Moon Blue Courage

It had been a long day.

I was happy to be home. As the door closed behind me, I slipped my shoes off and kicked them under the table with the others, then flopped down on the couch. The house felt quiet, like it hadn’t been really lived in for weeks, but there was a small yellow slip on the coffee table that told me otherwise.

“Daddy!”

I opened my eyes to see a little girl running up and jumping on my chest. She grabbed my cheeks and kissed me on my forehead, then jumped away before I could grab her for a hug.

She was a lot like her mother. Same brown hair, same smiling green eyes. She had so much of her mother in her...and she carried a lot of pain as well. Too young to understand what happened, she was too old not to notice how empty the house felt around her now. I wished that someone else could be here to take care of her…but this was my duty and mine alone. I sat up and hugged her back hard against me, trying to squeeze some warmth into our embrace until she squirmed away again.

“How was school?” I asked, stretching out on the couch again with half-closed eyes.

“It was super fun! We learned about the moon today!”

“That’s nice dear…did you do your homework?”

She nodded happily, then went off to put her backpack away in her room. At least she still liked learning…some things didn’t have to change just because mommy wasn’t there anymore.

My head was starting to feel heavy and as I closed my eyes again, I saw faces from work flash through my mind: faces from years past when we were all still together. People who were still alive somewhere in this world but hadn’t visited us in months or years…people who couldn’t step foot on Earth anymore without breaking down into tears at all they had lost when we lost everything else. Some were probably dead already by now…they were never very good at taking care of themselves outside of work. It didn’t matter though; they weren’t here anymore and neither was she, no matter how much I missed them all right now.

The sound of soft footsteps entering the living room woke me up again after only minutes had passed, but it felt like hours since I last opened my eyes looking at that damn note on the coffee table instead of the woman who used to occupy that spot every afternoon when she came home from work. This place looked so empty without her in it…she always took care of everything herself and now it just looked like nobody lived here at all. Every time I walked into this house, it felt like an eternity since I had last seen her beautiful face smile back at me from over the dinner table or as she tried to get ready for work while singing along with whatever music played on the radio in her morning ritual that always made me laugh uncontrollably as we both ran late for work every single morning, a routine that would never change despite all those alarms going off loudly from every corner of our house every morning at 6:30 sharp.

I woke up suddenly, as if someone had slapped me awake or screamed right next to my ear, but nobody was anywhere near me except for a little girl standing next to me with an empty glass filled with apple juice, staring curiously at my frowning face while trying hard not to laugh at something only she could see or hear around us.

“Mommy says juice is good for you, Daddy…you should drink it instead of sleeping all day! Mommy says you need your vitamins!” Her bright green eyes sparkled when she laughed; they looked exactly like her mother's did sometimes when she would get excited about something during our lunch break together out in nature when we were still allowed out there freely before everything changed. Now, we had adapted to a new way of life, one that offered safety and protection under the guidance of a powerful leader who demanded unwavering loyalty in exchange for granting us a place in his vision of the future. But this new existence came at a cost, as we had to leave behind our old lives, friends, and family who refused to follow or accept the new world order that was being imposed upon us.

As my daughter handed me the glass of apple juice, I was reminded of the responsibilities I bore as her father and a member of this new society. Despite the pains and tests of loyalty we were subjected to, I knew that I needed to stay strong for her sake – because that was what her mother would have wanted, and it was what she deserved.