FATHER ALWAYS SMILING

My Dad is always smiling.

Smiling when saying good morning to me. Smiling when cooking breakfast. Smiling when greeting the neighbours. Smiling when taking me to school. Smiling when going to his job. Smiling when saying goodnight to me.

Smiling.

Smiling.

Smiling.

Always smiling.

He even smiled at Mom’s funeral. She wasn’t dead, had been labelled as missing. People assumed that she ran away with another man since she seemed the type. Many people often do that, assuming, I mean. My Mom’s funeral was just this summer when the police said my mother was dead; it had been well over four years and no sign. The coffin was empty. No one was inside, no one at all. Everyone knew that but acted like she was, I couldn’t understand. Those who attended would look to him, for my Dad didn’t cry, everyone thought that he was hiding his tears with his smile. He wasn’t.

He wasn’t sad.

My Mom wasn’t a good person, not really. In public, she would often look to be cheery and caring for those around her. But behind closed doors, she was mean. Its the best way I can call it. She was mean to me, to my Dad, especially my Dad. She hated his smile, yet he just kept smiling all the while she would shout and yell at him; she’d never hit him, just yell bad things. And he would just keep smiling through it all.

It scared me. It wasn’t normal.

He always told me that it was better to face the world with a smile, that no matter what stage you were on, you could take it, that you should never let the mask fall, no matter what.

I couldn’t understand what he meant.

My Mom didn’t seem to like me much either. I looked nothing like my Mom. I look a lot like my Dad, we both have the same hair colour, medium brown, grey eyes and relatively pale skin, while my Mom had black curled hair and tanned skin from always in the sun. She always looked at me as if I was gross.

At least from what little I could remember of her.

When I was three, that was the last time I ever saw my Mom.

It was a typical day, like any other, when she just… changed. There was no warning; it was sudden where she became scary. And there was nothing that three-year-old me could do. All I could do was lie there with her hands around my throat. I thought that would be it, that I was done and dusted just like that.

Only to find myself waking up in my room with bandages on my neck with my Dad looking after me. When I was able to find my voice, I asked what happened to her.

He simply responded. “She’s gone.” With his back facing me. I couldn’t see his expression.

I couldn’t understand what that meant. I thought my Mom had just left; that’s what my Dad said to me, and even the police officers who came by not long after.

I didn’t know at the time since I was little.

I remember being talked to by a lady from a part of the Government called Child Protective Services. More men and women dressed in dark blue, I later came to learn that they were police, and even my grandparents came too, my mother’s parents. My grandparents felt to blame given my Mom’s bully-like behaviour if you could call it that.

They were at the funeral; they too didn’t cry; they looked disappointed and relieved. During the beginning of the funeral, my grandfather went to talk with my Dad, as my grandmother knelt to me and told me that they would always be there for support, their support turned out to be money. Lots and lots of money.

My grandparents are very influential in the city that we live in as my Mom, their daughter, was known for being the life of the party and always loved watching performances: musicals, plays, anything.

While my Dad is known for being a well-liked radio talk show host, but before that, he used to be an actor on the stage. He left it for a different kind of stage when I came around as he always put it.

I always wondered if my Mom somehow trapped my Dad and that it was somehow my fault that he could no longer do what he loved, but he would always say:

“Never think you are to blame when you had no say. You will always be the greatest joy in my life. No matter what the outcome is of whatever happens. Know that you will be the only person whom I will never hate, no matter what you do in life.”

As the funeral ended, my Dad thanked those who offered their condolences to connecting family and us. When it was just the two of us left in the church’s graveyard, my Dad held out his hand to me, and I took it. He led me through the cemetery and back to the car and then took us to a bakery, where he allowed me to pick whichever I wished to have. I asked him if he meant that, he said yes, so I asked for the chocolate pumpkin-swirled cheesecake. Since it had two of my favourite things, chocolate and pumpkin, it was either that or the butterscotch pie but had sold out earlier that day.

I felt his hand stroking my hair, smiling, before asking the person at the front to buy it.

As we drove home, my Dad played music from the 1930s, humming along all the way. And when we got home, I noticed that the for-sale sign for our neighbour across the street was gone. I wondered if someone would move in or if the sign was just gone for a while since it happened a few months ago. My Dad noticed this as well and said with a smile.

“Perhaps we’ll finally get someone new; it’s been a long time since we’ve had anyone live across from us.” He then handed me the keys to our house. “Could you unlock the door for me, Sweetie? I need to get the things out of the car.”

“I can carry something,” I offered.

He just smiled gently. “No, no, no. It’s okay. It’s not much. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay.” I took the keys from him and headed towards the house, looking back to see him looking at the empty home, that smile never leaving his face as he looked at it.

I wondered briefly as to why since it was empty for over two years.

The house across the street used to belong to Mrs. Jackson; she was a mean old lady who seemed to have it out for the world. I always thought she was just lonely and tried to cheer her up and be nice, but she never liked that. Hit me once too and called me a word I never heard before. A little bitch.

I had no idea what that word meant, and asked my Dad where he became still before he knelt to my level and gently told me that I should never say that word again, that it was terrible. And that even if adults say it, a proper adult should never like him and I should never say that word again. When I agreed, he went to talk to Mrs. Jackson. I watched from the window in my bedroom of the old woman yelling at my Dad before hitting him as she did to me, calling him all sorts of nasty names.

When he returned, he made me my favourite dessert, which he always made me whenever I felt sad or had a bad day. It was Icelandic Chocolate Porridge; it was his Mom’s recipe. It always made me feel better and would always make me feel sleepy, too, in a good way.

Not long after that, Mrs. Jackson was never seen again. She just disappeared without a trace. Police were called, but nothing was found. It was in the news for a little while. Not long after that, the house was put up for sale, as her belongings were put into storage.

I looked away from him and unlocked the door, entering our house. And just like he said, my Dad was right behind me, the door closing from behind from the shift in his heel. I placed the keys on the small table by the front door and stepped out of the way while doing so as he made quick strides towards the kitchen as I began to head to my room upstairs.

“Amalie,” he says my name before I had the chance even to go up three steps. “Come here for a second.”

I slowly go back down and into the kitchen, where my Dad had placed the cake on the kitchen’s counter as he had removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves to get ready to make dinner while he still wore his vest and tie. It was how he always dressed, funeral or not.

“Yes, Dad?” I asked him.

He knelt to my level, readjusted the black bow of my blouse and asked. “Would you smile for me?”

Without a moment gone by, I smiled brightly.

His smile grew as he lightly squished my cheeks before kissing my forehead. “Good girl,” he then stood up and made his way to the fridge. “Now go and relax, I’ll call you when dinner is ready, okay?”

“Okay,” I left the kitchen, only to pause by the stairs to the basement door. It had a lock on it, the heavy kind with nine buttons in rows of three. It had been there for as long as I could remember. I glanced back to him as he hummed before heading up the stairs to my room.

My bedroom was painted in a mix of blue and white colours, while my furniture was all of a dark kind of wood, with the covers and pillows of my bed were black with gold stars. Stars were also painted on the ceiling, all done by my Dad when I was really little.

I walked further into my room and fell back onto my bed, face down. On my dresser was a photo of my Dad and me. I had several at this point of just the two of us, none of my Mom. Like she didn’t exist anymore.

In every photo with my Dad, he was smiling.

In. Every. Photo. He’s always smiling.

I love my Dad. I do.

But there are times…

Certain times that he becomes… scary.

Scary.

Scary.

Scary.

Even when he’s smiling.

I can tell the difference; I am his daughter, after all, when I watched him as the empty coffin lowered into the cold dark ground. He smiled as it went. He smiled because he was happy.

Happy, because she was dead.

Happy that he killed her.

At least, that’s what I believe...