Inspired

My dad likes to hold me close to his chest. I can count on it at least three times every day, usually more often.

I like it there because it is warm, and he smells like soap or sweat, depending on the time of day. Best of all, I love to hear his heart thump. I'm in my best place when I hear it.

His heart plays different songs depending on how he's feeling. The hug I get before bed sounds like a throb—a slow and steady engine easing into the station. The one I get in the morning when he drops me off for school is quicker, ramping up. When he picks me up, there's joy there. His heart sings as it works.

Lately he holds me more often and I know he tries to hide his face by holding me too close to see. I hear fear in his heart. Fear sounds like a single cello string, plucked hard and fast, with a soft sucking noise behind that really isn't his heart at all. It's his breath. I breathe like that when I'm trying not to cry.

I hear the fear heart too much. I don't like it, but I feel better when I hear it. I wish I knew why he is afraid. I wish I could help him. I know things haven't been easy with money and food and he's trying so hard and nothing goes the way it should, sort of like the Alexander days I read about in this book that I want to show him because it says some days are like that. They won't all be that way all the time. Still, they've been hard enough long enough to scare Mom away and she was crying and I can't ask when she'll be back, because I'm afraid he'll say never. As long as I hear his heart, I know I haven't scared him away. Sometimes I sit at my desk and try to draw pictures, or letters, and all I can think of is what another heart might sound like—a stranger's heart—and I can't imagine it at all. Everything inside me goes dark and still. That's when I pray. I don't know what else to do. I try to imagine the other heart songs and wonder if I choose one, will it be today that I hear it?

There he is! What is he doing here at this time of day? He shouldn't be here for hours. His face is mixed up, his cheeks full of wet streaks but sparks in his eyes and a big smile. I suck in a deep breath as he reaches for me, because I can tell this hug is going to squeeze the life out of me, but I'm ready. Ready to feel, ready to listen to what his heart will tell me.

It's dancing. I've never heard it race so fast, or pump so strong. It's full of life and hope, like a circus. I don't care if I ever breathe again, except I want to remember this sound and play it the next time I'm feeling dark and still and I need a prayer to work.