On a quiet Friday morning, around six-thirty, a man awoke from his bed. It was early December and the outside morning air was cold. As he sat up, he rubbed his face with his hands and afterward let out a tired yawn. He after a few minutes of sitting there in bed decided to get out of bed.
After he got showered and dressed the time was about seven am. During the time he went down stairs to fix breakfast for himself and for his eight-year old daughter Ashlee. He fixed a simple breakfast like some eggs, bacon and toast. At the same time, he turned on the television to see what was on that morning. He turned on his favorite news channel, Action News Six, for some morning news.
All of the smells of her father's cooking and the sounds of him moving around downstairs awakened Ashlee, who came downstairs yelling "Daddy, daddy!" she then ran over to him and he responded with a Hey scrumptious how are you doing?
"I'm doing good daddy," she answered, "I've had another nightmare last night."
Jacob, her father, looked at her and smiled a little bit. "Oh no", he said playfully, "What was about this time?"
She took a deep breath. "Oh daddy it was awful", she began, "I had a dream that a monster came out of a crate and it ATE me!" This story shocks him a little bit.
"Oh, that sounds really terrible. But can you not share the details please?"
"Ok daddy!" After joyfully answering his request, she skipped happily to the kitchen table where she prepares herself to eat. As she was doing so, she noticed a picture of her father and her mother together and then she looked back at her father and asked, "Hey daddy, is mommy coming back soon?"
Immediately he stopped what he was doing and froze over the stove. After a few seconds of motionless he turned around and walked over to her. When he got her he kneeled down to her eye level.
He then said "Ashlee, your mother and I have had some tensions for several years and um, to her it was time to leave us," when he said this, his daughter' s face had turned from a little smile into a little frown as she listened to him speak. He continued, "I'm really sorry to say this but, I'm afraid your mother's never coming back. And it is something we both need to learn to deal with." Her right eye began to tear when he said that. But he quickly comforted her. She later stopped tearing up and Jacob gave her, her breakfast.
After somewhat telling her the story, Jacob began to have a flashback on the sudden divorce that his wife threw at him.
During the previous year, it was about one in the morning when Jacob was in his car driving home from hanging out with his good friend Matt, who is at times very sarcastic, at a bar about three miles from where he lives. He walked into his house very clumsily and drunk when he noticed his wife Michelle sitting in the family room with her arms crossed. The first sight of her made him flinch and say how much she scared him coming in.
"Where have you been," she asked.
"I was out with Matt," he answered, "I thought I told you that earlier this evening."
"Jacob," she began and in response, he looked over at her. "You have done this four times. FOUR times Jacob!" She showed him four fingers to really emphasize the four.
"Li-li-listen honey-I," he stuttered but his wife never let him finish his thought.
"You and I have a daughter together who was worried sick," she interrupted, "She was sitting up all night crying 'where's daddy, where's daddy,' do you know how long it took me to get her to sleep?" Jacob fell silent and started making his way upstairs. "Where are you going now," she asked.
"I wanna go up and apologies to my... our daughter."
"Your daughter, she's not just your daughter she is also my daughter. Besides she is sleeping and it would be best if you didn't wake her up."
