Kiss Me Tenderly

“Daddy?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Why don’t we have a mommy? ‘Cuz Nico said that we’re weird ‘cuz we don’t gotta mommy.”
I looked worriedly into the rearview mirror at my daughters’ earnest faces. Sighing, I pushed my fingers through my hair, hearing the squeak of the windshield wipers scrape across the glass.
“Honey, you’re not weird, that boy just doesn’t understand.. Things.” I was kind of hesitant to explain what that boy didn’t understand about our family.
“What don’t he understand, Daddy?” Missy was tugging on her seatbelt, stretching it and letting it snap against her chest.
“It’s doesn’t, not don’t, sweetie. And please don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself,” I reprimanded gently. “And he doesn’t understand that your mommy.. Passed away.”
“What happened to her, Daddy?” Sassy piped up, curious too.
I let the car slide to a slow stop at the stop sign, leaving the car running and parking. There was no one out on the road so I didn’t think too much of just stopping in the middle of the road. I turned to look at my daughters fully, both of their big brown eyes staring back at me.
“Well, little bit after you were born, your mommy got really sick,” I stalled. “We couldn’t help her get better. There was one procedure she could have done but sometimes it didn’t work and she would have gone away quicker but she wanted to see you girls grow up as much as she could.”
“Why didn’t they give her med’cine? Daddy, why couldn’t you give her a band aid and a kiss? That always makes us feel better,” Sassy looked like she was starting to get upset.
I twisted myself in my seat and reached into the backseat, putting out my hands, palms up. They each placed a tiny hand in mine and I enveloped them with my long fingers. For a second, I admired how perfect and wonderful they were, the soft, slick sounds of slush sliding off my car the only other sound I could hear over the thrum of the engine.
“Baby, they tried. They tried everything they could. But the sickness was inside her, it was killing her from the inside out.” Here, I hesitated again. “Sassy, Missy, I was going to tell you this when you were older but... Your mommy died from a very bad disease called cancer. Do you know what that is?”
They shook their heads no, black hair shivering.
I squeezed their tiny palms to try and comfort them. “It’s a sickness that takes over your body if you don’t catch it right away. It was inside your mommy, sleeping, until it woke up. That’s when your mommy got sick.”
Both Sassy’s and Missy’s fingers curled in my hands uneasily, as if on instinct.
“But you know, sweeties?” I hurried on.
“Yeah, Daddy?” Missy’s big eyes were full of sadness for a mother she hardly remembered.
I stretched even further back into the back seat to kiss the back of both their hands.
“You know how sometimes, when we sit outside on the hammock and when we watch the stars, one shines brighter than all the rest? That’s your mommy. When your mommy went to heaven, they decided that she was too special to just be an angel so they sent her to go hold a star up in the sky to watch over all the little girls and boys. She’s shining bright because she can see you and she loves and misses you. Okay?”
“Does she miss you too, Daddy?”
I smiled softly at the quiet question. “I sure do hope so, little Miss. Now how about we get home and make us some nice dinner, yeah?” Turning back around, I took the car out of the parked mode and shifted it into drive. As I slowly started the car across the street, I took a quick look back at my daughters, each in their booster seat. They grinned back at me, identical toothy little grins spreading across their cheeks. I smiled as well, the car continuing it’s slow steady creep across the intersection. I tapped the gas, hoping to spur the car across a little faster, getting us home the only thing on my mind.
The next thing I knew, there was blinding flash of lights, getting brighter every second, the squeal of tires, a horn wailing in the quiet winter night, twin screams of “Daddy!”
And then darkness.