Father Daughter Time

            I woke up tired because I had been too excited to sleep the night before. I couldn’t wait to talk to the witch more and play with Jellybean. When I said hello, a different voice responded. A familiar voice. “Hello Narissa.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes.”

            I was afraid to believe him at first, but then I started to giggle and couldn’t stop. I could talk to him again! How cool was that? “Daddy! Everyone misses you a lot.”

“You can thank the witch for that.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Put on some clothes. I feel perverted enough watching you like this.”

            I did what Dad asked. When I left the bedroom, Jellybean popped up. I was excited to see my friend again, but was trying to concentrate on what Daddy was telling me. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to warn you about the curse. I thought I had a hell of a lot more time left.”

I ignored Jellybean insisting that we play a game together. “What curse?”

“Didn’t you get to meet the infamous witch yesterday? She’s the curse. Well, and I guess the rest of us too.”

“I’m cursed?” I hadn’t thought that I was. How was anything that happened the day before bad? I got to talk to a nice lady and she gave me my new bestie.

“You might not think it’s all that bad now, but, trust me, you’ll learn to hate it eventually.”

“Oh.”

“Look, the witch was ‘gracious’ enough to give me a day alone to talk to you. I don’t want to waste any more time on her. I want to let you know what it means for you to be my heir. Go to my bedroom.”

            I walked to Mom’s room like he told me to, really hoping she wasn’t in there. That’d be awkward to explain.

            “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the big wooden thing that I saw right away. It had a book on it and looked like it might have been boring.

“Oh, it’s nothing really. Just a little something I picked up. I thought that I might have been able to use it to take down the witch one day.”

            Something else caught my eye right away. “What are these doors for?” I looked out the glass and could see the roof.

“I had plans for that area.”

            I’d never been allowed to spend much time in Daddy and Mom’s room before. Everything felt so new! It was so exciting that I had a hard time concentrating on whatever he was saying. I walked around taking everything in. I stopped when I got to the pictures on the wall. “Are you even paying attention?”

“Who’s that? And why’s he kissing you?”

Daddy made a funny sound. Kinda like a scared bear, whatever that might’ve sounded like. “That is Finch. He was my husband.”

“Party,” I said. I didn’t want to hear any love junk about my Daddy. It was gross enough seeing him and Mom kiss. He did look happy in the pictures though.

“I didn’t bring you in here to discuss Finch. I want you to see this room, the room where your mother sleeps, and know that you can claim it. It’s yours. Everything in this house is yours.”

“Huh?”

“Trish found the will that the witch doctored up. It says that everything is in your name, not hers. If you wanted to, you could kick her out of this bedroom, out of the whole place if you wanted to.”

            That sounded super cool at first! I could have my own room! And it’d be the biggest one. Then I thought about it for more than a second. “But Mom would be mad at me if I did that.”

“So?”

“I don’t want to make her mad.”

“I’m not saying you have to do it. I just want you to know the power you now hold.”

            The next place Daddy told me to go was the garage. I’d never spent a lot of time in there, mostly because of how mad he got when we played by his cars. “These are all yours now.”

            I twirled around, looking at all the cool things that were mine.

            Jellybean asked me what I was so happy about, so I told him about how all the cars were mine and that we could drive them around together some day. “That’ll be fun!” he said while smiling.

“What is that?” Daddy asked.

“That’s Jellybean. He’s the friend that the witch lady gave me.”

“Hmm, I couldn’t see it before. I don’t trust it.”

            He made me go through the entire house, pointing out certain things that he thought were really cool or whatever. After a couple of hours, it got soooo boring! I decided to go have fun by having a dance party.

            “Narissa, there are still things to discuss. You’d better start listening to me!”

            While dancing to some killer salsa, the shed in the backyard caught my eye. “What’s in that building? You never let us in there.”

“It’s nothing. Stay away from it.”

            That only made me want to see it more. The closer I got to it, the more upset Daddy got. It was kinda funny. I jiggled the doorknob but it was locked. Daddy laughed and then a lady’s laughter mixed in with his. I tried the knob again and it worked. “Dammit! You weren’t supposed to interfere today!”

            While Daddy argued to somebody that never responded, I went into the creepy room. It was so gross, but I went down the staircase anyways.

            “What is this place?” I asked when I got to the bottom step. I looked around and saw all sorts of pretty gems and cool decorations.

            The thing that really made me curious though was a super cute pink chair. It looked so fancy! “Don’t you touch my throne. It’s mine and it is the one thing I will not share with you.”

“But it looks so awesome!”

“Don’t even think about it.”

I started to walk away, kinda interested in the closed rooms. Then a thought popped up in my head. “What can you do about it?”

            I sat down in the chair. It was kinda uncomfortable, but it was the perfect height for pretend driving! As I navigated my land rocket ship through trees on a journey to get to the grocery store, Dad loudly told me to get off of his stupid throne. It only made playing pretend more fun.

            Soon, I had to pee. “Is there a bathroom down here?” I asked, afraid I wouldn’t make it upstairs in time.

“I’m not telling you that. Little brats that don’t listen to their dead dads deserve to wet themselves.”

I tried out the closer room and saw that it was a bathroom indeed. “What’s in the other room?” I asked when I was done with the toilet.

“Your mother is looking for you.”

            It’d gotten late while I was playing in Dad’s shed! I found Mom working on one of her paintings and walked up to her. I asked her if she was looking for me.

            “Where have you been?” she asked, but she didn’t sound mad. She didn’t really sound like anything other than a robot.

“I was just playing outside.”

“I never thought to check there.”

            Mom didn’t say anything else until the elevator made a chime sound. “Oh look, it’s your brother.” Then she walked towards him.

            Claude and Mom gave each other weird looks, and then she went downstairs. Dad sad some really bad (and hilarious) words about Claude. They made me laugh.

            Jellybean wanted to know what was so funny, so I whispered to him, “Daddy really hates Claude.” My brother glared at us and then he went to bed. It did look like it was late, and I was getting tired of listening to Dad, so I went to bed too.