A/N: Oh, it feels good to write some prose after a long, unintentional hiatus from it. Haha Go ahead and tear this to shreds if you feel it necessary, or simply enjoy the ride if that suits you any better. Haha All kinds of feedback are more than welcome. Thank you for stopping by!
xo C;
(formerly gummiebaerrs)
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"It's very important to like yourself. Don't ask me why; just know that it is."
She looked up at her father, a question in her young eyes, and he sighed in return.
"It's a dangerous thing, darling. I hope that when you reach that age in your life when you need to start making choices, you'll know and like yourself enough to make the ones that suit you."
She was just seven years old. Why was he telling her these things?
"Papa?"
He sighed again, and sat down in his brown leather chair in the family room. She wasn't getting it. Patting his lap, he called for his daughter.
"Come 'ere, darling."
When she was settled, half on his thigh and half in the chair with her legs thrown across his lap, he kissed the side of her head. Her auburn hair was unruly and redolent of her mother's.
"Your mother and I love you very much. You know that, don't you?"
She nodded, staring up at him with those big, green eyes of hers. It was like looking in a mirror. Though, of course, the eyes were the only part of him that she had. In almost every other way, she was her mother—even in the way she walked, even at seven years old.
"Can you understand why she left?" he asked softly. Only a matter of months have past; it was still a raw subject for the both of them.
He watched as she brought her stuffed animal—a purple monkey—closer to her face, snuggling into it.
"Because she didn't like us anymore," she murmured. Her eyes stared unseeingly into the face of Keykey the Monkey as he wrapped his arms tightly around his daughter's torso. He squeezed her into a bear hug, and she let out a long breath, clutching her monkey unrelentingly.
"No, no sweetheart." He kissed her again, closing his eyes. "Because she couldn't like herself."
Her young, green eyes were skeptical when they met his. "But I like her, papa. I like her. I love her, papa. Why...” she paused with a sigh. “Papa, don't you love her, too?"
In silence, he nodded. Tears glazed his eyes, but not enough to run free.
He couldn't do that to his daughter. He would let her cry if she needed to, but he couldn't let her see him break down. That wouldn't be fair. She was only seven.
"Papa, were we not enough?"
"Darling, I don't know if you'll understand this now, but... it wasn't about us."
He saw her swipe at her cheek as a single tear rolled down her face, and he gripped her tighter, trying to wrap himself around her small body like a cocoon of protection.
"She loved you, sweetheart. Okay? She loved you very much. But... it's like you and Keykey over here." He tapped his finger on the ear of the stuffed animal.
"Do you love Keykey?"
She nodded.
"Do you want what's best for Keykey? The best seat at the tea party, the warmest spot to sleep in at night, the safest place during a thunderstorm?"
Again, she nodded.
"What if you couldn't give those things? What if you didn't know which seat was the best during the tea party? The warmest spot to sleep in at night, the safest place in a storm? What would you do?"
The girl shook her head adamantly. "But papa, I keep him with me all the time. He sits next to me for tea, he's with me in the big kid bed, and I snuggle him up when it's rainy."
He pulled back to look at his teary-eyed daughter, and he couldn't help the frown that set into his face.
"That was your mama's problem, sweetheart. She didn't think that she could—keep us with her, that is. She didn't like herself enough to believe that she was enough. She..."
He paused, unsure if he should say this last part. So much of this story was already sugar coated, but so true at the same time. He just wanted to give his daughter the truth. His wife hadn't been able to do as much those few months ago, and it only made his blood boil at the thought. She could do whatever she wanted to him, but their daughter deserved the world. Their daughter—his daughter—deserved more than her mother left her with. The girl deserved more than unanswered questions.
He looked back down at the little girl in his lap as her expectant gaze met his. He hadn't finished his sentence.
"She left because there's a greatness in you that she felt she couldn't match. Because, darling, you deserve that much. You deserve an amazing mother."
"But she is, papa. She is amazing. She's my mama."
The smile he gave her was sad and nostalgic, but not entirely regretful. His wife wasn't necessarily a bad person, just a little lost. He still loved her, after all, and he wouldn't be the one to completely tarnish the image his daughter had of her mother simply out of spite.
So, maybe it was best that the truth kept a bit of its extra flourish. His daughter should be able to keep her dreams for at least a bit longer.
"Maybe she just needs to be reminded that she is," the girl continued, bringing her father out of his reverie. "Will she find that out there, papa?"
"What?"
"Her... amazingness."
"I don't know." A ghost of a smile floated across his lips at the phrasing she used.
"I hope she does," she answered, moving her eyes back down to the monkey in her hands, a wistful look in her stare.
He was marginally worried that he'd given his daughter too much hope in her mother’s return. Though if he was being completely honest, he was hoping for the same. Against all reason, he was hoping that his wife would find whatever it was she thought she'd lost, and return home to the daughter she'd left behind. If not for the both of them, he hoped his wife would return at least for the girl who missed her immensely.
Fin.
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140,186 Literary Works • 673,040 Reviews
This wasvm very sweet
It's like a scene straight out of a Disney children's movie, isn't it? Designed for an audience with zero deductive ability, reduced and simplified and chipped at until no further sophistication can be stripped away, the uncreative mangled remains of a potentially emotional scene that still resiliently tries to call itself one. That's where I disagree with magpie94: I think this does a poor job of showing rather than telling. By showing I mean letting the reader arrive at their own moral understanding rather than spoonfeeding to them what you want them to hear. There's a certain level of subtlety that this piece lacks, and to compensate for that it resorts to patronization, which only serves to alienate the reader. In other words, the oversimplication of this obviously complex family issue caused your story to come across as bland and something of a bore to read.
Where I do agree with magpie94 is that your characters--both of them--are dimensionless and trite. They conform to their respective stereotypical templates to the point of verging on unrealistic and even theatrical.
Dialogically speaking, I can't relate to either of them. The father comes across as unfeeling for forcing this upsetting conversation on his daughter when she obviously doesn't want to engage in it, and then prolonging unnecessarily it with that confusing analogy. A young child's mother and father are her entire world; the splitting apart is hard enough, but to have one parent callously degrade the other (ie the father saying that his wife had no self-esteem) in front of said child would be absolutely terrible. Whatever feelings I have toward the father, who I think is the intended protagonist, are negative ones.
On the flipside, his daughter is made out to be far too innocent and far too probing, even for the purposes of a piece of creative writing. Young children have a tendency to clam up around sensitive topics; not only did this "story" failed to honor that tendency, she seemed almost--no, completely--unfazed talking about the splitting of her parents.
Hope I helped.
-Kafka
Hi there, constantia.
If she was four, then maybe. But she's seven. She would react more to what she was saying. She might cry a little. She has more emotional maturity than just hugging her stuffed animal. She might have a stuffed animal, but make sure she's a little more mature than that. Seven year-olds are more in depth than this. She talks like this throughout the whole piece. I would either lower her age or raise the intelligence level of this little girl.I don't normally review prose, but I had a hankering for it today.
Here is my honest opinion. It's filled with good intentions.
First of all, you show and don't tell most of the time. Good job. Some people have a hard time with that (including me).
Now, even though it's pretty well written in the showing and not telling department, it still needs some polishing.
The first thing I noticed when I read it is that it's very difficult to feel the emotions of the father. I feel like he would be more anguished about it, but I just can't feel that he is. I'm not saying he has to be more dramatic, but perhaps change the words around so he feels more tense. And you put so much effort into describing the cute little girl, and none into describing the father. Your wife leaving you would probably bring about some physical changes due to stress. You could use that to your advantage. I also feel like he might be a little angry at his wife for leaving him. Not too angry. Frustrated, perhaps? Confused and frustrated? I think that the story would be strengthened by a hint of confusion in the man. Make this guy human and three dimensional. He is the main character, not the little girl.
As it is, this story is just too sweet. It made me gag a little with all the sugar. The little girl is too cute. I don't think she would just say
Another thing is that the father needs some motivation to start telling his daughter about this. As it is, he just starts talking about liking yourself, and I don't understand why. Perhaps include an incident the daughter went through earlier, like someone picking on her at school. That would make her have questions that need answers and might lead to the question of why her mother left. But as it is, it's like he suddenly decides to burden his daughter with this information for no reason at all.
Take this bit out. This is for the reader to wonder. I was jarred out of the story by this line.
How about you say "he patted his lap invitingly." Because you already illustrate with his dialogue that he calls for her.
Redolent is jarring here. You have a nice, conversational tone, and then this pops up.
omit "those" and "of hers." It'll sound better.
You keep saying that she's young and her eyes are green. Those things need only be mentioned once. Take out repeats.
Traditionally, ellipsis are used to symbolize that you omitted something. Use a dash instead-- that goes for all of your ellipsis marks.
You tend to use a lot of adverbs. A lot of them you don't need. I suggest taking out all the adverbs and then adding back only the essential ones. It'll help.
This line just doesn't feel right to me. It's like he's telling her that her mother left because of her. I think that the girl would pick up on this and not be happy about it, to say the least.
The last paragraph seems tacked on. It ends too nicely. It's sugary sweet. What if instead of hoping for the past to return, he looks forward to a new future? I think that would be more realistic.
This story doesn't really go anywhere. I guess it has a plot, but I'd like it to escalate a little more; putting more emotions into it would help. It seems more like a fragment of a greater whole. Try making it more dynamic.
Don't ever put The End or Fin at the end of a story. The story should end on its own without an aid.
I hope that this review was helpful. Happy writing!
Wow...this was true and sweet and real. I loved the father's analogy for the girl. The father is a truely lovable character. The separate voices were also very well displayed. I could almost hear the little girl and the father's conversation as if it were happening in the room next door. I am not the best at grammar and all that nitty stuff, so...as far as everything else goes...well done
This was very sweet