One Step Forward

By Corona

When I pushed the door open, a bright smile on my daughter’s face bumped into my sight. Instead of offering her a warm embrace, I dropped down my briefcase subconsciously in a flash.

Is she literally my daughter? I wondered inwardly. I meticulously scanned her face again and again. She was in a clean T-shirt. She had the pupil and hair of identical color compared to my daughter’s; she had the scar on her mouth which Annie got while scuffling with her classmates; she even had the small dark birthmark under Annie’s canthus as well.

That’s my daughter. I heaved a small sigh of relief.

But here’s new problem: how came she smiled to me?

With this question reverberating in my mind, I kept silent as usual. The house was filled with awkward stillness. Unlike my expressionless face that was still in the air, a multitude of thoughts had been made inside: Annie hadn’t been so happy at least in front of me for months. Perhaps she had really a good day at school. Maybe she was reconciled with some of her classmates...

I forced myself to stop looking at this smiling face. It seemed so unreal and intact, but still attractive. An ambivalent attitude crammed into my heart. To be honest, as long as I stared at this innocent cheek, I started to feel guilty about myself.

I knew I was an incompetent mother. Of course I was.

Her father and I got divorced. I hadn’t gained the custody of her until her father passed away. After that, I always had troubles communicating with her. I could have thousands of heated debates with my colleagues and act calmly to explain myself when getting inveighed by my boss, but when it came to my daughter, I didn’t know how to confront her alone. So I kept silent as usual.

Under normal circumstances, Annie would stay reticent likewise, then returned to her bedroom to finish her own business, as a wounded bird went back to her nest quietly. That’s what I was familiar with though felt pained to. But the joyful robin suddenly flew out of the cage today, replacing that previously silent bird. She chirped cheerfully to me about what happened in school.

We stood in front of each other with little distance. I got lost in her voice which gradually floated away to the sky, as I started to immerse in a trance. I had never experienced a scene like this. It was so far away, like if I blink too hard, all this would fade away.

I burst into happiness without sense of reality. One tiny change stepped forward by either one of us, could avoid numerous fights and quarrels in the future. But no one dared to take the step. Now my daughter had the guts to communicate with me, and we finally had the embryonic form of a normal cozy family. Maybe I should move forward as well. I bend my body slightly forward, tentatively patting her shoulder. While I was filled with anxiety as well as contentment, a sort of peculiar feeling slowly grew from my rational part. I couldn’t tell, but my instinct told me something was definitely wrong. I subconsciously looked up at the mirror: a sedate mother bend over to touch her daughter. Despite the mother’s rigid motion, everything was that ordinary, I attempted to convince myself.

A striking thought struck me like lightning: Why I needed to bend over to pat Annie’s shoulder? Hadn’t she grown taller than me?

I quickly moved my hand from her shoulder, backed against wall, terrified. In her nervous eyes, my head begun to ache and sight were starting to blur. In a trance, not only her screaming came into my ears, but also the mature version of her voice that faintly whispered.

Out of trance, I found myself in her organized bedroom. I stared still at the worried face in front of me. She looked exactly like my daughter in her childhood. I was so confused. But some part of my mind tried to believe that she was actually my daughter when she was small. Maybe I went to the past, and God provided me with an opportunity to compensate my mistakes? This unscientific and insane idea made me ecstatic.

Just a minute. Let me immerse in this fantasy for just a minute. Laid on the bed, I grabbed her hand and attentively looking at her. A few minutes later, after I rethought about every detail, I poured out all my real feelings to her the first time in my life. I apologized to her about that time I misinterpreted about the fighting in class when she was actually trying to leap to my defense; I felt sorry for spending so much time on work...And how I failed to express my love. Finishing the pent-up feelings in one breath, I suddenly felt much better.

So, the rehearsal was over. Now was time for me to wake up from this dream and apologize to my daughter in the reality.

Waking up in the hospital, I immediately saw her haggard face. She told me that I encountered a car crash and had been in a comma for days. Then she became silent again. A ray of sunshine fell into the ward. The sun rose upon the sky, and we both turned heads to look at it. Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched her shining face. One minute later, I would be the one who take the step forward in the reality. By the way, let me explain how did I realize this was a dream?

Well, the daughter in the dream was way too perfect in an unreal way. My daughter always got stains on her T-shirt. She never tidied up her room.She never shared her school life with me...The clean outfit, the organized bedroom and so on were all just my ideal expectations towards her, but my daughter, the girl I Ioved was an animated person with flaws.