thinking about henry emily again
loved your own daughter so much that even though you couldnt bring yourself to pull away from your work for her birthday, you built her something. just for her. just to keep her safe. and you missed her day, missed every major part of her life, but you still loved her, and she still loved you, and she meant the world to you.
and then she was ripped away from you and you realized how much you lost. you missed out on all her birthdays all her major milestones and she will never have another. you will never be able to make up for the days you missed, the time you could have spent with your baby girl, that now the only time you can spend with her is sitting at her tombstone where she is cold under the ground.
you pay more attention to your daughter in death than you ever paid attention to her in life. if you had only just been there that day she was shut out, then she would still be there. she would still be with you, and you wouldnt regret leaving her be. but would you change if she hadnt died?
would you have continued to push her off every major day of her life, the most care you show for her day in and day out would be pinning her drawings on the fridge. would you ever go to her soccer games? would she have even liked soccer? maybe she couldve played softball, but you will never get the chance to know. you will never get the opportunity to figure out what your daughter could have become because you lost her before she got past middle school.
but even then, you regret it every day. you cant stand to look at the puppet, the thing you made to stand in for your own parental affection (could anything really stand in for that?) because all you can see is the way it was wrapped around your baby girl's lifeless corpse. she was cold when you found her.
but you can only stand two years before you can't live with her absence, with the knowledge that it is your fault. you are a neglectful father, no matter how much love you couldve held toward her. and you still only pay more attention to her in death than in life. you realize that even after her death, you continued to ignore her and shut her out.
you didn't realize she was in the puppet, and you just so desperately want your daughter back that you ignore how long and thin she is now. you ignore that her body is wire and plastic and soft plush. you remake the puppet into an image you knew she would've loved, just so she wouldn't have to be stuck in a body that reminded her of her own murderer, your best friend, the man you trusted to keep your daughter safe.
she trusted him even in the last few seconds of her life. if you had never trusted him, would she have known to run away? is it your fault that your daughter didn't see him as a threat? you will never be able to wonder what could have been different. there is no way to go back and change what happened.
you do everything in the last few years of your life only for your daughter. you keep her close, you keep her safe, safer in the last years before you all finally pass on than you ever did when she was still alive with blood in her cheeks and a laugh in her voice. you make her a robot, all for herself, all to keep her safe and comfortable when you finally light the building on fire.
all to keep her there with you. an inverse of before. you couldnt save her soul then, shut out in the rain, alone, with the only thing clinging to her the puppet you made to try and act as your replacement. now, keeping her in your arms as the fire licks at your arms and makes your head spin with the fumes of smoke, you are finally together again
