The Grim Reaper’s Mate

It was already getting dark. The sun was casting its last hues of pink and purple across the cloudless sky. If I had to travel across this foreign land for days on end, at least it was beautiful. My father is a tradesman by title, but I knew he was more than that. He met with too many important people to simply be a normal tradesman. Not to mention the money we had. It was enough to employ security, travel in luxury, and dine with the elite. I wore expensive clothing gifted to me regularly by my father. I asked no questions though I had my suspicions that his work was nothing less than illegal activity. He never allowed me to go anywhere alone and had security monitor my every step. I was satisfied enough with the life of a privileged rich girl, regardless of the circumstances that allowed that life. It was better than living under the oppression of poverty, which was what my father’s job as a tradesman should have earned him. We were poor until my mother had an affair with a wealthy man and ran off to live a life of luxury with him. She was beautiful and always felt that her beauty was wasted in her poverty with my father and with me. She never made it a secret that she loved my father but hated his low income and position. Eventually, her greed overcame her love and drove her into the arms of another man. Not long after that, my father became quickly and suspiciously wealthy. He gathered up what mattered the most to him: me as his only daughter, his sterling silver wedding band, a few pictures, a teacup left to me by his mother, and a pocket knife from his father, and left our old life behind. That was it. Pretty much our only valuable worldly goods before he moved us into an opulent mansion that I couldn't figure out how we could afford. Suddenly I was being fitted for silk and fur and lace and the finest clothes money could buy. I was literally a girl who went from rags to riches. My father became a changed man as well. When I was young and my mother was home, he was gentle and kind. He always had the warmest smile and the deepest laugh. I loved snuggling into his lap on especially cold nights after dinner and listening to him tell stories about our ancestors while I slowly sank into a warm and comfortable slumber. That was the father I remember and cherish. The man sitting beside me now in the back of this stuffy limo is a shell of the man I once knew. This man rarely smiles. He rarely relaxes. His eyes are always darting about as though there are demons behind every tree eagerly waiting to drag him into Hell. He looks scared and tired. My heart breaks for him as a man, but I don’t feel anything for him as my father. The father I knew died many years ago. This man may look like my father, and by blood, is indeed my father, but he’s all that is left of a man who has over many years lost his way. I mourned the loss of that man that he once was. When I first saw him murder someone in cold blood, I knew this man sitting beside me had long since lost his soul. The father I knew could never kill an innocent maid who simply forgot to deliver a phone message to him. This man, however, beat her to death in cold blood and had her body buried in the back yard as a warning to the others to never disappoint him. I liked that maid. She was young like me and sweet. She was someone to talk to, and she kept me company during all the meals I ate alone. Her mother was ill, and she was only working to get her mother proper medical care. After her beat her to death, my father didn't even have the decency to send a servant to her mother to let her know her daughter had died. I visited her mother in secret, told her what happened, and gave her money and jewelry to try and help her with her bills after her daughter’s death. Of course, security came with me, and it was all reported to my father. He confronted me about it, and I boldly confessed without incident. He didn’t say anything, which was scarier than if he’d just yelled at me. Instead, he pretty much cut me out of his life, only spending time with me when he dragged me along on business trips like this one so he could keep an eye on me. The maid's mother died not long after her daughter. I was the only one who attended her memorial at the hospital. Since that time when I showed kindness to someone whom he had wronged, I was no longer his daughter, and, as far as I was concerned, he was no longer my father. I had crossed some invisible line, and I’m still not sure what exactly I did that was so wrong. I got my kindness and compassion from him. At least, the old him. The new him had no compassion, no empathy, no trust, and not a shred of goodness. “Christine,” his voice shook me from my memories, and I realized the sunset I had long been staring at had disappeared to give way to night. “We will stop and make camp here tonight. We have a little further to go, but I am tired and need to rest.” “Whatever you wish, sir,” I responded quietly. I never called him my father any longer. Just respectfully ‘sir’ as I didn’t really want to be associated with him, but I also didn't want to ruffle his feathers. I didn't want to be the next unlucky person in his way. One of my favorite parts of traveling through the country was our ‘camping’ nights. We had luxury tents, which were more like portable houses, that were set up for us quickly while we were given a delicious dinner in the limo. The tents were so nice they even had doors leading into them rather than zipper flaps. I loved the smell of the outdoors and the feel of sleeping on a cot. It felt like returning to my cozy, dilapidated home after many years away. My happy home from my early life when I slept on a cot next to a window with no glass and fell asleep encompassed in the calm night air. Perhaps I had romanticized those hard, hungry times in my mind, but they're all the good memories I have left. I am looking forward to tonight.