DAD enters Trinity’s bedroom, carrying his six-year-old in his arms and putting her down in bed. The light is dim. As he is covering her –
DAD
Nighty night.
TRINITY
Tell me a story, please.
DAD
Oh, Sweetheart, it’s too late.
We got a late start tonight,
and I’m tired.
TRINITY
You said that last night, Daddy.
And promised me a story tonight.
Remember?
“Come what may. Come what might.”
Remember?
Please?…
DAD
Did I?
TRINITY
Yes, you did. And it’s a debt unpaid.
And you know what you say about debts unpaid.
DAD
Okay, Sweetie. You win….
[beat] Once upon a time ….
Not all that long ago, actually,
when your mother lived on a farm,
before she and I met …
TRINITY
It was Destiny, Daddy, wasn’t it? Like you always say.
DAD
It was our debt unpaid to the world, to have you, who was our real Destiny.
Lucky you didn’t get named that.
TRINITY
Why if Destiny is destiny, isn’t it always good and happy? Shouldn’t it be?
DAD
Well, yes, you might say that.
Anyway, when your mother was about your age …
TRINITY
Six?
DAD
About six. Maybe seven. Maybe eight.
TRINITY
Which?
DAD
Eight. But that’s close enough, for my story, okay?
TRINITY
Okay.
DAD
Near her farm, just a few fields and miles away, there was a lake.
It was a most mysterious lake. Water like you’d never see anywhere in the world.
Crystal clear. Like a clear blue icicle.
Swans swam in it. And next to it was a meadow, and not far, a dark woods….
There were scary stories about those woods. Kids were scared to go in.
Tales how little people living there could turn you into rabbits and deer, and sometimes even snakes, if you ever found out where their hidden treasure was.
Kids they said went in there, and never were seen again.
Like a neighbor girl, who was eighteen when she disappeared.
And they said she was lost forever, in those woods, and her boyfriend, too.
TRINITY
What happened to them? Did they ever get found?
DAD
I don’t know, Pumpkin.
Your mother told me once that she thought she saw them, in New York.
But she wasn’t sure. At a distance.
TRINITY
Were they bunnies? Or deer?
DAD
Let’s ask her. Later. If she knows. When she’s not at the piano.
I don’t like to disturb her. When she’s in her piano thought.
She’s not so happy, right now, you know.
TRINITY
Daddy?… When we die, do we become people, again? In heaven?
Or sometimes bunnies and deer?
DAD
I don’t know where you come up with questions like that.
TRINITY
Dreams.
DAD
Whew! I was afraid you were about to say, “evolution.”
TRINITY
That, too. Evolution.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
