Daddy's Girl (closed)

[susurrus]

This one's for Babygirl234 and me.

****

The casket lowered slowly into the hole. All the family, neighbors and other friends had gone. It was just him, his daughter, and the cemetery sexton. It was obvious that the sexton wasn't really used to having people present this long after the services had finished, but he kept a respectful silence as he went about his work.

She'd been on her way home from a conference. Seven days she'd been gone. The conference itself had only been four, but she had to go out early to set up and stay after to tear down. They'd have been married twenty years in a couple months.

While their marriage hadn't been all light and unicorns, for the most part, it had been a good one. They fought seldom, and their life in the bedroom was spectacular. A few months after the honeymoon, Amanda had admitted to him that she wanted Nolan to take charge - especially in the bedroom. It wasn't something he'd ever aspired to before that moment, but once he got a taste of it and learned what it could mean, he liked it. Yes, once in a while, his wife wanted to take the role of aggressor, and those times were hot as hell, too.

Now, it was just him and his daughter. He'd watched her grow from a baby into the striking young woman who stood with him now. She was petite like her mother, but had far more pronounced curves. Many was the time he'd had to shoot down other fathers when they commented on how sexy she'd become. And the boyfriends... ugh.

The next morning was her 18th birthday. Yeah, quite possibly the shittiest timing ever, but fate, God, kismet, whatever you wanted to call it, has its own agenda and doesn't give half a fuck about human plans.

As the sexton rolled the lift frame away from the grave and brought the little backhoe over to fill the hole and cover his wife's casketed body with dirt, he bent down and kissed the top of his daughter's head, then pulled the girl reluctantly away to let the man do his work.

 

[Babygirl234]

Later that night, Amy picked at her food. She was a tall, willowy woman at 5'9 weighing 120 lbs with dark brown hair and dark green eyes. She wore a miserable expression as she sat at the table later that night, her face reddened from tears and a resentment starting to build up against her father. Why couldn't he have been the one who died and not her mother? She was starting to hate him.

"To think that it's my birthday tomorrow," she muttered, and ignored anything that was said to her by him. After she threw away most of her food, she went into her room and slammed the door.

_________________________

The next day was Amy's birthday. She couldn't wait to open presents, but the normal excitement that would accompany any birthday, especially one that declared she was a legal adult to the world now, was dimmed by her mother's death.

Amy, dressed in a skimpy red tank top and very short jeans that showed her ass cheeks, moped around the house. Her expression kept going from hopefulness to sadness to excitement and to sadness again. It was as though she didn't know how to feel or how to act.

 

[susurrus]

It was pretty obvious that Amy didn't want to leave. If he'd have let her, she'd probably have slept on the ground beside the grave.

The ladies at the church had put together a reception, but Mason felt like Amy was in no mood to be around other people, so once he got her loaded in the car, he got out his phone and called his cousin, letting him know they were just going home.

He tried to strike up a conversation as he drove, but Amy just stared sullenly out the window, her eyes red and her cheeks streaked with tears. Eventually, he just gave up and let her work out her grief on her own.

As Mason waited for the garage door opener to cycle, Amy popped her door and ran into the house without a word to him.

Mason walked in to silence. Sure, he'd been at home when Karen was out before, but for some reason, it felt quieter, bigger, more empty. Everywhere were reminders of his wife. A part of him said he should start putting those reminders away and get on with his life, but at the moment, he just couldn't. Besides, he felt like that was something he and Amy should do together.

As he passed Amy's room to his own to change, he could hear her quietly sobbing. Knocking quietly, he tried the knob, but the door was locked.

It killed him to not be able to console his daughter. Every other time she'd been like this, she'd come to him. Her grandparents' deaths, multiple breakups, she'd fallen asleep in his arms, all cried out.

Mason changed into jeans and a T shirt, then somberly started fixing dinner. He kept it simple, not being too hungry, and if he wasn't hungry, it was a good bet Amy was even less so.

Nevertheless, he got a meal put together and went back to Amy's room.

Knocking a little louder this time, he quietly said, "Amy, dinner's ready. You haven't eaten anything all day. Come on down and have something."

After about ten minutes, she padded into the kitchen, barefoot. Aside from that, she still wore the clothes she'd had on at the funeral.

Mason waited for his daughter to speak, or at least to look up at him. She did neither. Her silence had gone from sorrow to something harder. It radiated off her in almost visible waves.

Eventually, she muttered something. Mason thought he heard the word "birthday" in it, but he couldn't be sure. He tried to get her to tell him what she was saying more plainly, but she still wouldn't look at him, nor would she say anything further.

A few more minutes passed and Amy got up from her seat, dumped the contents of her plate into the trash, then plodded back to her room, the door slamming behind her.

Mason shook his head. He didn't know what was swimming through her mind aside from the obvious. It almost felt like she was blaming him for Karen's death. That was ludicrous, but how was he to know how a woman's mind worked, much less a teenaged one?

He cleaned up the kitchen, then sat down to a lonely evening. Nothing much interested him and he ended up watching a show on TV he really didn't even see. Memories flowed through his mind: good ones and bad ones, but mainly the good ones. She'd been a great lover, and while sex wasn't as frequent as it could have been, when it did happen, it was fantastic. She'd kept the house much better without his help than with it, and she'd maintained a job while raising a daughter. She was an amazing woman, and he'd watched Amy pick up a lot of the same traits her mother had.

But now she wouldn't pick up any more.

With a sigh, Mason got up and got ready for bed. Before turning in, he stopped once more at Amy's door.

"I'm sorry," he said, not trying the knob. "It wasn't either of our faults, but now it's just us. As long as we stick together, we'll get along okay. I love you."

There was more he wanted to say, a whole lot more, but he wasn't sure how to say it. The words would come eventually, if they were meant to.

Without another word, Mason made his way to the bedroom and the big king-sized bed. It had never looked bigger than it did just then. Karen's things were still on her nightstand, and her panty drawer still stood partway open, like it always did.

Mason stripped. Somehow, it felt weird to sleep naked this time, but he hadn't worn anything to bed since he'd gotten married, so it was a habit that was hard to break.

Next morning, his little girl would be 18. With what the day just past had been, he wondered how he was going to manage to celebrate even that momentous day, much less Amy...