My Little Beauty Bee: A Short Story

“Hi, my little Beauty Bee! How was the first day of second grade?” “It was okay, daddy. I guess I have to present a class project at the end of the year. I don’t want to. It’s a lot of work. And it’s worth a lot of our grade.” “Yeah, what about?” “Uh… a family tree type thing. I have to list family members and then say something about them. I really don’t want to do it… I’m scared.” “Really? That won’t be too bad, darling. Pretend I am there with you, just like we are now, and when you talk to the class, it’ll be just as if we were carrying on a conversation with each other,” he said with his legendary “sincere” smile and a bit of excitement.
“But dad, if I talk to the class like I talk to you and you’re not there, they’ll be confused!” “Okay, Fancy Ant, you’ve got a point,” he tapped his pointer finger on his upper lip and looked up to the ceiling as if he was thinking hard, “How about if I’m a fly on the wall?” Little did I know, this conversation would be

For the first time since the bad news, I was actually excited! I barely contained myself when my grandmother allowed me to be the one who could look through his things. I rummaged through his suitcases, searching for any clues of where he could have gone. I smelled his t-shirts, taking in the musty smell of cologne he liked to wear. I dumped all of the clothes on the floor to look through them better. There wasn’t anything. Then all of a sudden, I found a letter that happened to be addressed to me in one of the side pockets. I hesitated to open it at first because it was like time stood still for that moment; it felt like my dad never disappeared. I imagined that he would tell me what his plans were down there and every detail of why he left me. I opened it as carefully as I could because if that letter truly was the last memento I had of my father, I wanted to keep it the exact way he had it for forever. It