Tears In Heaven

Mommy looks just like an angel. She said she would be one soon and tells me not to be sad because she'll be looking over me where God is.

"I won't be able to teach you the things my mommy taught me, and the things her momma taught her," her dry hands felt soft on my cheek, "but maybe some day you'll have a new Mommy. Someone who can make your daddy smile again." She gazed at him from her hospital bed. He wanted to speak but choked back tears instead.

"But can't I make Daddy smile?"

It's been a year and a half, my memory of her is like air. I don't know if it's real or what I think I remember when I read the letters she left behind. He wouldn't look at me anymore. "You look just like your mother," he used to say, before Mommy went to Heaven. His thin dark-brown hair, her olive green eyes.

That was until First Grade when we met my teacher, "Mr. Martin, but you can call me Connor," he said to Daddy. He grinned and asked if there was a Missus Martin but Mr. Martin said 'No' and flashed that smile of his. He was a lot smaller than Daddy's towering, protective frame. Delicate and beautiful, like a prince from a fairytale.

One day we got a call from Mister Martin. I was afraid. I didn't do anything wrong. Did he know about how I thought Patricia Kelly was a fat liar for trading me half a tube of lipstick for a strawberry Go-Gurt, and how I sold it to Jenny Lugo for a bag of Cheetos?

Daddy laughed and said not to worry and that Mr. Martin wanted to meet for a parent-teacher conference next Tuesday and "you can go to your friend Patricia's house after school that day" if I don't want to go with him, but I think he just wanted to talk to Mr. Martin alone.

The parent-teacher conference turned out to be at our house and Daddy asked Mr. Martin to stay for dinner. He said we are all friends now and Mr. Martin asks if that's okay with me. I say yes because now I get to brag to Patricia Kelly because yesterday she made fun of my freckles and said that each of my freckles are the number of people who think I'm ugly.

He listens when I talk now, especially about school and Mr. Martin. On Sundays, we go to the harbor and buy cookies with three colors, like we did before Mommy went to Heaven. He hugged me and says sorry and tells me I don't have to worry about making him smile and that he would do anything to make me happy. I ask him if I make him happy, he says always. I ask him if Mr. Martin makes him happy. He chuckles and I scream at the sight of a sand-crab crawling all over my foot which just makes him laugh more.

By the time I was in second grade, Mr. Martin was still visiting for parent-teacher conferences which still scared me. Did he know about the frog me and Sydney Rea put on Patricia Kelly's seat at lunch? Daddy laughed at this and asked where we even found the frog.

I started hearing ghosts at night that sounded like Daddy and Mr. Martin. When I told Mr. Martin this, he turned red like Snow White's cheeks on the sticker I got from class that day.

"Will Mister Martin be my new Mommy?" I asked when we went to the dinosaur museum by the park. Daddy laughed and hugged me and said even if that happened don't ever forget your Mommy.

I started being nice to Patricia when I heard her aunt was taking her and her friends to Libby's for her birthday. Within two days, I was Patricia's new Best Friend. As we painted each other's nails in the glittery pink Libby Loo Director's Chair, I told her about Mr. Martin and how I wanted him to be my new Mommy. She stuck up her nose and said I was an idiot because he can't be my mommy because he's a boy and he has a penis. I didn't know what that is but we stopped being friends after that.

Mr. Martin, but he says to call him Connor now, started living with us that summer and took us to the countryside to see the fireworks during the Fourth of July. There were cows and sheep and pigs like that book we read in kindergarten. He taught me the things his mommy taught him, like how to make pumpkin pie and cookies that smelled like Christmas and we counted the stars and drank hot cocoa while Daddy watched the News on TV.

We plant Baby's Breath and Hydrangeas on Mommy's birthday; they were her favorite. This year, Daddy stops by them when he's alone. He smiles and says "Thank you for loving me. I'll let you go now." I don't know who he's talking to but I don't ask.

I keep her picture in the locket Connor gave me for my birthday in the winter. The rest of her pictures and letters are in a flowery box by my window. I'll look at them every so often and try to remember. I can't remember clearly, but I won't ever forget.