brown eyed girl

The glint of sunlight on steel flashed in my eyes as I watched my life fall apart. Trapped by the police officer’s strong arms, I continued to thrash forward as if I could get away. The screams of horror echoing from my breast blended across the sky with those of agony coming from the wreckage in front of me. Crash, metal on metal. That was it. Everything I had ever loved burned in front of my glossy brown eyes.
“Standing in the sunlight laughing, hiding behind a rainbow's wall, slipping and sliding all along the water fall, with you. My brown eyed girl, you’re my brown eyed girl.”
The memory of my father’s voice broke through the wreckage, singing our song. My mother laughing and telling him, “Maybe you should leave the singing to Van Morrison darling.” I never cared how tone deaf he was, how awful his dancing was. When my song rang through his vocal cords there was no better sound in the entire world. My body went limp as the reminiscence faded.
With my elbow to his gut, the officer collapsed, letting me free. The sprint to the 1984 Ford was the longest trip I had ever traveled. Glass shards penetrated my knees and elbows as I scrambled desperately to reach my parents. I heard nothing. Heat from the burning semi engulfed my body, and if I hadn’t been so numb, it might have hurt.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? Please get away from the car, the gas tank could explode anytime now. You NEED to get away from the cars!” I ignored the police man’s voice.
“Sha la la la...laa la l…” I heard my father’s faint voice singing and hot tears burned my face instantaneously.
“Elliott? Damnit, I lost her.” The cop gave up.
Grabbing the bloody blackened hand in front of me; my breath quickened, my heart rate sped, and my heart ached. There was no life in the passenger’s seat. Her beautiful face stared at me, empty, as if waiting for something. I knew what the crystal blue eyes waited for, my father. The hand I held. The last bit of my world was being held together by two tender palms. I no longer knew where my mother was, yet deep in my soul I knew I could reach her. Praying with all of my being I pleaded,
“Please don’t take him with you, wait for him. I need him. You can have him for eternity, mom please, leave him with me.”
I felt a firm squeeze on my hand that sent goose bumps up my spine. I looked into my father’s eyes and they smiled at me through the tears.
“She wants you to know she loves you little darling,” my grip tightened on his hand “she loves you more than anything, but I have to go with her. It is not in our hands.”
Nodding once, I kissed the strong hands I’d always known. I wanted to scream, tell him no, he couldn’t go. Before I could reconsider my understanding, his cracked voice came through his weak mouth;
“Hey where did we go, days when the rains came down in the hollow, playin' a new game, laughing and a running hey, hey skipping and a jumping in the misty morning fog with our hearts a thumpin' and you, my brown eyed girl…”
“No dad, no, finish the song. Please, you have to finish.” My own voice sounded frail in my throat.
And as I looked into his eyes, the exact eyes I saw in my mirror every morning, the light went out. I knew at that point, I had to finish my song on my own.
An intense whoosh blew my long hair into my face, this heat far hotter than that in which I’d been sitting. I didn’t care. I wanted to sit there and burn to ashes with my parents and our upside down car. But the hellacious police officer would not let that happen. My hand was ripped from my father’s, yet I no longer cared. I closed my eyes. My father’s eyes.
I had always wished for my mother’s beautiful baby blues, sat for hours in front of a mirror blinking over and over again, hoping that one time when I opened them I would see her ice blue masterpieces in my own reflection. If I had blue eyes, I would be beautiful like her. A tall lean goddess with the modesty of a saint, gone. When I opened them again I saw my mother’s beauty in my own reflection, only this time, with brown eyes.
“You’re my, brown eyed girl.”

The young woman’s body went numb and lifeless in my hands. I had expected her to fight, to pull away or sock me a good one like she had done in our earlier meeting. But she didn’t. I coddled her against the explosion I heard coming. Like every wreck, I instead wanted to coddle the poor thing from what was to come. Hours of questions, figuring out where she could continue her life, and the grief no person should have to deal with. Ten years on this force, I’ve seen my fair share of accidents. But never have I seen a child run to watch her parents die. Cops aren’t heartless, and death doesn’t get easier to watch, but victims all blend together after a night’s sleep. Something in my spirit told me this situation was different. I learned her name was Elliott Belles, and she had only been waiting for her parents outside the library for a few minutes. Ironic, Belles was my middle name and I had never understood why my birth parents would do such a thing to a boy.
After the initial blast, I scooped the girl up from our crouching position and ran to a safe distance. I tried to put her down but her grip around me did not loosen. Strange, just a few minutes before she was running from the safety of my grasp, straight into an automobile accident set to blow at any minute. I held her against my rigid bulletproof vest until her crying stopped.
She insisted on sitting in the front of my squad car on the way back to the station. I did not bother her with talking, but rather turned on the radio to an easy listening station and drove.
After questioning her as a witness to the accident, which I find a ridiculous practice, I offered a ride to a relative’s house.

“I don’t have any relatives.”
“None at all? Do you have somewhere to go?”

Every question that followed only sparked anger and tears, so I talked to the captain and brought the girl home with me. There wasn’t much speaking, but over breakfast the next morning I explained to her all of the options. Being seventeen she could live on her own if that is what she wanted, if needed however, foster care could be provided.
“Will you help me with something?” Her shaking voice piped in, clearly not listening to anything I had been saying. I told her I could help her with anything she needed.
“My parents left me this letter, it was with their will. The other cops had to read it to see if I had any relatives I did not know about. I can’t bear to read it; do you think you could read it to me?”
I would have rather done anything than said no to the pleading brown eyes that looked into my own. Something about her eyes seemed comfortable and familiar, almost like home.
“Of course,
Our Darling brown eyed girl,
We hope with all of our hearts you are reading this long after we are writing it, yet we know life can be unexpected. We love you very much; you are the absolute center of our universe. Know forever, that we will wait for you.
However, until your journey on Earth is through, we need you to know you are not alone. At the bottom of this letter is a name, your brother. Every day the two of us pray for him, and with little success have we found information on his whereabouts. If you so desire, find him, and deliver the message that we never meant to lose him. After he was lost, we searched high and low for our first born, but the school claimed to have no records of him, or the other boys on the trip. The details are not important, any how we do not have many. What we hope from this letter is for you to continue the search we have so far failed. If you shall find him, bring him the joy we know you have brought us.
Forever yours,
Mother, and Father.

Carson Belles"

Confusion hit my body like a tidal wave as I heard the name uttered in awe by the police officer. I looked into his crystal icy blue eyes, and then let my gaze drop to the shining star pinned on his uniform. “Carson Belles Smith, Toronto Police.” My dark brown eyes reflected back at me behind the name.