My daughter, my lovely child; It had been so long since I had seen her face.  I can hardly remember having seen it at all.  She was but a young thing when we parted.  Four years old.  Four years old, sick and dying in the hospital.  Oh, the brightness of her smile on the day she was released.  It warmed my heart so completely that I thought she must be an angel sent from heaven.

I never wanted to lose her, and thought I never would after that day, but I was called to New York and had to leave her in Denver.  She every day for the next few years until she turned thirteen, and suddenly started calling only once a week.  My baby girl was growing up, it seemed, and it was suddenly “uncool” to have such a doting father.  I couldn’t be hurt by this – I could only be proud.  I was only hurt because I was missing it all.

Twenty years later, now, since the day I left.  She told me last week to say she had just moved to Brooklyn.  Tears spilled from my eyes when she told me her address, so close to my office.  I could visit you after work, I said.  She suggested we should meet for coffee and cheesecake, and a little catch-up first.  Her apartment was a mess from moving in, and she wanted it to be perfect before I came to visit.

My daughter, my lovely child.  I sat in the coffeehouse waiting for two hours, waiting.  Maybe she got busy with moving in and forgot.  Maybe her clocks aren’t set up.  Maybe her phone is broken, and she couldn’t call to tell me she’d be late.  I smiled at the woman she had become… busy and forgetful as her old Pa.  I walked up to the counter, paid for my three cups of coffee and two danishes, and ordered a double espresso with cream and bear claw to go.  I’d just drop those off at her place on my way to pick up papers from work.  Apartments are never too messy for coffee.

Her building was bright and clean.  Light broke from the sky above, like the shining star of Bethlehem.  An angel surely lived here.  I checked the scrap of paper for her apartment number – number four.  My daughter, my love, sweet four years old.  I made my way to her door smiling, and knocked.

No answer.

Coffee waits for no doors, I told myself, and wiggled the doorknob.

Locked.

Coffee waits for no doors, and neither do fathers, I told myself.  I sat the espresso down, and with the bag of bear claw in hand, gave three hard kicks just below the door’s latch.  It broke with ease.

Screaming.

“My daughter, my love!” I yelled with glee, cackling like a madman.  “Sorry about your door, but I brought you pastry!”

“Get the hell out of my house!” my daughter screamed, eyes wide with fear.  “Help!  Fire!  Freaking medic!  Anyone!”

“Angela, my love?  But where are your wings?”

“What the… get out!“  She grabbed for the phone and punched a key.  Her phone wasn’t broken, but her wings… her wings…

Maybe they lost their wings when they came back to visit from Heaven.