He reached outandlaid a hand on my shoulder, never looking at me. Suddenly, I was nine again. Emma’s dad took us to the schoolfair,and I was green with envy over how cool my new friend’s dad was.My new friend’s dad,with histowering height and deep voice,reminded me of PaulBunyan. Hetook usto the fair, but also insisted oncomingwith. Emma complained he never let her do anything on her own, but I thought it was nice.When we got too rambunctious horsing around andscreaming,he would calmly tell us to knock it off. At first, I wasterrifiedwe’dmade him angry but soon Ifollowed Emma’s lead. She didn’t cringe in his presence or walk on eggshells because he might fly off the handle and give her a smack.
That nightEmmacomplainedhewasslowingus downby never letting us out of his sight.At one point,Emma shook him off andran to go get a closer look at a game whereplayers threwpennies into cups.
Before I could follow Emma, my eye caught on two women over by a cotton candy stand.From their urgent whispers andeyes shootingpiteouslooks at me, Iinstinctually knewtheyweretalking aboutmy parents. My heart stopped in my chest as the memory of my mother’s cries carried through the closet door slates where I stood, paralyzed with fear, watching my father continue to hit herin an unrelenting rage.I couldn’t close my eyes, couldn’t cover my ears, I could only watch, paralyzed in horror in the closet.
Mr. Smithcame to stand next to me, and it was then I realized Ihad stopped dead in my tracks.He first lookedat me, then at the two women. He shot thema menacing look that sent them scurrying away.
Emma cried out for me to come over and see, her eyes still fixated on the stuffed prizes.
But I couldn’t move, stuck in the loop of horror and shame that everyone knew the worst thing about my family.Mr. Smithdidn’t push me forward, he justcontinued to stand there with me.
“Would you like to see if you can win the big stuffedScoobyDoo?” he finally asked.
I focused on theScoobyDoohanging up over the booth. I likedhis big silly grin and thought of what it would feel like to win him and carry him home, victorious. I nodded.
“Okay then,” Mr. Smith said, holding his hand out for me to take. I stared at it for a moment, while Emma continued to call me over, getting more impatient by the minute. Finally, Islipped my hand into his, my heart clenched with icy fear that he would shake my hand off.I desperately needed him to hold my hand in that moment,and he somehow knew it.Completely covering my hand in his,Igot asmall taste ofthewarmth and safetyonly a parent couldprovide.My mom used to hold my hand and make me feel that way. But she was gone, forever.
We started walking and he saidto mein a low voice, “Don’t let any of those people bother you.You are not where you came from. You don't have to let it define you.”I must have looked confused because he added, “You can be anyone you want to be. Right now.”
“Can I be Wonder Woman?”
He smiled. “Yes, now you areWonder Woman.”
I liked that. Wonder Woman didn’t take crap from anybody. I liked her lasso of truth and wished I had an invisible jet to take me far awaywhenever I needed. Puffing out my chest, Ibeganwalkinglike the superhero Iwas.
When Emma turned aroundas we neared, I dropped her dad’shand quickly and wipedmineagainst the thigh of my ripped jeans.Despite my new superhero persona,I felt as though I’d done something wrong by wanting attentionfrom someone else’s parent.
I made sure to never let myself envy Emma for hernicedad.But after that day, Emma’s dad wouldpatme on the back or on the head whenever he walked by us as we were playing. I would squirm away, as if irritated. But I soaked upsilent, fatherly approvaland it went into the bottomless pit inside of me.
Mr. Smith’s face had turned red from the cold.“I’m so sorryKrystan. Your grandmother was always—”
“A crazy kook?” I said, stomping on his sentimentality like an annoying flame that needed to be put out.
He smiled knowinglyas he dropped his hand. “Yes.” Looking back overthe snow covered in tracks from our feet and what was likely some deer and rabbits, he said. “I’ll miss that crazy hat she wore. The one with the stuffed goose?”
“It was a duck,” I said, a smile forming on my mouth though my heart hurt.
Mr. Smithbent down and picked up a small branch. “Diana taught me everything happens for a reason, and we need to lean into what is happening with open eyes and a receptive heart.”
“I didn’t know you married a hippie.” I snorted.
When I caught the dad glare, I shrunk inside, but pretended it didn’t affect me. Mr. Smith could be downright scary if he wanted to be, in the way only a dad could manage.It was a deep disapproval that made you thinkof everything you’ve ever donewrong, without him saying a word.
“I don’t think that’s true.” I said, going back on my earlier words.“Emma shouldn’t have died. It’s not the same without her.The world needs her.”
“We don’t choose when we leave this world, but you are stillhereand she would be happy about that.”
I scoffed. “I’m just some crappy sidekick. Emma was the real hero. It should have been me who died that day.”
Mr. Smith laughed,actually laughed. “You were never Emma’s sidekick. You certainly had different ways of doing things, but it sounds like you’vebeen throughplenty of heroics yourself.”
“I’m just a crazy bitch with a bat, swinging it around and causing more problems than I started out with.”
“Do you remember when Emmatore apart her room her senior year of high school?It was close to finals and she didn’t know what she was going to do after graduation.”
She’d been a total nut about graduation. Typical type A, Emma couldn’t decide on which college to apply to, which major she should choose, what the rest of her life should look like. If she didn’t get it right the first time, her whole future would be ruined.I nodded, remembering her meltdown.
He said,“I walked into her room, and it was like an explosion had hit.Then she went into a panic that everything was a mess, she couldn’t find her homework or the clothes she needed. She didn’t make any headway on the mess for three long days. It was times like those I truly missed her mother. Because I would have left that situation to Diana sofastif I could have,but I didn’t have anyone.Then you came over. Do you remember what you said?”
