Do You Believe? by Travis Thrasher

Author:Travis Thrasher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

J.D.

* * *

J.D. looked at the Victorian-style dollhouse he had built thirty-five years ago. Kathleen had loved it so much and had wanted to keep it in her room even as she got older. It was a reminder of her childhood, one Kathleen had cherished. It was a reminder that Daddy loved her enough to spend hours cutting and building and painting a house like this.

It was still a reminder. But it no longer filled the room with hope. Now it was a relic. An echo of a voice and a laugh and a name that no longer could be heard.

He knew it was finally time to silence all the echoes in this room.

The box he was filling stood in the middle of Kathleen’s room. Around it were the snapshots of a life. A name on the wall. Pictures from the time of her birth until her last year. A newborn bundled in a towel, held by her mother. A toddler giggling. A father with his kindergartner on her first day of school. A smile, missing a tooth. A school picture. A gathering of girls for a birthday party.

Yet pictures weren’t the only thing that filled this room. There were books they had read to her. There were diaries she had filled. There were her favorite CDs stacked together. A jewelry box stuffed full. Posters on the wall. Her favorite stuffed animals, still tucked away in the corner. A closet full of dresses and clothes. Trophies.

The picture J.D. held in his hand was one of their favorites. Kathleen was posing for her picture in her ballet outfit before her first big performance with the company in Chicago. It was during her junior year of high school.

His eyes started to mist over, of course. This hefty, loaded tug pulling at him again. It was familiar. But J.D. knew it was time to finally unload a bit and move on.

The thing that no picture or piece of video could re-create was Kathleen’s laugh. It had torn through this house the first moment she had let it go as a baby. It grew into this magnetic, infectious, life-affirming blast of oxygen. He couldn’t remember how many times it had revived him after coming home from a long day at work.

God, if only you could give us back a few more of those laughs.

He wiped his eyes and started to put the framed photograph in the box. And that was when he heard the footsteps and the memories stopped for a moment.

“What are you doing?”

Here we go.

J.D. had been ready for this. He looked up at Teri and just offered a calm, serene stare.

“Something we should have done a long time ago,” he told his wife.

She stepped into the room for a moment, slowly, as if something might happen, looking all around to see the things he had already packed away.

“No, stop it!” she cried out at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

It was worse than J.D. thought it would be. He stayed calm. He had to stay calm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.