Sweet Girl of Mine
The old red tractor rumbled beneath him, its engine a familiar, throaty growl that had been the soundtrack to forty years of his life. James knew every vibration, every squeak, every rhythm of the machine. He'd bought it brand new in '86, back when his hands were smooth and his hair was brown, back when he thought the world would keep spinning the way it always had.
Now his knuckles were gnarled and his beard had gone gray, and the tractor was the only thing that still felt like home.
He took a long pull from the whiskey bottle nestled between his thighs, wincing as the burn traveled down his throat. The sun was low on the horizon, painting the Kansas wheat fields in shades of amber and gold that would have made a painter weep. But James didn't see the beauty anymore. He saw the rows where she used to run, her blonde hair streaming behind her like a flag.
"Daddy, look! I'm faster than the wind!"
The memory hit him square in the chest, same as it did every evening when he came out here. He'd promised himself he wouldn't drink tonight. He'd promised himself a hundred times. But promises didn't mean much when you were the only one left to hear them.
James reached into his back pocket and pulled out the photograph. The edges were soft as cloth from years of handling, the image faded in places where his thumb had rubbed away the ink. A little girl with pigtails and a gap-toothed smile sat on his shoulders, her arms wrapped around his forehead, her laughter frozen in time.
Sarah.
He tipped his old brown hat back and stared at the sky, watching the first stars begin to pierce the deepening blue. Somewhere up there, she was supposed to be. That's what the preacher said at the funeral. "She's in a better place, James. She's with the angels now."
But James had never been much for angels.
"Hey, sweet girl," he said to the photograph, his voice rough and cracked from years of whiskey and silence. "It's been twelve years. Can you believe that? Twelve years since you—" He stopped, unable to finish the sentence even now.
The fire had come fast, they said. A neighbor's hayfield had caught and the wind had carried the flames across three hundred acres in less than an hour. James had been in town picking up parts for the combine. He'd left Sarah with her grandmother, a decision that still ate at him like a cancer.
If I'd been there. If I'd just been there.
The fire had reached the farmhouse before anyone could stop it. His mother-in-law had made it out, but Sarah's room had been on the second floor, and the stairs had collapsed before anyone could reach her.
James pulled the bottle to his lips again, feeling the familiar numbness spread through his limbs. Some nights it helped. Some nights it just made the memories sharper.
"Remember when you caught that frog in the creek?" he said to the photograph, his voice softening. "You named it Sir Hops-a-Lot. Carried it around for three days before your mother made you let it go. You cried for a week."
The wind picked up, rustling through the wheat like whispers. James closed his eyes and let it wash over him.
"Sometimes I think I can still hear you," he confessed. "When the wind blows just right, it sounds like you're laughing."
That was the hardest part, really. Not the photographs, not the memories, not even the guilt. It was the way the world kept going. The way the sun still rose and set, the way the wheat still grew, the way the seasons cycled through as if nothing had been lost.
Everything had been lost.
James had tried to move on. He'd tried to date, tried to talk to a therapist, tried to throw himself into the farm work until his body gave out and he collapsed into bed too exhausted to dream. Nothing worked. Sarah was there in every sunrise, every sunset, every row of wheat. She was there in the creak of the front porch swing and the sound of the screen door slamming.
She was everywhere. And she was nowhere.
"I talk to the sky," he muttered, reciting the words he'd whispered to himself a thousand times. "Like you never said goodbye."
In his mind, he could still hear her voice from that last morning. "Bye, Daddy! Don't forget to bring me a treat from town!"
He'd bought her a candy apple. It had melted in his truck during the fire.
James set the photograph on his knee and looked out across the fields. The tractor idled, casting a warm orange glow over the wheat. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote called out to its pack, the sound lonely and desperate in the growing darkness.
"Twelve years," he said again. "It don't seem real. Not a single day goes by I don't think about you. Not one."
He remembered the feeling of her little hand in his, so small and trusting. He remembered the way she'd run to him every evening when he came home from the fields, her arms open wide, her smile bright enough to light up the whole farm. He remembered her laugh, high and squeaky, the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.
And he remembered the night they'd found her.
"Lord, I wanted to die with you," he confessed to the sky. "I begged God to take me instead. I was on my knees in that cornfield, screaming at the heavens, and I don't think I stopped screaming for three days."
But the screams had eventually stopped. The tears had dried up. The grief had settled into something heavier, something more permanent. It didn't hurt the way it used to, sharp and raw and blinding. Now it was a dull ache, a constant companion, an old scar that throbbed whenever the weather changed.
"Sometimes I think I can feel you," James said, looking at the photograph again. "When the wind blows, I feel it on my face, and I think maybe it's you. Maybe you're out there somewhere, watching over me."
He wished he believed it. He wished he could find comfort in the idea of an afterlife, of angels and reunion and all the beautiful promises the church had offered him. But faith had abandoned him the same night Sarah had, leaving behind only the cold machinery of his grief.
"Still," he said, "you're my girl. That don't change. Nothing changes that."
He tipped his hat back down and opened the whiskey bottle again. The alcohol was warm in his stomach now, spreading through his limbs like a slow fire. He leaned back in the tractor seat and stared up at the stars, letting the memories wash over him.
He remembered Sarah's first steps, how she'd toddled across the kitchen floor and collapsed into his arms. Her first words—"Dada"—had come on a cold February morning while his wife was in the hospital. He'd held that moment like a treasure, the first of many that had made his life worth living.
He remembered her first day of school, how she'd clung to his leg and begged him not to leave. He'd had to peel her off and practically push her through the classroom door, his own eyes burning with unshed tears. She'd come home that afternoon with a crayon drawing of their farm, her smile triumphantly proclaiming: "I made this for you, Daddy!"
He kept that drawing in his nightstand, right next to the photograph.
"God, I miss you," he said, his voice breaking. "I miss you so much it feels like I'm dying every single day."
The coyote called again, closer this time. James barely noticed. He was lost in the past, wandering through memories like a ghost through his own life.
"Remember the apple tree?" he asked the photograph. "The one you fell out of when you were six? Broke your arm in two places. Scared the hell out of me. But you were so brave. You didn't even cry until they put the cast on. And then you cried because they wouldn't let you pick a pink one."
His voice was getting hoarse. He could feel the tears coming, gathering behind his eyes like a storm. He hadn't cried in months, maybe years. He'd convinced himself he was done with tears, that the well had run dry. But it never really did, did it? It was always there, waiting for the right moment to overflow.
"I was supposed to protect you," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "That was my job. My only job. And I failed."
The guilt was the worst part. The whispers that came in the middle of the night, telling him he should have been there, should have come home earlier, should have grabbed her and run. The constant replay of that last morning, wondering what he could have done differently, how he could have changed everything.
"If I could turn that clock back," he said, "I'd run straight through that flame. I'd hold you close and never let go, even if it took me with the pain."
He meant it. He'd never meant anything more in his life.
James looked down at the photograph one last time. Sarah's smile seemed almost mischievous, her eyes bright with the mischief that had gotten her into so much trouble over the years. She'd been such a handful, his little girl. Always running, always climbing, always asking questions he couldn't answer.
And now she was gone, and the silence was killing him.
"I'll see you again someday," he said, even though he wasn't sure he believed it. "I got to believe that. It's the only thing that keeps me going."
He folded the photograph carefully and tucked it back into his pocket. The whiskey bottle was almost empty now. He could feel himself getting tired, the kind of exhaustion that went bone-deep, the kind that sleep never really cured.
The tractor hummed beneath him. The fields stretched out in all directions. The stars wheeled overhead, indifferent to his grief.
James closed his eyes.
"Goodnight, sweet girl," he whispered. "Goodnight."
The wind picked up, rustling through the wheat and carrying his words away into the darkness. Somewhere, in some place he couldn't see, a little girl with blonde pigtails and a gap-toothed smile was laughing.
But James was already asleep, dreaming of a day when the fields wouldn't feel so empty, when the tractor wouldn't remind him of everything he'd lost, when the photograph in his pocket would be a blessing instead of a burden.
Dreaming of a day when he could finally let go.
---
My sweet little girl of mine
Gone before your time
My sweet little girl of mine
Still you never leave my mind
Every night it cuts me down again
Like the day I lost you then
My sweet little girl of mine
You're still mine
