A Break From Schedule

It was a rare weeknight treat. No schedule. Her favorite pastime loomed before her. Her father made it dance in the air. He waved it around as he carried it down the hall after having plucked it from her hands without warning. She reached for it again and again, but each time he suddenly yanked it high aloft in the air and kept shuffling along unbothered. When he turned to enter the cramped living room, she automatically followed him, still reaching in vain and beginning to whine.

“Papa, why? You gave the game, now you don’t let me have it! Why? I did everything already today! ” She tried jumping, although she knew she would never be tall enough to reach.

Instead, the three plaits she had on her head bounced with her futile efforts, and her father’s only thoughts as he turned to glance at her renewed efforts were that they needed to be redone. He wasn’t good with little girl hair, didn’t know what to do with the thick wild dark curls that tumbled and cascaded down over his daughter’s shoulders in all directions, so always left that Girl Dad task up to the girl’s grandmother. The woman, although she had never had a daughter of her own, still had the unknowable woman’s touch that assured a child never seemed uncared for or raggedy, despite being made a grandmother far earlier than most. She was the one to put the earrings in and take them out at night while he, the father, was still many years later wondering how the hell the mother had ever managed to convince anyone to pierce a newborn’s ears less than two months into the child’s life. Of course, she did not remember, she did not remember anything, all that mattered was the present and how vanity be damned she was going to retrieve her beloved latest obsession from him.

He dropped it in front of his laptop on the coffee table. She bent down to retrieve it hoping the screen hadn’t been cracked or scratched. 

“Hey there, baby girl!” A voice called out cheerfully. “You’re looking so pretty today with your hair like that and your emerald studs in! Your daddy finally got your glasses from the eye doctor, I see!”

She froze. Her brain whirled trying to process the words. It had been so long, yet she was sure that she knew the voice.

“Stay here and play your game for a while.” Her father instructed her, resting a hand on her back as she stooped down to force her to sit or rather kneel down on the floor.

Occupied by Animal Crossing, the girl simply did as she was bid to do. 

“So happy to see you! What did you do today?” The voice gushed.

“If you want any chance at being understood by her, then speak slowly, much slower. She already forgot years ago.” Her father grumbled.

A slice of mundane life. She enjoyed the easy pace of a life lived for the pleasure of discovery and all that was good. A faint smile crossed her lips.

“It’s too warm in here. Why don’t you take it off already? Why didn’t you change to wear your home clothes when you came home from the extra lessons after school?” 

Still looming, towering rather, her father unzipped the tracksuit jacket that was a part of her school uniform and pulled it off of her as she switched her Nintendo DS from one hand to the other in order to accommodate his maneuvering of her out of the garment. A grand show was made of carefully folding the jacket, which bore the name and logo of her school. “You’re so tired after you even still have to go to stud English, math, and science at the cram schools and the cello and martial arts at the academies after your school ends. When you come back home, it is so late, and you have your homework and so much more cello practice. But you’re such a good girl and do all the tasks even while others try to distract you.” He fussed over her continuing to speak English slowly, deliberately, and thickly. “Not at all like the lazy American-raised brats.”

It all flew over the girl’s head, although she recognized the tension in the air well. 

“And you said that to say what exactly?” The formerly cheerful voice became terse and hostile.

Then it was like a light had been switched on. 

The angry voices, the profanity-tainted digs, and the venomous accusations. 

The girl looked up only once to confirm it. Yes, again. No, she was not crazy or imagining things. The milkless expresso-hued woman with the double chin and enough vitriol to fuel at least a dozen, her father imposing but bespectacled and soft-spoken, the confused and bewildered little boy somewhere around her own age lurking on and off-screen behind the woman. 

It was all so familiar and all so tiring. The drama unfolded before the strangely slanted light-colored eyes of two children who wouldn’t know a normal home and family life if it slapped them in the faces, the elder blinked teary shimmering eyes stuck somewhere between alluring and startling chartreuse while the younger observed with somber gun metal gray irises. Briefly, the two sets made contact.

Alas, they were in completely different worlds, trapped in separate prisons without bars although held in bondage by the same adults. After only a few fleeting moments, each retreated into their own invisible shells.

Around and around her avatar ran, knocking apples from the trees in the orchard. A perfect crisp Fall day, a perfect life, everyone happy all the time.

“You can’t keep her hid forever. God willing, before I leave this Earth….and I’m not quite sure how long I’ve got left here now. I will see my youngest child again.” The voice declared. “You know this ain’t right. You ain’t never paid a dime for our son since Jesus got back, but you’re standing there talking about how much you do for the one you got to keep and never even think about how hard I've been struggling not being able to work because of my......”

Again, the man wrenched the handheld device from his daughter’s hands and was immediately met with her protests and whining. 

“Hope that welfare check isn’t late this month. I don’t have time to listen to your hard luck story anymore until next month, or maybe even next year.” 

10 minutes after it began, the mysterious game resumed. He held the prized toy out of reach as he walked out of the living room and down the short hallway. Lured away by the bait, the girl was soon on his heels, having abandoned the webcam session. 

“Why didn’t you ask your daddy?! You know you’re supposed to be asking him for stuff!!” The voice became harsh and bitter.

“Papa?” The girl paused, half-turned as if she was pondering whether or not to return to the living room. 

Her toy continued its tempting dance just out of reach.

“Follow the Nintendo! Come, let’s play the game in here!”

The device disappeared into the room she had previously been in, and that was that.

“Let’s play the game for a happy fun time now. Let’s have so much fun in the healthy and safe environment. Let’s not hear a single word that crazy gold digger is saying.”

Her father's words were too loud, too animated, too sing-songy, and too out of place though.

Still he allowed her to retrieve her device with a strange smirk.

“And later you will take your shower and go to sleep beside Grandmother. What kid wouldn’t want your life?” 

Any kid who knows what it’s like to be nothing more than a trophy.

But that day of reckoning was well over a decade away.