Blue

Baby blue eyes blinked wide open, and their lives were never the same again.

He was a sailor; he was drawn to the sea like a singer to a microphone. He came from a long line of navy folks and it was only natural that he’d end up as one himself; it was all right with him. He’d crack a smile even if his world was falling apart and he loved everything no matter how ugly it might’ve been in another’s world. And his eyes were as blue as the ocean he adored.

She was a little different. She could be quiet when she wanted to and she could start a riot whenever she felt the need. She’d always surprise him, especially when she grabbed him by the hand and took him places he’d never even imagined – places he never expected to visit, even though he was a sailor and went worldwide all the time. Her eyes were cerulean as the birds that sang outside her bedroom window as a child. But this girl wasn’t so quick to smile at things. In fact, when they first met, it ended up in a frown on her part.

Spilled coffee in an airport in Los Angeles. Simply put, he wasn’t looking where he was going and she was too focused on the wide sapphire sky blanketing the airport.

He started blushing madly, red blotches patching across his cheeks.

She pouted and blew a strand of hair out of her face in stress.

“Uh…I’ll, uh…get you another one…? Do you need a napkin or something?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“It kind of spilled a lot…”

“I’m fine.”

Even though she was giving him one heck of a deadly look, he still shrugged and smiled and bought her another coffee, offering money for dry cleaning or whatever she needed to get that monster stain out of her shirt. And although she didn’t plan on it, the two of them ended up chatting for a long time in her terminal, and she nearly missed her flight.

It certainly wasn’t the last time they talked. They’d exchanged phone numbers and they talked every so often. Something in her eyes reminded him of the sea; something in his eyes reminded her of innocence. Love was just nearing that corner and they got swept away in the action of it all – holding one another in each other’s arms, kissing, having the world at their fingertips as well as themselves.

And soon enough, that third set of baby blue eyes blinked wide open, looking at the two lovers. Daddy smiled and Mommy beamed and they were a family. Their little girl looked so perfect sleeping in their arms peacefully, thrown into a world she’d soon learn terrible things about.

They were perfect. For four years they stayed strong and happy.

But then a nightmare turned to reality and things just weren’t the same.

The sky was blue and so was the sea that they could walk a mile and feel in their toes. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was all sunny, the air sinking into their lungs like a fresh breath of life that shocked the system. The neighborhood was running wild with kids of all ages that day, teens and toddlers living in seemingly unreal harmony.

Their baby girl cupped the beach ball in her chubby hands and tossed it at her neighbor, who was three times her age but just as willing to have fun. Mommy stood beside her, careful not to let her pride and joy get hurt. Daddy was standing back in the distance on his own, watching them all, smiling on the inside.

Like the nightmare that none of them ever imagined happening to them – such a quaint little family – it all stopped, though. There was a distinct pause following the sound of gunshot. The entire world seemed to quit moving when Mommy landed at her blue-eyed baby’s feet, face first, as her turquoise dress shifted with the wind, ruffling softly.

Tires squealed, running straight out of the neighborhood, while everybody within a quarter-mile radius rushed out of their activities to investigate what just went on. Soon, people swarmed around Mommy, many people who the young girl didn’t even know existed. Even Daddy went over. Her neighbor friend stood by her, coughing something fierce like he had a hairball coming up, but all she could do was cock her head in confusion.

“Hey…mom?”

Daddy looked up at the sound of her soft little voice. His eyes were tired now, like he’d gained thirty years just in the face, and it scared her a tiny bit.

He kneeled at his baby’s feet and took her hands, biting his lips when he looked her in the eyes – she looked just like her mother and it was already starting to kill him.

That’s when her tiny little world broke apart, when he told her Mommy wasn’t gonna be around anymore. It was like watching a mirror shatter right in front of her. A bad dream that just wasn’t going to go away for a while, the blocky motions in her sight forever engraved in her head. The colors now seemed saturated unnaturally while the movements of everybody around her, these strange people she’d never seen before, moving like robots.

She drifted through her consciousness, in and out, in and out, for a long time.

And her daddy was shaken to the bone. He saw what happened and it wasn’t leaving his head, never. He watched as the only woman he’d ever loved was taken away from him by chance – a simple accidental crime. An “accident,” said the authorities. But it didn’t matter if it was on purpose or not – it still hurt, it still left an empty pain underneath his ribcage, and it still made him sit on the couch for hours on end at night, crying quietly while his baby girl was in bed.

It tore him up.

Some people can smile through anything. He used to be able to do that, back when his life seemed pretty amazing. But then, at that moment, he was sinking into the sagging fabric of the living room couch, watching reruns of 80s sitcoms and wanting to go to bed. He didn’t want to cry anymore; it hurt too much, but keeping it in felt bad too. He was stuck.

Baby blue eyes wandered out from her room, wiping her tired eyes as well and waking up slowly from a hazy dream.

“Daddy, I miss mommy,” she’d said.

He turned around at her, hearing her say those four powerful words to him, and never in his life had he seen such a young girl look so broken. It killed him. He ushered her closer and pulled her up on the couch, asking what she meant.

“I miss her,” she said again.

He sighed, feeling musty air glide out from his lungs. “I miss her too, sweetheart.”

He brushed the soft, almost-white hair out of her eyes. She looked innocent and tough at the same time to him, everything that ever reminded him of his love.

“You look just like your mother,” he told his girl.

She smiled slightly, but enough to let her daddy know that she loved him and still loved her mommy, even though she had been gone for a month then. Wrapping her hands around her daddy’s built waist, she buried her head in his chest and sighed.

He wasn’t there for her first or second birthday, but her mommy was. He was out in the ocean, in his favorite place in the world other than his lover’s arms. It dawned on him right then just how little he’d seen his baby and how much he missed out on her toddling around the house, and at that moment he didn’t see a four-year-old about to turn five and go off into school. He saw perhaps a young woman – a girl who’d been through one hardship that shook her life up and rocketed her to a kind of maturity most people never got.

Daddy never cried in front of his baby, but that night, he did. But she was too, so at least he didn’t feel so weird about it. It was one of the only times he ever did it.

But no matter how much time passed, how many tears were secretly shed, or how often they had little fights that solved nothing like dads and daughters do, one thing was constant. They’d shared the pain and saw it firsthand, and for that, no matter how much she wouldn’t admit it due to the supposed cheesiness, they had each other. Always.

Whether it was the sky that was blue or her mood that was blue, it never changed.