She was watching the sunset, it seemed like the perfect day. She watched as the sun fell out of sight. When it was almost dark enough to be called night, she picked herself up and made footprints in the sand that were soon washed away by the waves like she was never there as she walked on home.
"Mom, I'm home!" she called out, no answer.
"Mom, you-" she gasped as she stared down at the floor where her mother lay with about a dozen beer bottles beside her. "No, not again!" she cried.
Her mother came to with a startle.
"Who are you?" she questioned in an angry tone.
"Get out of my house!" she yelled as she threw a glass beer bottle at her.
"Mom, it's me! Remember? Me Melody!" she said softly with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Get out!" he mother yelled, so Melody got up and ran out the house.
She wished that her best friend, Nicky, hadn't moved away. They had been best friends and she would always go to her when her mother drove her out. Melody couldn't see much since the sun had disappeared, so she just kept walking forward. She remembered when her parents were together and they would spend time with her at the park and beach. She remembered when they began to fight a lot until her father just got up and left in the middle of the night without a good-bye. She shuttered as she thought about when her mother began to drink a lot and lost her job. Melody had been walking for a long time now. She reached the farside of Beachstone lane, she sat on the dry sand and spelled out "D-A-D" with her finger. She began to cry as she stared at the letters.
"Daddy," she wispered out loud, "please come back, help me...help mommy."
She wipped away a tear from her cheek and then burst back into tears. She began to feel tired and soon she was fast asleep.

She woke up with the sun the next morning. She looked around and realized she was still on the beach. It was hard to open her eyes since she had been crying in her sleep and the tears had dried around her eyes. She brushed her hand through her hair and felt all the sand that had sticked to her hair. She sat up and looked at the sun. She remembered the day before when she was looking at it set and how warm and happy she had felt. That's when she remembered why she was on the beach and what had happened at her house. She got up and slowly walked toward the vast ocean. She let her feet get soaked even though she was wearing her favorite pair of sandles. Melody then took her sandles off and dived into the water. She swam pretty far out and then swam back. She swam back and forth again and again trying to clear her mind. After a while she got out of the water, picked up her sandles and walked barefoot toward the place she wished was really "home". When she was almost passed Cornstep Road, Melody stoped. Right in front of her was a picture. It looked really old so Melody picked it up very carefully. She reconized the three people in the picture almost instantly. It was Melody as a baby, her mother and her father and they were all smiling. Just then a cool breeze came by and made Melody drop the picture. The picture then went fluttering away higher and higher and farther and farther. Melody felt like she had lost something very important, but she couldn't figure out what it was. Even if the picture ment anything at all, she wasn't in the mood of thinking about her past. Melody continued walking home, until she made it to the porch of her house. She pictured herself walking into the house and her mother running toward her then embracing her in a warm hug and saying sorry like she always did. She walked onto the porch and slowly opened the door. Like she had pictured her mother ran toward her and embraced her in a tight hug.
"I'm so sorry," her mother said tearfully, "I promise that this will never happen again!"
Melody pushed her mother away, "Mom, please don't promise anything that will never happen."
Her mother looked at her surprized. She turned around and made her way to the kitchen.
"Well, I made waffles." she said in a low tone.
Melody went into the kitchen and sat on the table as her mother put a plate of warm waffles with lots of syrup in front of her. Melody remembered when her parents and her used to sit together at every meal and talk about their day. Melody wished that this was stil true, but she was sure it would never be true again.

After breakfeast Melody's mother went to the super market while Melody stayed home. Melody was taking a shower when the phone rang. She wraped herself in her towel and picked up the phone.
"Hello," she asked, "this is Melody Syav."
"Hello, can I talk to Mrs. Kelly Syav?" a man asked.
"Umm, mom isn't here right now," Melody answered, "and I think you mean Ms. Kelly, my father doesn't live with us."
"Melody? Is that you? You sound so different. How have you been?" the man asked in a very happy tone.
"Do I know you? Who is this?" Melody asked nervously.
"Oh well, of course you don't remember me. It's been a while." he said not too sure of himself.
Melody almost dropped the phone. She wasn't sure what to think. Could this be him? Could it really be? "No, it must be a prank," she thought, "a horrible and mean prank. But who would do something like this?"
"Melody. It's me, your father. Me, Richard...remember?"
Melody actually dropped the phone this time.
"Hello? Hello?" the man called.
Melody just stared at the phone on the floor. She looked at the caller ID number. It read "Richard S. 367-875-5493". "Melody, you there?"
A tear fell onto Melody's cheek. She picked up the phone and held it with her shaky hand.
"Yes, I'm here. Who is this again?" she questioned.
"Your dad, hun. Are you ok?" he asked.
"OK? Is that the only thing you are going to ask or say? I haven't seen or heard from you for years now and that is all you have to say? You talk like it's no big deal! Well it has been for me! Do you know what I go through everyday? Mom and her stupid drinking problem and thinking about you. Am I ok? No, the answer is hell no!." Melody said practicly screaming into the phone.
"Drinking prob-"
Melody didn't let him finish, she slammed the phone down on the reciver. Just then her mother walked through the door. "Hun I'm home!" her mother said all perky.
She looked at Melody and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Are you ok sweety?" she asked.
"There was a phone call." Melody said.
"From who?"
"It was...it was dad."
Melody's mother dropped the bags onto the floor.
"F-From whho?" she asked unsteadily.
"From dad!" Melody screamed.
Melody ran up the stairs to her room, she locked the door and ran onto her bed. She hide her face in her pillow and cried into it. While Melody stayed confinded in her room her mother was downstairs on her knees. She dug her face into her hands sobbing and she didn't even know why she was crying. "Kelly, get a hold of yourself! It couldn't have been him." she thought to herself. "Why would he decide to contact us now?" She got up and walked to the caller ID, she looked up "last caller" and it read "Richard S. 367-875-5493". She felt a sudden pain in her chest. Kelly picked up the phone and dialed the number on the caller ID. A woman picked up.
"Hello, Richard Syav's office. May I help you?" the woman asked.
"Umm..uhhh..yes, c-can you tell him that this is Ms. Kelly S." Kelly told her, saying enfisising the "s".
"Yes, please hold for a moment."
Kelly could her the woman talking to a man in the background.
"I'm redirecting you to Mr. Syav right now mam." the lady said.
Kelly waited with an uneasy feeling in her stomatch.
"Hello." the man said.
"Uhh, hello. Is this M-Mr. Sy-yav" she said between sobs.
"Yes. Hello Kelly." he said. She knew he wasn't sure of what to say from the sound of his voice.
"Kelly..I..you see..." he started.
"See what Richard? See what? See that you left me in the middle of the night? See that you are sorry? Well I don't need your pity Mr. Stupid! Never call here again unless you are planning on saying something worth listening to! Melody hasn't seen you since she was little and you suddenly pop up! Do you know what she is going through? Do you know what I am going through?" she interupted yelling.
"Kelly, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I was just so mad, but I have a job now and I'm living well. I want you and Melody to come live with me. Here in Georgia." he said calmly.
"Have you gone crazy man? Are you nuts? We don't see you for years and suddenly you pop up out of the freaking clear blue sky and expect us to forget everything to come live with you! You are an a**hole, you know that Richard Syav" with that she slammed the phone down on the reciver so hard that it hurt her hand.

Melody was still crying upstairs. She sat on her bed and stared at a picture of her and her dad. Melody had changed into her PJs. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to come back anymore. He hadn't called, and he had just got up and left like that. Did he really want her and her mother back? Melody put the picture back and went downstairs. She saw her mother crying on the couch so she went over and sat beside her. She laid her head on her soulder.
"Mom...I know you called him," Melody said, "what..what did he say?"
"He wants us to go live with him! The bastard!" Kelly screamed.
"What? Are you kidding me?" Melody got up of the couch and turned to her mother. "Your kidding right? Where is he? What has he been doing all this time?"
"He said he got a good job and is living well" she said mockingly.
"I'm not leaving this place to go live with him! He wants me to just leave the place I've lived all my life?" Melody screamed.
Melody's mother got up and gave Melody a comforting hug.
"Look, let's forget about this for a sec and eat some dinner ok? I picked up some stuff from the market and I still haven't put in the fridge. Probably all gone bad."
"Ok." Melody responded with a sob.
They went and got to work putting away the items. Then Melody helped her mother cook some speggetti and set the table. When they sat at the table they just stared at their food.
"Mom, let's sat grace ok? Just this once...for old times." Melody said to her mother.
"Old times? I thought you didn't want to remember the old times." her mother responded.
"Well, now I do."
"Fine. You start then."
"Ok."
They bowed their heads and folded they hands.
"Dear Lord," Melody began, "help us as we go through another chapter of our difficult lives. Bless us with the power to be strong and guide us past our troubles."
She raised her head to look at her mother, she could see her mother's eyes watering.
"and..Amen." she finished grabed her fork and started at her spegetti, she didn't look at her mother for she was trying to hide tears of her own.

After dinner Melody washed the dishes while her mother dried them. The spoke not a word but looked back at each other frequently. When they were done they each went into their rooms without a good night or hug. Melody lay in her bed just staring up at the ceiling thinking about when she was young and how she and her dad used to love to ride their bikes. She thought about the time when she was three and her dad was teaching her how to ride her bike. She was so scared, but her dad would always tell her how well she was doing and not to give up. Tears started falling from her eyes. She fell asleep thinking about her father.

Melody woke up the next morning to yelling and crying coming from downstairs. She looked at her clock it read, "10:30 AM". She got up and off the bed, she walked slowly down the stairs thinking that her mother had gotten drunk and was crying but as she got closer to the last step she noticed a man talking to her mother while her mother yelled at him to get out. "Who is this guy?" Melody thought to herself. She thought it was weird the her mother was yelling at him but he was just talking calmly to her.
"Um, hi?" Melody said when she got to the last step.
"Oh hi dear..." her mother responded. "Gosh Melody, look how much you've grown!" the man exclaimed running toward Melody and then grabbing her in a tight hug. By this time Melody was completly confused. She backed away slowly.
"Wh-Who are you?" she questioned.
"Don't you touch my daughter!" her mother yelled at him.
"Why hun, don't you reconize me? It's me your father." she said softly. Melody fell backwards when he said this causing her to hit her head on the stairs.
"Owww!" she yelled.
"Melody!" her mother rushed to her side, "are you all right?" she said and turned to the man, "now look what you've done!"
"It doesn't make sence, it just doesn't make sence!" Melody yelled at no one in particular. She held her head, got up and broke into a run, she opened the door and just kept running.
"Melody come back!" her mother called after her, "please don't go." she said sobbing. She turned to the man.
"See what you've done, you made her run away again, you bastard, BASTARD!" she screamed at him trying to hit him. He grabbed her wrists and held on to her, pulling her close into a hug. She sobbed into his shoulder.
"I'm sorry." he wispered into her ear.

Melody was on the beach again watching the ocean waves. She was so confused that she couldn't think, she didn't let anything get into her mind so she wouldn't have to think. She just kept staring at the vast ocean. Melody wished she was on a boat all the way out in the open ocean. She wanted to dive into the water and swim forever but she just couldn't get herself up. Just then she heard the noise of footsteps in the sand. She turned around only to see her father. Once she saw him she turned back toward the ocean.
"Why dad," she questioned in a soft voice, "why? Just please tell me why."
He sat beside her.
"I'm not really sure how to begin." he told her.
They sat there staring at the ocean for what felt like a long time. Then Melody did something that made her father smile, she laid her head on his shoulder and wispered, "All is forgiven."



AFTERWORD...

Melody's parents worked out their diferences and started becoming close like before the whole mess. Melody started to hang out with her dad more often and she got happier. When she went to school she started to make friends and be more confident. One day after school her dad, mom and her went to the park, just like old times. The Syav family was a whole once more.

-Written by and COPYRIGHT Rebecca (Becca)