy. And with my job, it only made things more difficult.

You should stop blaming her. It’s not her fault that she had to grow up quickly.

I’d come to hear my wife’s voice more and more over the years, somewhere in the back of my mind, consoling me and telling me that everything was going to be just fine. Deep down, I knew it was only my subconscious trying to let me know that I wasn’t fucking this up too much. But it made it a lot more believable when I used Janice’s voice for these little pep talks. She was the voice of reason to my instinctual desire to shoot first and ask questions later.

You can’t shoot your daughter.

“I know,” I replied to no one in particular.

“What?”

I looked at Kelly and shrugged. “I know I can step on it,” I said. “My leg’s acting up again. Sorry.”

“I can take over if you want,” Kelly said enthusiastically, leaning in between the seats as if I wouldn’t object to her suggestion of letting a twelve-year-old drive.

“Nice try, chipmunk,” I said, giving her a quick look. “I’ll be fine.”

Kelly slumped back into her seat and huffed.

One hour. Just one hour.

I leaned back in my seat, feeling my muscles scream at me, wondering what Kelly would do to me if I stopped for a few minutes to stretch. My leg really was starting to give me hell, the right thigh clenching around my healing bullet wound. Most days I could go a good twenty-four hours without it giving me much stress, but driving for almost two days was not the kind of stress it would let me endure without protest.

I let go of the wheel and rubbed at my thigh, willing the pain to stay at a tolerable level without the need to reach for my pain killers or stop the car. The doctors had told me it would get easier, back when I would wake up screaming from the pain and Kelly would have to help me with the meds because I was in too much agony to do anything for myself.

I looked up at the freckled face of my daughter, her brown hair falling to her shoulders in waves, and her green eyes locked on the phone’s screen. She really had grown too fast. It always surprised me when I thought about it.

And she’s turning into you.

Stubborn, mischievous, and always ready for a fight.

Unfortunately, all true. And being a DEA agent, constantly in the line of fire, didn’t help. My partner, Raul, had always told me to take it easy, to cut back on the workload, to not take the risks I was prone to taking.

“You have a little girl at home, man,” he would always say. “I’m not ready to tell her that her father’s dead because he was being a reckless asshole.”

It was the only way I knew how to do my job, though. I would be lying if I said I didn’t care what happened to me. Being a father changes you, in more ways than one, and I would have gladly given my life for Kelly if I had to. Dammit, I’d kill for her. But sometimes, instinct just kicked in, and for a few seconds, a few stupid seconds, I’d forget that I had a little girl waiting in the neighbor’s apartment for me to come home safe.