The Father

He stood in the doorway of her room, looking around. He wanted to imbibe the details in full, to not let anything pass his notice. The carpet could use replacing, the walls painting, he thought. In the shaft of sunlight filtering through the blinds dust motes danced and turned, in fact there was a fine layer of dust on every available surface. She hadn't made her bed. He had tried to get her to make her bed each morning, but she never did. Her bookshelves looked like hell. He thought about his library, with the perfectly organized titles, priceless first editions he had never opened, everything perfectly in order and sterile, unused. Her bookshelves were the bookshelves of a true bibliophile. Chaotic, the books' spines wrinkled and broken from being opened and closed so frequently. She was a true lover of books, not for the sake of the book, but for the words inside. Her desk was, likewise, a study in disorder. Papers, pens, more books...her iPod. He wondered what she was listening to now. The posters on her wall were dated, beginning to fade, promoting bands he figured she hadn't listened to in years.

You might be tempted to think that, after standing in that same spot each of the last four thousand one hundred and twenty one mornings, recounting in his mind the same details, considering the same questions, he might be satisfied with the answers provided. You might be tempted to think that he would have accepted the reality that she was never coming home. He just couldn't bring himself to let his daughter go.