Thursday 2 January 2014

The Word-a-day Writing Challenge

Day Seventy-Three: Arrow



During the two weeks she lives at his house, he takes her fishing, or hunting, or mushroom picking—Dad things. For her ninth birthday he bought her a bow and arrow set, and when it proved unsatisfactory he returned it and bought another. He lets her stay up to watch the hockey game with him, and when she went to her first real game in Vancouver he made sure she had her jersey with her and a giant poster that read, "Hello Quadra Island. I'm at my 1st Canucks Game!" During the two weeks she lives with her mother he keeps her up to date on important things, like how he got a deer or that he saw a wolf on the back road. Her eyes sparkle as she gasps into the phone, Reeeeeally? Where???. Sometimes, too, he'll come over and borrow her for an evening because the weather's nice and the water's calm and he wants see if there's any trout in the lake yet. He laughs at her jokes; he pays attention; he calls her monkey. And when she sees him after a long stretch of not seeing him, she runs to him and squeals, Daaaaaddy! as he grins and wraps his long arms around her.



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