Wednesday again and time for Friday Fictioneers. The weekly foray into mischief and mayhem, murder and melancholy. Each week 100 + people battle the elements of language and grammar to get jiggy with their creativity. A 100 words of flash fiction based on the photo prompt provided. Follow the link and give it a go…
“It’s not forever, 6 months at the most”.
“I know”
He lowered his head and I raised mine just a fraction. Instead of the hunger I was craving, his lips brushed the top of my hair. It was an emotionless gesture, cold. It broke my heart in two.
“Will you write?”
“If I get chance”
“I’ll write everyday” I whispered.
He smiled weakly.
I felt him move back, stepping away. My hands lowered across my increasing middle. He looked, swallowed, and turned away.
Thirty years later I watched my daughter board a plane to meet the father she’d never known. My heart broke again.
helen midgley 
Wow! I like this. Too real for a lot of people, too. You ended it perfectly. Very taught.
Bravos all around!
Thank you 🙂
Airplanes is about parting.. And one wonder if all could have been different..
Such a sad story. Here’s hoping the daughter would dislike him for the desertion.
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
This was really good. You almost made me cry.
Thank you, glad you liked, but not that you almost cried 😉
some distances have to be bridged.
And others, tolerated.
nice story. randy
This was very poignant. Bad enough, I should think, to cope with having been rejected but to have your daughter welcomed, or for her even to want to meet the person who’d rejected both her and her mother … well that would take a bigger person than I am, sadly. This is a stark concept that you handled really well here, Helen. Good piece.
Thanks Sandra 🙂
Great stuff – full of intrigue and emotion. Perfectly captured in 100 words. Bravo.
I wonder what his name was though 😉
What a cad! I’m not liking him at all. Great story.
Its a shame the cad always gets the girl, but the girl never gets the cad 😉
Dear Helen,
You’ve turned the heartbreak up a couple of niches with this story. Very well done.
Aloha,
Doug
Heartache is good, well in small doses anyway, thanks for reading 🙂
Dear Helen,
And my heart broke with hers…twice. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Really moving tale.
Ugh! What a cad! Well done! You, not him….
Still, I can feel the want of a daughter to know her father.
Helen – you have put so much emotion in those 100 words, I felt like standing with her – on both the occasions, with moist eyes !
An absentee father is better than a poor example of one. I hope she sees that when they meet.
If he’d leave her like that he wasn’t worth the heartbreak!
Life and it’s little twists and turns…what else can we do but try to survive. Well written, Helen.
Helen, That would be heartbreaking. Let’s hope he’s changed over the years as some people do. The girl does have a right to meet her father. At the same time, she knows what he did. Maybe he’s dying and wants to meet her before he does. Well written as usual. 🙂 —Susan
Oh, heartbreak and anguish, you’ve done it again! So sad. Why can’t it just work out. Great story, Helen.
Thanks Amy 🙂
Dear Helen, What a wonderful short story that felt like a lifetime! Excellent writing and I am sure this has happened so many times – but darn it all, the stinker still gets to meet his daughter? If it was my mom that he had abandoned, he would have to come to me and then I would consider whether or not to meet him. Great story Helen, you are a very talented author! Nan 🙂
Thanks Nan, I like challenging myself to come up with different angles each week 🙂
This is very a sad story. Very well written.
Not sure I would be too happy with this scenario. Hopefully the daughter has all the background to her mother’s life and will make up her own mind about her father, when she eventually meets him for the first time.
Sensitive and well written,as always
Dee
Thanks Dee 🙂
That was a beautifully told story!