-BEGINNING OF ACT 4-

Years Ago

He stood in front of the tiny grave marker, holding his young daughter by the hand. He felt her nervously fidgeting beside him. The man looked down and saw that his hands were still shaking like the day it happened. There was an aching inside of him from the emptiness; a void left within himself.

"Daddy, what was my brother like?" the young toddler asked.

Victor's weary face brightened with a smile. He lifted his glasses to catch a tear as it nearly emerged. "Ah, Mikey. He was daddy's little man, you see. Well, Mikey. He was something of a special miracle, you see. He came to your mother and I when we thought we couldn't have a child. So, we adopted him. He was a frail, little one. He was sick from a very early age, but...your mother and I loved him nonetheless. Mikey..."

It was becoming harder for him to speak as his throat burned and he couldn't get another word out.

"But Daddy, why are you so sad? Isn't big brother in Heaven, like you told me?"

Victor turned his view to the sky. As he watched the clouds without saying anything, an even deeper sadness grew inside of him, as he imagined himself aimlessly floating through life like a cloud amongst all the others. Empty, full of nothing but vapor. He had decided when his son died that it must be the same above as it was down below. There was nothing to believe in.

He knelt down in front of his daughter, and gazed into her brown eyes until all his despair was overcome by a joy that warmed his whole spirit. He smiled, truly. "I cry because I miss him, sweetie. It's okay to miss someone, even if they're in a better place."

"If I went to Heaven, would you miss me, too, like Mikey?"

He put his arms around her and squeezed her tight, so tight she started to whine.

"I'll never let that happen to you, Nancy. Never. I don't know what I'd do."

"Daddy?"

"Never, ever leave, okay? Never stop being my baby girl. Do you hear me?"

"Okay, daddy. I won't."

He wiped his nose with his sleeve, before lifting her up and holding her in his arms as they started back down towards the gravel path to the front gate. "That's my girl. You hungry?"

"Yeah!"