Chapter 4 - The Silver Frame's Promise
It was the next afternoon and the light in my room looked different. Not warm and dim like bedtime. It was white and thin, coming through the blinds in stripes across the dark wood floor. My bookcase was still there, the bunny with the blue ears tipped over like I'd left it. I was supposed to be napping.
Dad had been keeping the door open a crack since the night before. I could hear him in the hallway trying not to talk too loud. Jenna's voice was there too, but farther away. I sat on the rug with the silver frame on my knees. I wasn't holding it to my chest anymore. I had it propped against the leg of my bed, angled up.
That was how she could see me.
Dad came to the doorway and knocked lightly on the frame, even though the door was already open. He was still in his gray pants, but he'd changed his sweater. His watch caught the striped light when he moved.
"Hey, bug," he said. "You awake?"
I nodded. I didn't pick up the frame. I kept it right where it was.
He stood there for a second, breathing. I remembered how he breathed the night before when he was close to me and didn't know what to say. He did the same thing now, a little pause before he spoke.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
I nodded again.
He didn't try to pick me up or fix my blanket. He knelt down on the floor across from me, the same way he had when Jenna told me it was bedtime. His knees made a soft sound on the wood. He looked at the frame, then at me, and he didn't move it.
I thought he'd tell me to lie down. He didn't.
"What are you doing with it there?" he asked, quiet.
I touched the edge of the silver with one finger. "So she can see me."
He nodded, slow. His eyes were a little red at the corners. He'd taken his wedding band off to wash his hands or something once, but it was back on now. I could see it.
"Did Mommy tell you to do it that way?" he asked.
It wasn't the voice he used when he was correcting me. It was lower, and he waited after. He let the quiet stay there.
I tried to remember it right. It came in pieces, the way memories did when I was three. Not the whole day, just little flashes. Mom was on our bed and her hair was all pulled back. Her hands were cold when she put the frame in mine. It was heavier than I expected.
I remembered her lap. I remembered she had to use both hands to close my fingers around the silver.
"She put it here," I said, and I held my hands out the way she had. My palms were up. "She said it."
Dad's brow furrowed, just like it did in the close-up the night before. But he didn't look away.
"What did she say exactly, Sofia?" he whispered. "Can you tell me what Mommy said?"
I held the frame a little tighter. I was scared to say it wrong and have him say that wasn't right.
"Mommy said it so she can still see me," I said.
The words came out small, but I said them exactly the way I heard them. I didn't add anything else, because there wasn't anything else. That was the whole promise. If I kept the picture where she could see me, she wouldn't be gone.
Dad didn't correct me. He didn't say that pictures can't see. He just kept kneeling there, and his breathing got a little unsteady. He reached out, not for the frame, but for my hand. He covered my fingers with his.
"She gave it to you herself," he said. It wasn't a question.
I nodded. Tears started to come up again, but not like the night before. Slower.
Behind him, the floor creaked in the hallway. I looked past his shoulder and saw Jenna. She was standing just outside the door in her cream sweater, one hand on the doorframe. She'd heard us. Her eyes went to the frame, then to Dad's back, then to me. For a second I thought she was going to come in and tell me it was naptime again.
She didn't. She took a small step back, so she wasn't in the doorway anymore. She let her hand slide off the wood. I could still see the shadow of her shoes on the floor, but she stayed out there on purpose to give us space.
Dad didn't turn around. He kept looking at me and at the silver frame between us, like he was finally seeing where the words came from. Not from a story I made up, but from Mom's hands on mine before she had to go.
May you like
"Thank you for telling me that, bug," he said.
I didn't know what that meant would happen next. But he stayed on the floor with me, and he didn't move the frame, and the light kept coming in stripes across his watch and my dress and the picture of Mom holding me.
