Uncertain

22-Richard Miller

My biggest dream as a kid was to see a real mermaid.

For the matter of fact, one of the best memories, I remembered with my father, was when he took me to this underwater theatre, where were people acting mermaids. It was a huge dream come true to my five-year-old self.

I never really got the chance to get close with my own father. In the end, I only knew him for the first five years of my life. I was just a little kid back then, and I surely was cute, but I would've done anything to be able to show my father how much I had grown. He left me, he left the world, even though he had promised that we would meet again.

Richard Miller was a busy man. He loved working, and sometimes he loved it even more than his own family. He was spending most of his time in his office, and his time for his family was rare. However, I know that he loved me, he loved his little girl, and I know that he loved me until his last breath on the ground.

When I was a little older, and living with my mum, I still thought about him every day. On father's days, I always made a card and asked mum to send it to him. I don't think she ever did that. Once there was a day in elementary school, when you were allowed to invite your father to the school for one day, and I was bullied because I didn't have one to invite. So, I told everyone that my father was an astronaut, and he was in the moon by the time.

I waited so badly to be able to see him again, but he died.

That Wednesday morning was unusually silent in the Miller household. It was the day when the cold and intimidating Richard Miller had died. Year after year, it always was the same, one piece of everyone's heart broke.

We all released our emotions differently.

Weston was locked in his office, working. Charles, Bryson and Anthony were oddly quiet. Jordan was doing anything that had something to do with sports. Edwin was just angry, and Aiden was drinking.

I, on the other hand, visited my father's grave, cleaned my room, finally, prepared a lunch, which no one even came to eat, and after a long time opened my math book. In other words, I tried to push away my own emotions.

I was sitting at the dining table, staring my math book, with absolutely no intention of solving a single calculation. My mind was really empty, and by that, I mean that I wasn't thinking much of anything.

"Sweetheart." Weston's calm voice made me raise my head up. "Are you okay?"

My oldest brother was standing by the doorway of the living room, his eyes tightly on me. He looked pretty tired, and he was holding a huge cup of coffee. The cup was dad's.

When I just nodded, not seeming very convincing for him, he placed the cup on the other side of the dining table and walked next to me. He crouched down on my level and placed his hands on my cheeks. Looking right through my eyes, he sighed and pulled me into his warm and comforting embrace.

"I know, baby, I know." His voice was a little shaky, as he stroked my back.

Weston looked pretty tired, and his face was a little pale. After all, he was probably the closest one with father, because he was the only one who father let close. I knew that he hadn't slept, almost at all, last night, and I had counted that the cup of coffee on the table was already his fourth cup. It wasn't probably even healthy anymore.

"Talk to me, please." He whispered with a calm voice. "I don't want you to bottle it up."

"He promised that we would see again." My voice cracked, making Weston to wrap his arms even tighter around me. "It's unfair. I didn't get the chance."

"He's watching you from the sky." He whispered. "He's watching all of us."

"But I don't want that..." A sob escaped my lips. "I want him watching me from here, I want him to hug me, I want him to see his little girl."