Lolita doesn’t talk to me these days. She no longer giggles when I rub her tummy; she becomes stiff, and doesn’t want to be touched. I keep reminding myself that everything will be okay. I keep telling myself that we’re going to make it work. But my daughter is too little to know that. She is too little to know that even though her Daddy is gone, even though he doesn’t come for dinner and is no longer here to give her a good-night kiss, he still loves her.
Lolita doesn’t tell me she misses him. She stares at his photograph, the one right next to my bed, the one that used to make me fall in love with him all over again. I pad her shoulders and read for her stories that were once her favorite. I make her spaghetti, her favorite food. I kiss her before she goes to bed, after she wakes up and when she goes off to school. I hug her and take her horseback riding on Grandpa’s ranch. I do the things that I would have wanted Mama to do for me. I do the things that I always dreamed of when I was little. I tell myself I’m a good mother. I tell myself that what happened doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother. I tell myself and yet I know that her life will never be the same. She will always remember Daddy’s empty seat at the table. She will always remember her mother’s pallid face. She will always remember the smell of his shirt, the cologne that he always wore to work, the way he ate his spaghetti and the way he slept on the yellow couch. She will remember every little detail, and she will always wonder why he left, why he walked out and didn’t kiss Mommy. And I, I will know that I broke my own promise, the promise to never let my daughter see her Daddy leave.