I saw my daughter again. It’d been so long that I am surprised she returned in such vivid detail. I thought she’d gone away forever, to be honest. Her hair was short, what I believe they call bobbed. Dark, dark hair, darker than mine even, black as the Pacific ocean in January. Her eyes were so luminous that I wanted to cry. They were not my eyes, so they must have been her mother’s. She wore her small yellow dress, the one she’d been wearing for years, and the small white sandals that are identical to the ones I wore in old photographs from my time as a child. I smiled in those photographs and my daughter had my smile, her little cheeks so wide and crinkles formed already at such a young age. Her skin was a beautiful tan, the skin of my girl, a daughter of the sun. She stood in the hallway and extended her hand out to me, never spoke a word. I took it, so small a thing, and had to hunch down to keep her grasp in mine. She led me out into the backyard where a yard packed sky high with junked cars loomed over us. They were graying and rusted, the color having been weathered away by too many fierce storms and long, hot days. She bravely led me through the shadows of the automobile necropolis and I felt myself become heavy, large, nearly dragged along by necessity and her courage. My daughter was courageous. She was unafraid and free and strong enough to keep me going through the ever-darkening wreckage. We marched on for a long time as my beard grew thicker, my hair grayer, and the top of my head lost all shape save for the rounded top of a dome. When at last I was too old to continue my daughter turned a corner and pointed to the horizon. There I saw a light, not as in a tunnel but as a wide swath of gold across the visible world. She was indicating that we were nearly there, whatever the destination, and so I continued with her, never letting go of her hand. She began to skip as we neared the light and I told her to go on, to go and enjoy the light. I was too old and tired to continue. Her face contorted as she shook her head. She was angry with me, and sad that I would abandon her when we were so close. I was so tired. She held on and stood with me, waited for me, until at last I relented and stood, marching onward. The final distance nearly me killed me until at last we stood on the cusp of the first rays of light. I breathed in and prepared to lead her into the light, prepared for my own death. It was not as I had expected. Instead of death and dust I became strong again. My then-tattered clothing filled with muscle and strength and my youth returned in a fraction of time so miniscule that I fell to the ground to keep from floating away. When I stood again, she was at my side, and smiling. I looked out across the place where she had led me and saw the ocean, like the one in Mexico where the water was warm and clear. She sat down on the sand and looked out across the water, silent as ever. As I stood there I decided I did not want to sit, nor wait for anything more to happen. I grinned and swooped down to take her in my arms, my daughter, my life, and when I looked into her eyes again I felt a joyous pain so strong in my own that I held her to me and cried into her shoulder, still grinning. As I hugged her, she finally spoke.
“Please don’t run away again.”
“Never, niña preciosa,” I said. “Never.”
I placed her on my shoulders and she giggled when the waves of the ocean slapped against me, against us, causing me to shake a bit but never falter, never let her go.