i hope you see the sunset where you are and think of me

"I'm going away here soon," he put in casually, as he flicked on his blinker and turned onto the quiet road.

"Oh?" Trying hard to subdue the surprise in her voice, the young girl on the passenger side turned towards him with fake mild interest.

"Yeah.. Fort MacMurray. Just for a bit, to work of course. Should be home by around Next Winter." He slowed his driving as he turned another corner. The river was starting to take shape in the impending foreground. Rays of the dying sun dashed thier way across it's delicate surface, dancing in the light and distracting her eyes from his troubled face.

"Winter as in.. around a year from now?"

He smiled unsurely. "Yeah, that Winter."

Silence draped in around them both in the proceeding moments as they crossed the final stretch before the beach area. She fumbled for words while he fumbled with the radio dials and still niether uttered a word as the jeep drove to a halt.

The picturesque beach before them was desserted. Merely bushes and sand covered it's shores.

The girl remembered back to when they used to come swimming here. She would dive in, unsure if whether she could swim back to the surface again or not, (for mere lack of swimming capabilities) simply to try and impress him. Sometimes when she emerged from the water's surface, leeches would cling to her skin and he would be forced to first laugh at her as she ran around screaming, then to remove them with a steady hand and a bic lighter.

He remembered coming here as a child with his own father. They'd carry the canoe over thier heads down to the shore, load in thier lunch and fishing poles and spend the whole afternoon in search of the best catch, sometimes long into the night as well.

He took the key out of the ignition and opened the driver's door with ease, while she sat unmoving in her seat. A quick glance in the rearview mirror told her he was unloading beach chairs and a cooler out of the trunk.

"You coming down to watch the sunset then?" He called through the opened hatchback, the first words he'd spoken in a good ten minutes.

Unbuckling her seatbelt with new-found bravery, she stumbled out of the jeep, taking a deep breath and following her father down onto the river's shore.

He plunked himself down into a chair and motioned for her to do the same. Cracking open a can of gingerale, he handed an ice cold one in her direction as well. She stumbled and flopped into the canvas collapsing chair, took the gingerale from his hand and took a long drink.

In front of them the scene played slowly. Ducks swam gently, breaking the water and leaving a trail of golden ripples behind them. Crickets sang in the bushes at her side and the wind blew a sweetly warm breeze across her face.

"So... You're leaving then?"

He stared straight ahead instead of catching her eye the way she wished he would. She wanted to see if she could gather anything from his eyes. His eyes always told it all, so much like her own. Instead, he gazed decidedly into the distance for quite some time before answering.

"You know I don't want to. It has to be done."

"But why?" She blurted out before she could stop herself. "Why do you have to go so far away to work?"

He looked thoughtful and took another drink before turning her way. "The money," he said simply.

"The money? Since when did money matter to you Dad?"

"Since I was sued by your Mother." Immediately he turned apoligetically her way and smiled weakly. "You know if I don't pay they'll send me to jail... it have to do this, i'm not really given a choice."

"I dont want you to leave though," she begged him, begging the tears to hold themselves back too. "She doesn't understand me like you do. No one does. I know we don't talk so much anymore..." -she began- "But I still need you now more then ever Dad."

He put a strong, reassuring hand onto her delicate arm. "I know. We can talk on the phone whenever you want."

"It's not the same."

"Nothing's been the same for a long time now Dear. We need to learn to adapt ourselves to the current situation. I promise you, things will be fine."

"How can you promise me that? You can't even promise me a definite time to see me anymore. How can you promise me things will be ok?"

"I can't promise you that anymore now. I know that. All I can promise is that I'll always be here."

She rolled her eyes to the water when she was sure he couldn't see. "I need you to be here too."

A thousand things ran through her head as the wind blew through her shoulder length tangled hair. Her family was already so divided... She barely felt like she had a real one anymore. How could he just pack up and leave.. How could her mother just decide that she needed his money and force him to do that? How could he leave his family like that? How could she seperate her children from thier Father?

How could they sit there and watch the sunset and drink gingerale and ignore the fact that he was being forced to move away to work harsh hours for the Army in a place as foreign to him as another country while not being able to see the children he was working to pay for and having no one there for him?

A tear fell onto her arm and awoke her from her thoughts. She tugged her other arm out from under his warm hand and wiped her eyes in one quick movement.

"I'm getting cold now.. Do you think we could go home soon?"

Her dad looked a bit hurt and confused. "But, we didn't see the sunset yet."

She turned her back to him as she folded up the beach chair and tossed her pop can into the bush. "I'm not really in a sunset mood anymore."

Driving home she thought long and hard to herself and concluded she would never be in the sunset mood again.