Abby had one recording of her father’s voice. It was an audio file from her mother’s old cellphone, back when they were all flipcase. He’d left a message on Abby’s sixth birthday, and her mother had played it for her.
“Happy birthday, my Abby, my sweet thing. Daddy loves you and he hopes to see you very soon. Give Mama a kiss for me.”
It sounds like such a loving, innocent message that Abby treasured as the closest thing she had to a real memory of her father, who’d died soon after the recording.
Abby’s mother had one blurry photo of him. He had a close-cut beard, and crinkly blue eyes. Abby thought he looked like a lumberjack, strong and brave. But as much as she stared at that photo she couldn’t conjure any moments she’d actually spent with this man.
Only the recording made her heart beat faster. That voice she knew, the way he said Abby, my sweet thing. It sometimes brought tears to her eyes. She made her mother play the recording almost every month, for years.
When Abby was sixteen he mother told her she’d escaped from her father when she was four, who’d threatened to kill her and kidnap Abby
“Your father was a rich man, very powerful, lots of friends. He was very charming, everyone loved him. But when we were alone he’d hit me. Smash my head against the wall or floor. He’d wake me up by strangling me and telling me if I ever tried to leave he’d hunt me down. I believed him for years, but then when you were five he slapped you on the face. Then I knew I had to leave, I couldn’t let the same thing happen to you.”
“We left while he was at work. We got a taxi to the train station, went to New York and then took another train to Boston. It seemed like the kind of city where everyone minded their own business. That seemed safe. I put you in kindergarten using your middle name. It was easy back then. No one wanted any information about your father. I got a job as a substitute teacher at your school, and got you into an after school program for free.”
Abby listened to this story, feeling herself go cold, then hot. Then almost numb.
“So he’s not really dead, is he?” she asked numbly, thinking of the loving recording.
Abby’s mother wouldn’t meet her eyes. They were sitting in a cafe, on a busy street in Boston, likely chosen so Abby couldn’t make a scene.
“That recording was the last I’d heard of him. It was his way of warning me he knew we were out there. He called my sister’s number and left it on her phone. I never told you his real name. That photo you have isn’t him, it’s an old boyfriend. If he ever found you he might–” her mother stopped and stared ahead, like she was seeing the future. Then shook herself.
“You have to promise me you will never try to find him.”
— Von
“Happy birthday, my Abby, my sweet thing. Daddy loves you and he hopes to see you very soon. Give Mama a kiss for me.”
It sounds like such a loving, innocent message that Abby treasured as the closest thing she had to a real memory of her father, who’d died soon after the recording.
Abby’s mother had one blurry photo of him. He had a close-cut beard, and crinkly blue eyes. Abby thought he looked like a lumberjack, strong and brave. But as much as she stared at that photo she couldn’t conjure any moments she’d actually spent with this man.
Only the recording made her heart beat faster. That voice she knew, the way he said Abby, my sweet thing. It sometimes brought tears to her eyes. She made her mother play the recording almost every month, for years.
When Abby was sixteen he mother told her she’d escaped from her father when she was four, who’d threatened to kill her and kidnap Abby
“Your father was a rich man, very powerful, lots of friends. He was very charming, everyone loved him. But when we were alone he’d hit me. Smash my head against the wall or floor. He’d wake me up by strangling me and telling me if I ever tried to leave he’d hunt me down. I believed him for years, but then when you were five he slapped you on the face. Then I knew I had to leave, I couldn’t let the same thing happen to you.”
“We left while he was at work. We got a taxi to the train station, went to New York and then took another train to Boston. It seemed like the kind of city where everyone minded their own business. That seemed safe. I put you in kindergarten using your middle name. It was easy back then. No one wanted any information about your father. I got a job as a substitute teacher at your school, and got you into an after school program for free.”
Abby listened to this story, feeling herself go cold, then hot. Then almost numb.
“So he’s not really dead, is he?” she asked numbly, thinking of the loving recording.
Abby’s mother wouldn’t meet her eyes. They were sitting in a cafe, on a busy street in Boston, likely chosen so Abby couldn’t make a scene.
“That recording was the last I’d heard of him. It was his way of warning me he knew we were out there. He called my sister’s number and left it on her phone. I never told you his real name. That photo you have isn’t him, it’s an old boyfriend. If he ever found you he might–” her mother stopped and stared ahead, like she was seeing the future. Then shook herself.
“You have to promise me you will never try to find him.”
— Von
Poignant and the charaters are believeable.
ReplyDeleteSo sad that the feeling Abby got from the recording will probably not fill her heart again. Yes, as Mugsy said, "poignant." ---Macoff
ReplyDelete