The Empty Jar(9)

I know how much it will hurt my Nate.

“So what did you do with your clean feet?” he asks, prompting me to get back to my happy memories rather than getting lost in the sad ones.

“He’d dry them off, my clean feet, and then he’d carry me and that jar of lightning bugs to my room. He would set them on the nightstand and kneel beside the bed while we said our prayers.”

“You said prayers?”

I roll my eyes again. “It was a long time ago. And that’s how I figured out that no one was up there listening. He prayed for me every night, and after he left my room, I would pray for him. I knew he was sick. They didn’t have to tell me. I knew. And I begged God to make him well so we wouldn’t lose him, too. But He never listened. Not even to the prayers of a little girl.”

Even after all this time, I feel the bitterness well within me. I don’t know what kind of God my father prayed to, but I hope there’s another one, one who wouldn’t give a child leukemia, one who wouldn’t take away both parents from a little girl. If there is more than one, though, I’ve never seen Him.

Shaking off my dismal thoughts, I let out a breath and continue. “But, after that, he’d tuck me in between my Holly Hobbie sheets and he’d tap that Mason jar and say, ‘Watch ’em close, doodle bug. Watch ’em close and count to a hundred. They’ll be gone when you wake up.’ One time I asked where they went. He said to heaven, to a beautiful place that my eyes had never seen. That night, I asked if I could go with them. He told me that it wasn’t my time. He said, ‘Just chase them, doodle bug. They’ll bring you sunshine and sweet dreams.’ And they did. They always gave me good dreams.” I snort, adding derisively, “Too bad I can’t get a jarful now.”

“When we get back, I’ll bring you a jar of lightning bugs,” Nate vows quietly. “Only I won’t kill them after you go to sleep.”

“Oh, he didn’t kill them,” I clarify. “One night when I was older, I caught him sneaking back into my room and taking the jar. I heard the front door open, so I looked out my bedroom window. He took them outside and set them free. I probably caught the same ones over and over and over again, poor things.”

“I bet every night they dreaded seeing you two coming.”

I can’t stop my snigger. “I bet they did. And we were out there every night in the summer. Without fail. Until…”

My thoughts sober.

Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight lightning, bugs. Come again soon.

“Until the night before he went into a coma. But up until then, as horrible as he must’ve felt, he’d drag himself out into the yard with me to catch lightning bugs. Every night. Until it was his time to say goodnight. Until he followed the lightning bugs.”

I glance down at my hand, the one still joined with Nate’s. For just a second, I can almost imagine it belonging to my father. I’d give anything to hold that calloused hand one more time. My heart aches with the residue of decades old grief. “God, I miss him!”

Wordlessly, Nate kisses my fingertips. The silence grows. Between us, around us, it yawns and stretches until we are enveloped in a tranquil cocoon.

Slowly, my eyes drift shut and I find my father again. I find him in the only place where he still lives—in my mind, in my heart.

In my dreams.

Where happiness will never die.

********

I startle awake when a warm, familiar hand touches my arm. My eyes flick open to Nate’s handsome face, to his strong jaw, smiling mouth, and sparkling green eyes hovering above me. I focus intently on him. I see my husband, but for a few seconds I don’t feel him. I’m still stuck in my dreams, engaged in a battle of fading sensations—the pleasure of catching lightning bugs with Daddy warring with the agony of losing him.

“Wake up, baby. I know you don’t want to miss this.”

It takes me a minute to shake the dream, and when I do, I’m speared with grief, a sharp lance that tears its way through and through. Dreaming of my father always leaves me feeling bereft when I wake, when I’m thrust back into a reality where he no longer exists.

Nate’s face grows blurry as he leans toward me, brushing my lips with his. Calm floods me, washing me back into the now, the immediate now, and the trip my wonderful husband and I have embarked upon. We are on a plane, stretched out in first class, crossing an ocean to a foreign land. His words finally settle in to make sense.

I know you don’t want to miss this.

My eyes widen sharply, realization dawning. “Are we on the ground?”

“Not yet, but soon,” is his smiling reply.

He kisses me again, a playful smacking of the lips this time. It carries with it the mischief I’ve always known him capable of, even when the stresses of our life are rising up to drown us. I love that side of him—his teasing, his wit, his ever-present sense of humor. I love his kisses, too. Especially the ones like this, that speak of excitement and love and something we will forever share so intimately.

I know I’d be perfectly content if I could be awakened in just such a way every day for the rest of my life. But some things just aren’t meant to be. Already, I’ve seen enough tragedy in my life to know that those are the facts. Fate sometimes makes different plans. And most of the time, she can’t be reasoned with.