Up in the Stars

Body and Soul

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She doesn't remember much of her life before him.

Vague vignettes of a loud television in a rundown apartment.

Hunger pains and a woman who never smiled.

Enid has no recollection of the time in between, when she lived in the adoption agency.

To her, her life began the day he walked into the room.

William McCarthy was tall and warm and kind and he bought her an ice cream cone.

Didn't stare at her when she used long words or asked too many questions.

Talked to her like she was a big girl rather than a pesky five-year-old like the other children in the home did.

She liked him.

He had taken her away, promised her a fairytale.

He gave her a family.

Enid had wanted for nothing after that.

They spent days adventuring in the woods, fighting off imaginary monsters with twigs.

Her father would whistle as they paraded through the woods, holding branches out of the way for her to pass through.

They'd return to their villa with weary bones and ever glowing smiles.

Fiona would playfully admonish them for the dirt streaked across their clothes and faces.

All the staff at the villa adored her.

The chefs would sneak her extra sweets after dinner, the maids would push her around on their vacuums.

She lived like a princess.

Her favorite part of her new life was bedtime.

Fiona would run her a bubble bath and work the woods out of her hair.

Then she'd snuggle up in her bed with her father.

They often wore matching pajama sets.

He'd read her a bedtime story or three, depending on how sleepy she was.

Enid has soft, hazy memories of forehead kisses and nightlights illuminating the room.

Some nights she could not sleep, plagued by nightmares of tattooed men with rotting teeth.

William would bundle her up in her blankets and take her outside onto the balcony.

He'd point to the sky and teach her the stars.

"Each and every one of those little lights has a story. Their history has been debated for thousands of years. The Greeks believed they were put there by the immortals..."

He'd gift her the milky way until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

He managed her sometimes rocky preteen years with surprising grace.

Had hugged her gently when she got her first period, but stepped aside for Fiona to teach the specifics.

He'd taught her that being a girl was powerful.

That she was a treasure, that she was strong.

He taught her to be kind above all else.

To give love to every human, no matter who they are.