Love Like Winter
by: Olivia Toczynski

       Candance could hear her father panting and the woman
moaning with pleasure.  Nora’s breath heavy and
eyelids fluttering, hiding and exposing her sharp
eyes.  She was probably pushing the hot sweat into her
no-longer crisp  hairline.  Candance could picture the
shining diamond on her delicate finger as she clutched
the blanket to keep from screaming.  Shifting and
grunting and biting.  Candance looked over at her
white desk and little blue lamp on top of it, shaking.
 The sex was rough.  It seemed like the whole house
was rattling. Her father roared.  Candance thought of
her own fiancee and let tears flow from her eyes.
When would it stop?
       She lay in her childhood bed, her first night back
home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  She dreaded the
one and a half months ahead.  Sweet kisses and back
rubs at the breakfast table;  flirtatious giggles and
sex-hungry growls at night.  Jealousy overwhelmed her
and pain filled her stomach.  Those sweet kisses used
to belong to her when she fell off her bike in their
front yard and all she could see through the tears was
blood trickling down her knee and her father coming to
save her.  His hunger was for her when they wrestled
on their dark green carpet in front of their
fireplace.  Now they were Nora’s, his beautiful
fiancee the same age as his daughter.
       The noises stopped.  Her legs shook and her stomach
clenched.  She lay still.  Vomit filled her mouth.
She lay silent.  She didn’t want to walk by his room
to get to the bathroom and smell the sweat coming from
inside, so she swallowed it.

       Candance woke up sore and groggy, breath crusty from
some remaining throw-up.  She rubbed her eyes and
moaned all the way to the bathroom down the hall.
Downstairs, she could hear her father cooking
something-probably eggs or pancakes.  She could
picture his sturdy body standing over the hot pan with
a spatula.  Candance could see his broad shoulders and
muscular limbs.  She could smell the shaving cream on
his cheek and Old Spice under his arm.  She wanted to
run downstairs into his deep, full hug.  She wanted
him to rub her back and kiss her on the forehead.  She
wanted to get rid of Nora-of perfect, beautiful Nora-
and just have her father for herself.
       She brushed her teeth and rinsed her face.  The shock
of the cold water stinging her cheeks introduced her
to the day.  She looked at her bright face in the
mirror, lit up by the dewy sun falling through the
small window beside her.  Her toes stuck to the icy
tile.  Candance’s abrupt green eyes searched the face
in the mirror.  Red cheeks, pale skin, dark eyebrows,
frizzy hair.  Her lips were too pink, too protruded-
too sexy.  She tied her thick black hair into an
unstoppable bun and got into the steaming shower.
       When Candance got out she let the water roll off of
her onto the floor.  She stood in front of the mirror,
confronting her body instead of hiding in a towel.
She looked at her heavy breasts and dark nipples and
wondered what Nora’s looked like.  Were they more
perky than hers?  Did she have pink nipples that
blended into her skin?  Candance’s stomach was soft.
Was Nora’s tight?  Her image melted away as she
wrapped the white towel around her skin.  She went
back to her room and sat naked on the damp towel,
which lay sloppily on the bed.  Drops of water rested
on her arms and chest, and rolled down her back.  She
looked at her pink toenails, trying to make the
unfamiliar color belong to her pale skin.  Her toes
brushed against the thick carpet as she swayed her
legs back and forth, trying hard to feel comfort
within her own home-- her own room.  She looked around
her bare room.  The white walls and little pink roses,
the white desk and small blue lamp.  The twin sized
bed covered by the Cinderella comforter.  Everything
was small and simple, just as was she.  Candance felt
like she was a child inside her room, swimming inside
the confusion of right and wrong, yes and no.
       Candance went downstairs in clothes which denied her
scarce beauty.  The brown sweater dulled out her
already boring eyes; the pants hid her shape and her
womanhood.  She sat quietly at the breakfast table and
smothered her pancakes in syrup as her father talked
on the phone.  She took bite after bite, not stopping
to breathe or feel.  All she could hear was the clock
ticking.  She wanted her father to come to her, to
give her his attention, not the person on the phone.
       “Alright, baby,  I’ll see you tonight.”
       She stopped.  The phone clicked as he hung it up.
Her emotions were wild, uncontrollable inside her, but
she was still.  Her face burned and her heart
clambered in her chest.  He didn’t move , didn’t make
a sound.  She looked into her half eaten, triple
stack, syrup-soggy pancakes.  The fork rested limp
between her thumb and index finger.  She could feel
his presence behind her: his heavy stance and
lingering power.
       “Who was that?”  Candance asked with a dry tongue.
She knew it wasn’t Nora-he never called her ‘baby.’
He never called her.  Who was he talking to?  Another
woman? Another slut to take her place in his life?
She panted.  “Who was that?”
       “It was Marla.”  Her name slid off his tongue loud
and slow, as if Candance was a child.
       That name stung her ears.  She stared into the blue
plate and brown mush.  Her tears flew out of her eyes;
snot dripped into her mouth.
       “Marla,”  she said as she rocked in her chair.
“Marla.”
       She grabbed the fork and stabbed her breakfast.  She
jumped up and turned to her father.
       “Who is she?  Who the fuck is she?”
       He stood calm; he stood safe.
       She thrashed and bellowed and scratched and cried.
The repetition of his words, “my girlfriend,” rattled
in her head.
       He watched her, his arms resting on the spotless
counter behind him.
       She was in a puddle of her madness.  She crumpled to
the floor and asked him why.  Why wasn’t she good
enough?  Why wasn’t Nora good enough?  Why didn’t he
love her? Why? Why?
       He cleared his throat and balanced himself to leave
the kitchen.  She grabbed onto his ankle and pressed
herself against his leg.
       “Candance....you need to let go,” the man said.  “You
need to let it all go.”
       Candance loosened her grip on her father’s leg,
letting herself lay completely soaked in tears on the
kitchen floor.


       He did Marla that night.  They came home laughing and
stumbling, liquor and cigarettes dripping off their
bodies.  They passed the couch where Candance sat,
waiting, but they didn’t notice her.  They climbed
sloppily up the full stairs with her a few steps
behind, but they didn’t notice her.  She watched them
go into his  room, whispering loudly.  She watched
Marla giggle and touch his arm.  She heard her heart’s
beat fill up the hallway, but they didn’t notice.
They closed the door.
       Candance went to her room, got into her bed, and
tried to find the noises in the air.  It was quiet.
She wanted to hear the pain and love which she heard
every night.  She wanted to feel the disgusting
comfort.  But it was silent.  The sex was soft.  The
little blue lamp stood still.  She could hear the wind
outside and the clock ticking in the hall.  Her heart
started racing.  Why were they so quiet?  Why were
they hiding from her?  Her skin was bumpy and her
teeth chattered.  He thought he was being sneaky?  He
thought he could cheat on Nora and deny his daughter?
And the worst part was that he thought that he was
getting away with it all.  No.  Candance felt vomit
fill her mouth once again.  But this was different.
Her father was leaving her out.  He was hiding this
from her, not allowing her to be a part of it.  She
lay in frustration, jealousy, and betrayal.  She lay
in her neat, cute bedroom; in the insane quiet which
overwhelmed her.
       Candance got up.  She opened the simple, white door
and soaked in the light from the hall.  She ran
towards the bathroom, not wanting to swallow this
time.  She wouldn’t let him win, she wouldn’t.  But
she didn’t make it.  The liquid flew from her mouth,
landing on the way-too-expensive carpet.  She
collapsed, silently screaming.  Candance was now
quiet, as her father was.  She wanted to yell, to wear
out her vocal cords, as she always did.  She wanted
her father to hear her pain and go save her.  But all
that would come out was tired and frustrated breath.

       Candance woke up irregularly comfortable.  Her
stomach wasn’t sore, her arms weren’t bruised.  She
looked out her window into the gray sky and felt, not
happy, but content.  She could hear her father and
Marla talking downstairs, but she didn’t feel like
dealing with them.  She didn’t have the energy to put
herself through so much agony and pain, only to
discover that no one was there for her.  So all
morning she sat by her window.  She looked out at the
trees that never stopped moving.  She looked at a dark
cat, the simple neighbors, the telephone wires, the
precisely cut grass, the empty streets.  Morning
passed and afternoon slid in, but everything stayed
the same outside.  People came and went, trees forever
blew in the wind, cars passed, birds chirped.  It was
simple.  She looked at her room.  She went to her desk
and opened all of the drawers.  She had diaries.
Pages and pages filled out about her crushes and her
never ending middle school problems.  Candance chose a
soft purple notebook and flipped through it.  She read
an entry which was confused and worried about sex.
She read one the young girl wrote, asking why her
boyfriend never called her anymore.  Candance felt a
surge of happiness, which had become unknown to her.
It faded as she read the last entry in the diary.  It
was the day after her mother’s death, the first time
her father raped her.  She felt her blood rushing and
her eyes burning.  The words on the paper seeped into
her skin and gave her chills.  She sat on the pink
carpet, facing the truth which she gripped in her
hands.  She imagined her father--no;  she could feel
her father on top of her, rough and angry as the words
described.  She could feel his stomach hairs rubbing
against her smooth skin; his hardworking fingers
wrapped around her weak arms.  She felt the tears
which marked her face year after year.
       The woman got up, slow and numb.  She unbuttoned her
kitten-print pajama top to reveal herself to the
mirror above the white desk.  Her hand moved across
the massive hair on her head, no longer frizzy and
painful, but perfectly wild.  The breasts now belonged
to this woman, rather than being unnaturally placed on
a girl.  The diamond balanced on top of her delicate
finger.  The band wrapped around it and tied her to
the man who really loved her, the man who loved
Candance.  She looked into her own eyes.  The stunning
emerald and unexpected pupil which used to be Nora’s.
       But there was no Nora.  There was a father, a Marla,
a Candance.  But no Nora.
       The hate for her father, so perfectly disguised,
revealed itself from the mask of love.      She knew
what she had to do.  She called her fiancee and told
him she was coming home.  She buttoned her shirt and
ran downstairs.
       The man glanced up from his newspaper.  “Well it’s
about time!” he said as Candance hopped into the
kitchen.
       “Yeah,” she said, glancing around, looking for the
right move.
       Marla emerged from the living room.  “Oh, good
afternoon, sleepyhead,” she recited.  “Would you like
some toast?”  There was no need for Candance to
respond.  Marla had already grabbed the sturdy knife
and struggled to slice two pieces of bread off the
almost-stale loaf.
       Candance bit her lip.  She knew what to do now.


       She sped down the empty freeway, crunching the
now-cold toast, smiling.
       Candance killed them.  She stabbed them both, her
sleeve pulled over her hand and wrapped around the
same knife Marla had used only seconds before.  There
was no way they’d catch her.  And if they did, she
knew what to do.  She rolled down the window and let
the cold air slap her face.
       She was, not content, but happy.  Candance was really happy.