six.
six times he had left,
six times he had come back.

six times I had heard him say he was sorry for leaving,
six times I had heard it was never going to happen again.

“but daddy?” I asked on the seventh time, “Why do you always leave me? Why don’t you always love me?”

but daddy just left.
he left like he always did,
but this time daddy didn’t come back.
the seventh time he left,   he left on my seventh birthday.

“but mommy?” I asked, “Why does he always leave us? Why doesn’t he always love us?”

but mommy just left.
She went to her room and cried,
    Like she always did.
like she did every time daddy left.

but this time daddy didn’t come back. I waited seven years for daddy to come back but he didn’t.

mommy stayed seven more years, but then she too left me.

i went to visit their graves every week on the seventh day.
i went to leave flowers for mommy, and rocks for daddy, reminding them I always loved them.

it was hard for a seven year old to understand why her dad always left,  yet when he left for good, when the disease took him fully, she finally understood.

daddy didn’t want her to see the circles under his eyes, his yellow turned skin from the treatment, or the scars and loss of hair all over his body.

he left her a note on that seventh leave of absence, to be given to her when she turned fourteen.

“honey,” he wrote, “I love you and I’ll always be with you, even when I’m gone. I’ll always love you, forever yours, daddy.”

she cried that day, she cried everyday.

because she had spent months, years being mad at a man who had hid his sickness to shelter her from the damage it was doing to him.

she cried because she wanted to tell him that she would always love him too.

she cried because at the young age of fourteen, she was broken.