Forever and ever

How do you move on? How do you stop thinking about their face, their touch, their smell? I still see phantoms everywhere. Only this time, there are two of them. The two that I had lost. My wife was looking at me smiling, tucking that errant sliver of dark hair behind her ears habitually. But her other arm - her other arm was now on the shoulder of my little girl. My Vanessa. Both of them looking serenely at me, the impish grin still on my little van's face, purple bangs hanging over her brow.

They seemed to be calling to me. To join them. Perhaps I should. What did I have to live for anyway? It had only been 4 months since my wife died in a car accident. After my wife passed, I at least had my little girl to keep me distracted from her memories, her ghost. She suddenly felt so little then, so helpless and the one joy left in my life. And then she was snatched away too. 14 was too young to go. The worst part was I couldn't even cry over her body. They never found her. But they did find her clothes down by the lake. And her diary, ink all run out. And I had to make my peace that somehow my little Van had drowned. Or had she? The last few weeks she had seemed distraught. She said there was a ghost in the house. She had heard things in the attic and through the walls. But I had paid no attention to it as the over-active imagination of a growing teen. I had never heard anything or seen evidence of anything unusual about the house. Perhaps I should have heeded her. Perhaps Satan had snatched her from me. Perhaps it was a punishment for my sins in this life. But what sin had I committed?

I was an honest man, made an honest living working in sales, donated to charity when I could and even sponsored a kid from an orphanage parting with a portion of my meagre livings. I was good to my neighbors, my colleagues, volunteered at the church and lived a quiet life doing no harm to anyone. Why then, would God take the 2 most precious things in my life. Life had lost color.

It was on one such day, cloudy and dreary, when I was spiraling deeper into my despair when it happened. The doorbell rang. I seldom had visitors these days. I had shut myself in and rarely ventured out or kept in touch with other family or friends. And they had seemingly given me my space too. So, it was with a slight sense of annoyance that I answered the door, ready to shoo away whoever it was that kept me from sinking deeper in my despair.

It was a girl. Clearly in her early teens. There she stood on the threshold, smiling uncertainly at me. Almost searching my face.

"Dad, Im back.", she said softly.

My heart stopped. What kind of a dreadful joke was this. I just stood there, rage slowly coloring my face but befuddled by the confusing temerity of this girl before me. It was several minutes before I replied.

"You..what?"

"Dad, its me. Vanessa", she said plaintively.

"Vanessa is dead. And you aren't her. Now get out of here before I do something you and I would both regret", I said in quiet apoplectic rage. Spittle was flying but I didn't care. I would have killed her for this prank.

"Can I come in?", she continued ignoring me. "I can explain. Just hear me out."

My anger faded just as quickly and all the air left me in a gush. I felt defeated and hollow. What was going on?

The girl slipped past me. She had a small bag with her but nothing else. She walked in like she knew the place and made straight for the little poof by the library my Van would always sit on.

The rage returned. I picked up the baseball bat by the door, Van's, from her softball team. I turned around, the door still open.

"What the fuck are you doing. Get out of here. How d-dare...how dare you..."

She didn't say anything but looked at me calmly.

"Dad, I understand what you are going through. And Im just as confused. Please hear me out. Get some ginger tea, that usually calms you down"

How did she know? That more than anything gave pause to me and I decided to do just that.

"Who are you? ", I asked again.

"Its a strange story. But I am Vanessa, Dad. I came back. For you. I couldn't leave you alone", she said.

"But..but how. You don't look like her. You are not her", I stammered.

"Not in body, no. But I inhabited her body", she pointed to herself.

"I don't know who she is and how this happened. But I just woke up in her body. I know I died, Dad. Im sorry. Im sorry for all the sadness I caused." She spoke quickly as my face turned red again.

"I went down to the lake to look at the sailboats and work on my poetry...and...and I think I slipped on a rock I was trying to climb and fell into the crags unconscious. Perhaps the waves took me deeper and drowned. I remember that much. But then I woke up."

She paused, searching my face for something. I did not know how to react. It was just incredulous and completely unbelievable what she was telling me. But everything she said also made sense just as much as it didn't. My Van did love to write poetry and how many times had I caught her sitting on the rocks by the lake looking away into the sunset , diary on her lap, in deep thought. Was this Van? No , that is ridiculous. Even for a religious man like me this could not be true.

"Dad, you have to believe me. I have nowhere to go". This time I heard a note of fright in her voice. It trembled slightly and she seemed suddenly very much like my Van.

"I..I don't know." I said, collapsing into my chair, head bent down hands over my head, almost pulling myself into a fetal position. "This is too much. I ..I don't know what to think. How is this possible?" I finished.

No one said anything for a few minutes.

Then I felt a soft hesitant touch on my shoulder. A chill ran down my spine. I looked up into her innocent face and then it struck me - God hadn't abandoned me. He truly was kind. This really was happening and my Van really was back. I had that epiphany in that one gentle touch. My girl was back. All rationalism, all logic, all that my brain was arguing was irrelevant and vacuous. As if to validate my belief, a ray of sunshine broke through the pregnant clouds, dispelling the afternoon gloaming.

I got up in one swift movement and hugged the little girl, my Van. I felt her arms twined tightly around my back, holding me in a fierce hug, my midriff soaked in her tears and matched by the copious amounts I was shedding myself. After several minutes we broke away and I held he face in the palms of my hand. We would figure out the logistics of this later. Yes, yes, I would talk to Mrs. Benner at Church about adoption. No one needed to know. This would be my miracle in life. Between me and God and Van. God. I should go to Church and thank him for his infinite kindness. Perhaps I would tell Father O'Brian. He is a man of faith. He would believe. And perhaps help expedite the adoption.

I made her favorite Mac and cheese with burnt ends for dinner. That night I couldn't stop looking at her, taking her in, looking past the strange face into her familiar eyes and soul. This was my daughter. I tucked her into bed that night.

As I stood a the door about to switch the lights off, I looked at her again. The bed no longer empty. My Van lying peacefully in it, a smile on her face. My wife stood by the bed post smiling, alone, tucking in that strand of hair, her other hand on my Van's head in blessing.

"Good night darling. Sleep well Van." I said softly.

"Good night Daddy."

She closed her eyes and dug deeper into her comforter, smelling the fresh sheets and shams. She was in her bed. She was in her clothes. She was in her Dad's life. Finally.

It had been a long journey. An impossible one. Her life flashed behind her closed eyes in a series of garbled imageries. She still remembered the first time she had seen the photo. Such a perfect family. A smiling, handsome, balding man leaning casually against his BMW, a pretty wife in neat clothes, holding an expensive looking purse and a little girl in pigtails, in a pink frock holding a soft toy. It had started then. The warden had told her, her boarding and school fees were covered by this generous man. Who would do that for poor her. Every year a new picture arrived with a little note from him. She would send him one with a long long letter. And every year her longing and pining to be a part of the family had increased. But the warden had told her in no uncertain terms, she wasn't going to a foster home. No one had wanted her. It was her hare lip, she knew it. But he hadn't cared about it. He had always cared for her in this world where she had absolutely no one to call her own.

She loved this man. This generous, kind, handsome man with his perfect family. They kept her in the ward for many months for bodily damage but scratching his name on her person was hardly damaging. It felt right. If she couldn't be a part of them, she would make him a part of her. Simple. Those months in the ward were a fleeting memory. But she remembered she had solidified her plans in isolation. She would get away from that hateful place. She would run away and find him. She found his address by sneaking in the Warden's office. Mysteriously, she found all her letters and pictures in the drawer too. That bitch. She had never sent them. But perhaps that was alright now. He was only 2 states away. Getting to Kansas was...tedious. She had help from truckers and kind men but she barely remembered the details - it was a means to an end. It wasn't important.

She had found the place and peeked into the window that first night. Seen them all in person, having dinner. A family. Oh how she longed to be in it. She saw the girl, her age, taking her seat, usurping the love she deserved. The woman, holding his hand, giving him a peck on his cheek. Anger boiled in her. She wanted to crash through the windows right then. But she held back. She snuck into the girl's bedroom through the open window. She had wildly looked for a place to hide. And then she found it. The vents. It would house her scrawny body easily. And she could sneak food at night while the hunt for her died down.

In the weeks that followed, she had discovered a treasure. The girl had a habit of writing everything in a diary. She had a drawer full of them. Feverishly she had started reading them. Reading about them. And then one day she spotted her name in a page. Dad had asked Mom about adopting her! He wanted her! And Mom had declined. Said their finances were stretched. That bitch. That selfish bitch. She had already started hating her. She had noticed the missing food in the kitchen and getting nosy about looking in places she mustn't. She would show her. Suddenly she knew what she had to do.

Cutting the brakes was easy. She knew which car she drove and when. And then the second part of the plan was put into motion. Tracking Van's every move, practicing them in the dark, learning the contents of the diary by heart, becoming her. How many hours had she spent staring at Van in her room through the grille. When the girl had started thinking there were ghosts in the house, she knew it was time for her to be replaced. She was Van, not this ungrateful kid.

It was easy. Too easy. Burying the body by the rocks. The crags where no one would dare go but her. Just took time severing the parts. Her diary was too incriminating. The girl had mentioned seeing a face in the vents. No, no, that won't do. It had to be soaked in the water. Yes, easy.

No one had suspected a thing. And now her life was perfect. Her life was complete. She had him. He would take care of her and protect her and be with her forever. Just him and her. She smiled, eyes still closed, hugging her blanket. Forever.