Fiddling With Fate ✓

Four

           After a couple days, James and Iris had grown ever closer. They often spent time at each other’s cabins, or shared drinks at the ship’s bar.

    There was one problem, though. In James’s quest for love, he and his daughter had grown apart. Sometimes Morgan felt excluded from his life, like a third wheel. She no longer had her beloved Midgley to comfort her, and she was beginning to feel very alone. She even sometimes blamed herself because she thought, if she hadn’t let him go off into the kitchen, he never would have died.

    One day, James awoke to see his daughter’s bed empty, so he assumed that she had already gone out to eat breakfast.

    Nevertheless, when he came to breakfast, Morgan had still not shown up. He looked around the ship for her, but couldn’t find her anywhere. He was beginning to worry. He decided to check their cabin again, and that was when he found the note.

    It was carefully placed on Morgan’s bedside table. In her delicate but shaky handwriting, it simply explained:

Dear dad,

I really hope you and Iris will be happy together. You two make a cute couple.

I don’t want to get in the way of your new love life, and I miss Midgley.

So I just wanted you to know that I’m with him now.

Love you to the moon and back,

Morgan

James was in shock. He simply did not understand. He looked for her everywhere, and asked around the ship. Finally, one man explained that he allegedly saw her sitting on the railing and looking down at the waves. As the man tried to approach her, she decided to jump overboard. Nobody was there to help, and it was impossible - as well as pointless - to find her. After all, James knew she couldn’t swim.

But he still didn’t get it. Why in the world would dear, sweet Morgan do that? Had she really felt that alone? Why didn’t she come to James?

Most importantly, James asked himself, how did I not realize that my own daughter was in pain?

The worst part, though, was that James knew the answer. He knew exactly why. It was because of Iris. Morgan felt like James was pushing her away, and with the added loneliness from Midgley’s death, it was too much for the girl to handle.

That was when the sadness set in. With the realization came the overwhelming horror that first James’s dog, and now his daughter, were gone, and it was all his fault.