That One Day

By Ammon Smith

A father watches his little girl blossom into a little lady on her sixteenth birthday through the lens of a camera, and his nostalgia. A man watches, and wonders where he'd missed his chance at family, as he searches for the courage to end his life. A student, facing doubts about his own family, and his faith, sees a threat, and acts. A boy with a gun has had enough, and decides that they must all face his wrath.

On that one day their lives are shattered, and in the years that follow, they search the pieces for another chance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ammon Smith
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463065204

Ammon Smith

Ammon R. Smith was born on Halloween in the scenic state of Washington, where he currently lives on an island, and dreams of other places.

Book preview

THAT ONE DAY

A Novella

Ammon R. Smith

Copyright © 2016 by Ammon R. Smith

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are mentioned fictitiously. Any resemblance to locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to my friends, Ron and Nancy.

CONTENTS

Part One: Sweet Sixteen

Chapter 1: Photographs

Chapter 2: Crisis Of Faith

Chapter 3: Far Away

Chapter 4: Already Too Late

Chapter 5: That One Day

Part Two: Brothers & Sisters

Chapter 1: College Kid

Chapter 2: Visiting Day

Chapter 3: About Her

Chapter 4: SAVE ME! KILL ME!

Chapter 5: Inside

Chapter 6: Confessions

Chapter 7: Sanity

Chapter 8: Holding On

Chapter 9: Shelved

Part Three: Where Hope Lies

Chapter 1: Year Two

Chapter 2: Reunion

Chapter 3: A Man At Last

Chapter 4: Date Night

Chapter 5: Together

Epilogue: Daisies

Acknowledgements

Other Works By Ammon R. Smith

Part One:

Sweet Sixteen

Chapter 1

Photographs

Daniel Bryant suggested a last minute change of venue for his daughter’s party, moving the celebration to the park. Amelia protested; her friends were expecting an indoor party, and the weather would only grow hotter as the day went on. Daniel acquiesced without argument; the day was hers to celebrate as she wished. Though he and his wife, Elizabeth, had only one child, they understood teenagers enough to realize that Amelia was being decidedly generous by allowing their participation at all. He figured many girls her age typically dismissed their parents to spend their sixteenth celebrating with friends. Minor compromises seemed a fair price for their inclusion in her big day.

Before leaving home, Daniel stopped his daughter and examined her outfit, timorously expressing mock disapproval. Amelia had chosen to wear her favorite white floral summer dress and a powder blue cropped cardigan. The clothing had been a gift to her from her parents, Amelia suspecting immediately that her father was up to something. Daniel nonchalantly suggested one of her mother’s pearl sets to complete the look and Amelia gushed over the idea, favoring a pearl teardrop necklace. Elizabeth had masterminded the exchange, secretly wanting to know their daughter’s preference, planning to sneak away later and purchase a similar piece from a jewelry store during the party.

The family car was loaded with bags of assorted party supplies before the Bryants departed for the Oakvale Plaza Shopping Center, arriving at around noon during the latter part of a modest lunch rush. They found their place in the food court just outside of a burger joint chosen by Amelia. She wasn’t a fan, but it was a favorite among schoolmates, Amelia adamant that the day was about celebrating with the people she loved more than flattering her ego. There they peacefully shared a late brunch together and began arranging decorations.

Girls began dropping in at nearly a quarter to one, most lingering only long enough to wish his girl a happy birthday before frolicking off into the mall to whatever fickle adventures awaited. One or two stayed briefly to chat amongst themselves until boyfriends came to blithely sweep them away. Amelia was invited to join them and she declined, choosing to stay behind to decorate the area with her parents. Hasty promises to return in time for the party were shouted back at Amelia as her friends departed, Daniel grinning when one of them teasingly called her a ‘daddy’s girl’ before leaving.

Throughout their day Daniel had been taking candid snapshots. Nothing spectacular, he felt, but certainly a few worth keeping. His first had been earlier at the start of the day; Elizabeth’s tousle-haired morning stretch when she’d risen from their fluffy coverlets. Her pale pink chemise had fallen from her left breast and shoulder like an inadvertently drawn curtain revealing an off-stage attraction. Elizabeth wasn’t shy, smirking desirously at him through bleary eyes and saying ‘Peekaboo!’ in an alluring voice as the shutter snapped. They’d wrestled a little with his camera when their lovemaking ensued, Daniel discovering while Elizabeth showered afterward that half of his memory card had already been filled, probably loaded with unintentional shots of their bedroom ceiling.

More spontaneous pics were attempted later with his daughter, many of them full of missed opportunities. Amelia facing away, briefly passing obstructions, an unexpected glare of sunlight reflected back at him, all as he tried to grab that one perfect photograph. She had posed a few times and he would lower his camera or frown at her teasing. Amelia knew that the only kinds of photos he cared about were the ones taken by him rather than the ones offered to him. When she appeared to notice him trying to sneak a picture she would turn to him and wink or stick her tongue out; her amusement at his exasperation never diminishing in the slightest. The stealthier Daniel attempted to be, the louder Amelia giggled when she’d caught him and made a face to spoil the moment. Eventually, Daniel decided simply to mount his camera on a tripod and train it in Amelia’s direction; set and steady for that one perfect shot.

The afternoon sailed peacefully by while the Bryant family decorated. Throughout their day Daniel and Elizabeth urged Amelia to leave the decorating to the two of them and have some fun with her friends, but Amelia declined, saying that she would have plenty of time to join her friends during the party. When her friends and mother were out of earshot, Daniel pried for a motive as to why his birthday girl wasn’t doing what birthday girls normally do. Amelia was coy at first, and after a little pressing she slyly admitted she wanted to be there when her special needs kids arrived. Amelia lifted her gaze, Daniel realizing only then that he’d been staring. She met his helpless smile with her own, her eyes filled with the unguarded warmth of a daughter, beloved.

Daniel snuck another peek through the viewfinder as girls trickled in and trickled out, most staying no longer than to show their love, take pictures, and drift capriciously away. Amelia’s image slid into and out of a dull haze of shapes and colors while the auto-focus audibly hummed bafflement with the teenaged girl unwilling to remain still. Some of the girls introduced themselves to his daughter, hugging Amelia as though already familiar, and deeply kindred. He marveled at how easily, if even fatuously, children her age bonded. His girl was popular, he could hardly identify more than six of the thirty or so that had come and gone. He felt himself pining suddenly for simpler times when they were younger and fewer, taking turns petting the family cat while awaiting cake and ice cream.

Danny, Elizabeth called to him and was immediately dismissed as he eagerly crouched behind his camera, Amelia motioning for her visitors to explore the mall as she returned to her spot at her table to continue fiddling with decorations. When another girl materialized from behind his daughter and pulled her into a long embrace he withdrew from his camera, shaking his head and sighing.

Danny! he heard, continuing to ignore his wife and watch his daughter.

Amelia stepped away again, posing with friends for pictures snapped with cell phones. Daniel had invested in photography courses and his DSLR camera when Amelia was a baby, insisting on only the best for chronicling her life. At times his expensive Nikon and experienced eye felt like relics disregarded by the vagaries of uncaring children, but for Daniel the reward was truly in the image. As much as he wanted her to hold still for the camera, he wanted all the more for the shot to happen organically, without request or forced smiles. Impromptu photos had a way of feeling more alive, capturing more than merely an image, they seemed to preserve the essences of a moment in forever stillness, more immortal than memory.

Amelia resumed her decorating, soon becoming so engrossed with her task that it appeared she dismissed her environment, her father, everything. A radiance emerged, young and beautiful; the twilight of girlhood at the dawn of a woman. This was what he’d been anticipating. Amelia flipped her hair aside, and it seemed she was about to finally peer up at him unaffectedly.

DANIEL! Elizabeth howled, this time with such urgency that it was reflex, not decision, that drew his gaze away. He turned for only a moment, and on that instant the image of his daughter sharpened into perfect clarity. His hand tensed unintentionally and his camera snapped several pictures at once, among them the photo he’d been waiting for. He would not see until much later that the shot captured had been only as her young eyes turned to him in recognition, giving just one more sweet glimpse of the little girl his little lady was already leaving behind. Amelia’s features arose into a natural smile for the perfect photograph that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Chapter 2

Crisis Of Faith

Baahir Ali tapped his pen against the notepad again, considering how best to rephrase his next statement. He remembered starting this revision last night, growing too tired as the morning hours rolled in to keep the convoluted language of his notes glued together. Religion had a peculiar tendency to be especially convoluted. It had all been simpler in the beginning, when faith was a calling and not a choice. Idealizations fueled by his teenaged impetuousness permitted an easy kind of blind acceptance that was just as easily dismantled under actual scrutiny. In his years he found his idealism harder to hold together, that easy faith now a challenge against reason and personal responsibility.

Baahir groaned and set his pen down, irritated that his thoughts were roaming again. He had come to the Oakvale Plaza Shopping Center to buy a notebook and pens, not for a lack of their availability on campus, but because he enjoyed being in places where he could hop stores like flipping television channels.

His first stop had been a book store, the smell of tomes and texts bound in volumes lined side by side were an evocative buffet of grand ideas and thoughtful yarns. Words were power, and books were living creatures capable of speaking across vast chasms of time and space to touch directly upon the hearts and minds of readers. Baahir had always cherished this power, and would conjure whatever excuse he could to eventually wind up in book stores or libraries just to stand among these wonders; to peruse, to read, and to dream.

When he felt he had loitered enough he purchased his notepad and a pack of pens, ‘flipping the channel’ to a clothing store; bored too fast to have been there long enough to pick out the muzak playing inside, though he suspected that in a past life it might have been ‘Walking On Sunshine’.

Another ‘flip of the channel’ and he was in a candy shop, eyeballing a wall rowed with nine foot clear plastic tubes loaded with jelly beans. It was an unbelievably gaudy jumble of rainbow colors arranged in no particular order; one standout, the third tube from the center, filled with white jelly beans that to him resembled pearls. He wondered how long they had been in those tubes, shuddered at the idea that some poor mouth would someday be treated to these confectionary relics. There was nothing in that shop he really wanted, very especially the discount ‘Fresh Fudge’ at the cashier station that resembled petrified tree bark.

He ‘flipped the channel’ again and was by then simply exploring. A cursory tour through a series of shops, his occasionally cognizant thoughts on an upcoming speech he meant to give for an internet video, his mind otherwise meandering. Once or twice he’d thought about his younger sister, usually beginning with stumbling upon something he thought she might enjoy, only to inevitably linger in doubt about her impending collegiate enrollment.

He didn’t intend on treating her like a child, or broach issues she had yet to risk facing. Sheila was much too mature for that, and she deserved more respect than to be lectured by her own brother. Baahir was, unfortunately, all too personally familiar with the lure of fast times and quick friends, certainly enough to know that even a smart woman like her could be tempted. After all the things they’ve survived through since losing their