Sunday Kind Of Love

The daddy we knew and loved disappeared from our lives when we were seven. The night mama tucked us into the car and drove away, the world we once knew, was forever gone.

It's near impossible to get lost in a small town so, it didn't take long for daddy to find us and bring us back home.

I don't know what made daddy so angry, I only knew when he was, we were in danger. You knew you were in for it too, because his entire face would change, giving his secret identity away.

He would be smiling and loving on you one minute and the next, his face would turn as hard as a stone, gritting his jaw and spitting as he pushed the words through his teeth. "You are no child of mine," he would scream at me, "your mama is a whore, and you will be no better!" I did my best to push the fear and anger deep down inside me when he wanted to snuggle following his outbursts. Those were the only times I got to see the daddy I knew and loved, and I would do nearly anything to keep him.

Mama would try her best to reason with him. She had become an expert at calming him down, at least in the beginning, it was easy for her. He would melt into her arms, as she sang him his favorite song. (A Sunday kind of love.) She had the sweetest, softest voice we had ever heard. She was like an angel. We would hide at the top of the stairs and watch her chase the devil off into the night. In those moments, we felt as safe as a turtle tucked up tight in his shell.

But those moments never lasted.

Daddy didn't know how to be happy, well that's what mama would tell us. She told us that he needed us to do our best to make sure he had all the reasons in the world to smile and find his happy. He was like a child, losing a toy and throwing a fit about it all the time. We never knew which daddy we were gonna get.

To this day, I hate surprises.

He came home early from work one day and found mama sitting in the sun with us. We had been picking in the garden all morning and was taking a break when he grabbed her off of that blanket and drug her screaming into the house. We tried to stop him, but he snapped his belt at us and warned us not to come inside. He said, he and mama had some talking to do. We heard mama scream for a moment and then, it was all quiet.

The neighbor man led the police into the house, while they were gone, his wife stayed and sat with us on mama's blanket.

As the policeman was taking daddy away, he stopped for a moment and just stared at us. He started to hum that song mama sang to calm him down, and then, walked away. We never saw mama again.

"Okay, my tears need a minute to find the edges of my face. If you'll please excuse me."

It would be years later until I understood what mama sacrificed for us that day. I rarely ever think of daddy, but, when I do, I remember that he left us long before the police came.

*

Here we are at the end of the world, with our hope in your hands and our fate in your eyes. Standing on the promise that we would always be together.

But without hope, who wants to live forever?

He promised us a Sunday kind of love, I will never know if it was his intention to lie

**

Author's Notes: Word count: 651

This microfiction is written for Munson's Microfiction Unofficial Challenge.