As his daughter sat there, with her little shoulders jerking up and down from her sobs and her big beautiful eyes full of tears and hearing her story was breaking his heart.
After she was done talking he looked at her and told her how sorry he was for her most beautiful yellow dress and how proud he was of her for doing so well at school lately.
He said, “I know your mom and I have been really loud lately and we haven’t been there for you the way we need to be, you probably don’t feel very loved right now.” He continued softly “I’m sorry I just threw your very beautiful yellow dress on the floor like that, I should not have done that.”
Very lovingly he said, “I know, let’s get a little ice cream and I’ll wait up with you and help make sure your very beautiful yellow dress turns out ok.” “Ok?”
She felt a little funny, like a little scared but different, like butterflies in her stomach. Her father had not talked to her nicely like that in a very long time. As her father was wiping her cheeks off, “ok” she said. Then she gently took his hand.
So the very smart, very friendly, very beautiful little girl sat on the steps, eating ice cream and talking to her father.
As she did her father saw her, “for the first time”, he thought, for who she really was.
So there they sat, talking, waiting and eating ice cream. When the very beautiful yellow dress finished in the washer they both went and took it out and placed it into the dryer together. The dress tumbled over and over in the dryer as they finished their ice cream. They didn’t talk any more. The very beautiful, very smart and very friendly little girl just leaned on her dads leg at the top of the steps.
She must have shut her eyes for just a minute because she kinda jumped awake, she didn’t think she fell asleep but maybe she did because her dad was smiling at her and the buzzer was going off on the dryer and her very beautiful yellow dress was done.
Her father then did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He bent down and scooped the little girl up in one arm and draped the very beautiful yellow dress across his other arm and carried them both to her room and placed them both gently where they needed to be, her in her bed and the very beautiful yellow dress on it’s hanger in the closet.
She felt wonderful and so sleepy, she was asleep before her head hit her pillow.
Her father looked down at her and smiled.
Then he straightened up, turned around and walked back to his bedroom. As he entered the bedroom his wife asked “Where were you?” in a not so loving tone of voice.
All he said to her was “We have to talk…”
Leave a Reply