Man of Wax by Robert Swartwood

just stood there in front of the trunk. The key was in my right hand, hovering just inches away from the lock. Nothing was holding me back, nothing except the images that flashed through my mind. Like a series of jump cuts, I saw my daughter’s battered body, her tangled arms and legs, her smashed face. Like she’d been hit by a tank and then placed in this trunk, just waiting for her daddy to bring her back out.  
    When I decided enough time had passed that it was clear I was stalling, I lowered my hand holding the key. It slid right into the lock. A second went by, another second, and I turned it. There was an unsatisfying click as it unlatched. I was aware that the trunk had risen just a bit, whatever springs there were trying to force it to lift up into the air.  
    I wasn’t ready for that quite yet.  
    And so I stood there, holding it down, traffic sporadically surging past me. There were houses close by, many with lights on in their living rooms and kitchens, and in one of the backyards a dog started barking. The insects in the grass kept up their constant symphony.  
    I opened the trunk, took a step back, and stared down at the bloodied remains of my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

 
     
     
    12

    When the doctor told us we were having a daughter, I’ll admit that something broke in my heart. Any father who says he doesn’t want a son is a liar. Because there is some part of him, some part deep down inside, that wants his baby to be just like him, to grow up idolizing him and carrying on his name. I’ll admit I was more than just disappointed.  
    But then the day came when Casey was born. I stood in the delivery room, holding Jen’s hand, and watched as my own child took her first breath. Jen had been too exhausted to hold Casey, so our daughter had been given to me. I remember crying as I held her, wanting to wipe my tears away but at the same time wanting to never let go of my baby girl.  
    Jen had only been allowed so much time off work, so after a couple of weeks, Casey became my responsibility. I would change her, play with her, even took naps with her. A favorite book of mine growing up had been The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and I made it a point to read it to Casey at least once a month. I’d read other books, but I always came back to The Little Prince . And, somehow, the book became Casey’s favorite too.  
    When she was just two and a half years old she started drawing pictures. She spent hours hunkered over blank sheets of paper with an opened box of Crayolas beside her, until she was finally done and came running to me with the finished product. And each and every time I’d pull her up onto my lap, inspect the latest picture, and say, “That’s a hat,” to which Casey would giggle and say, “ Da -dee.” A year passed and the ritual never changed. The only thing that changed was that her pictures got even better, so much so that I hoped she might be a prodigy.  
    Reading The Little Prince to her at least once a month never changed either. I’d read a little to her before bedtime, while Jen was downstairs working on yet another stack of briefs. Every once in a while Jen would poke her head in, listen while I read, but Casey always nudged me and pointed, letting me know we had an intruder. This was our own special time and Casey wanted nobody else involved, not even her mother. One time Jen actually exploded at me about this, calling me a bastard for trying to take her daughter away from her. But she was just venting, stressed out because of her workload. She knew that wasn’t the case. She and Casey had everything else; besides our ongoing debate of Shrek and Shrek 2 , Casey and I only had The Little Prince .  
    No matter how many times we read it, Casey giggled when we came to the part about the little prince visiting the king, and then the very vain man—she couldn’t decide which tickled her more. Then her smile would always fade when the little prince