by S. L. Finlay
Just then as I was lost in my own ideas, I was pulled out of them as I pulled up outside the base. Unsure what to do with my car, I decided I would walk on. I had lived here before, and knew the housing wasn't under very good security. The army, feeling the families could look after themselves, had always been lax here in the past. If I left my car, I could go on base without any questions asked. Just what I wanted!
Using a gate I knew was never locked or monitored when I had lived here, I slipped in a side entrance and made the familiar path to the home I had shared with Daddy.
Pushing thoughts of our shared daughter from my mind, I forced my legs onward. I had questions to ask. I needed answers. It was about time.
As I rounded the bend on the path I had taken through that gate and towards my old home, I knew I would be able to see our home in just a moment. Rounding that corner, I held my breath for what could come. Maybe there would be a family car parked out the front and visible signs that that wife and children he could have that I had not ever been able to find actually did exist and they were there, living with him. I would be the 'other family' then, and I wasn't sure I could bare that.
But, as I saw his house, I stopped dead in my tracks for another reason.
Daddy was standing out the front in the fading evening light, and he had spotted me as I had approached. I was less than a hundred yards away and his eyes were holding my own, even from that distance. I took a breath and a few more steps until I had closed the gap between us. Eighty yards, sixty, fifty, forty. Then I was standing there, close enough to see him to realize why he had been standing out the front of his home.
Daddy's hands were grubby with engine oil that he was trying to remove with a rag. Daddy had always been good with mechanical things, and as I assessed the scene, I could see the source of the oil. Inside the garage was a car that had been elevated so someone could get underneath it, and a 'creeper', the wheeled contraption that people use to get under cars was there too. Daddy had been working on this car - was it his car? - and had been taking a break, or finishing for the night, when I had come around the bend and come face-to-face with him.
Without taking his eyes off me, Daddy put the rag down and closed the gap between us. He walked towards me with a big smile on his face, which, as he drew closer I could see didn't really meet his eyes. It was like he was happy to see me, but couldn't bring himself to believe I was really there. My heart was in my throat, and I could feel my eyes filling with tears, unbidden.
"Is that you?" Daddy asked, drawing so close to me that we could reach out and hold one another's hands if we chose to, only we didn't.
I giggled nervously - something that would have looked strange with the tears flowing down my cheeks - before telling him, "yes, it's me."
"Why are - what are you doing here?" He asked me, those sad eyes on my own. "You left, why come back?"
We held one another's gaze for a long moment as I let out a long sigh. I didn't know how to answer his questions in a way that he would like, so much had happened in the last six years and if I was honest, I had drawn my conclusions about him, about us, and had decided to try my best to move on, but never could.
I missed him so much that my heart ached.
"I um-" But then I was cut off as the front door opened and someone called out, "honey! Dinner's ready!" In a thick southern accent.
Daddy's eyes, which hadn't left mine, were now wide as he stared at me. I stared right back. Who was she? Was she just a girlfriend? A de facto partner? Were they married? Children? I was sure he could read all this on my face, just as I could read the shock on his.
But before I could ask anything, the woman was on the lawn. She was walking towards us. I could see her in my peripheral vision. I turned towards her and tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
She was beautiful. A stunning southern belle with a big smile and bigger bust. She looked happy and innocent, like someone who was coming to say hello to the new neighbors. I did not feel innocent. I did not feel that I had done nothing wrong. Even as I had not touched Zac, I felt sure that the connection we had had, the connection that had been re-ignited when we looked at one another, was something that I wouldn't have been comfortable with Zac having with anyone else when we had been together.
But there I was, and he was someone else's.
"Oh, I'm sorry." I said quickly, "I was just, ah, lost. Looking for directions. I know where I am going now. Thank you sir." I said the last sentence as I looked back at Zac, after blurting everything else out at her. Then, as quickly as I had gotten there, it was like I was racing at double-speed to get away. As if my story could hold up when we were inside a gated army barracks. No one could wander in here by accident.
From behind me, the man who I used to call Daddy was calling out to me to return, and the woman was sounding confused, "who was she?" was quickly followed by, "you know her?" When he didn't answer and kept shouting for my return.
I was gone though. Long gone. Before I was even back in my car, I was promising myself that I would never return, my questions be damnned. I didn't need answers, my daughter didn't need answers. What I hadn't needed, was to see him with another woman. And because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I had seen that. And it stung. It stung so badly that I couldn't bring myself to keep at it. I wouldn't do any more research, and I certainly wouldn't show my face around here again. Frustrated that she hadn't shown up in my searches - thereby sparing me the embarrassment - I felt a deep sense of betrayal, even as I knew Zac had done nothing wrong. At least not this time.
As I reached my car and hurried to get inside, I wasted no time turning those keys in the ignition and speeding away. I couldn't, I just couldn't face it.
Daddy had moved on, and she was beautiful. She was far more beautiful and charming than I was, and I knew that only from that brief period that I had come face-to-face with her.
As I drove though, it occurred to me that I hadn't found any information about her. Why was that? Was she deliberately obscured from his records? Was she not yet a recognized de facto partner? To be recognized, the couple in question would have to do a bunch of paper work and have lived together already for a while. Has she just moved in? Did she even live there?
Was I giving up hope on a man who wasn't as taken by me as I had thought he was?
What Daddy and I had had was amazing, and special. We were going to get married. We were talking about children. Hell, we had even conceived a child. A child he had not known about, but still, that child was very real.
As I thought of her, I felt pleased that at least I had not told my daughter where I was going this evening. At least she wouldn't have gotten her hopes up.
I drove towards the spot where my daughter would be dropped off by the bus, and thought of how nice it would be to see her getting off that bus, even if she hadn't had a chance to do her gymnastics. Even if she hadn't had a chance to have the kind of fun she wanted to have because of her broken leg.
That broken leg sucked for her, but now at least we both had our wounds to nurse.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I had so many questions that remained unanswered, and it killed me. I had had it in my mind that these questions would have answers soon enough when I drove off to Zac's home. Now I had no answers, and knew that he had moved on, it was like a one- two- punch.
A part of me really wanted him to meet her, our daughter. A part of me - even as I denied it to myself - did want to play happy families. It was a big part of me that wanted a father for my daughter. I had raised her without one until now, but saw how wonderful it was for the other little girls that their dads were around. I could see how important a father was to a daughter, and wanted one for mine. I guessed though, I had gotten something out of this. I could now see how Zac couldn't fit into this family anymore. Knowing that I didn't want to be the 'other family', I could more easily dismiss all of this. It was easier now, that I at least knew this much.
It still did hurt me to think about what my
daughter was missing out on though. Other little girls had someone to give gifts to on fathers day, they had someone to bring to father-daughter events. There would be someone there, aside from just me, if she ever hurt herself again. I wanted so badly for my daughter to have someone else to fuss over her when she was sick or hurt. I wanted her to have someone to love her just like I did, in case there was a time when I couldn't be there.
It wasn't that I had plans to not be there in the near future, but more that I was realistic about life. Things happened sometimes that prevented you from being there for the people you loved, and I was fully aware that there would be days where I couldn't chase after my daughter, that someone else would need to step in.
There was only so much other parents could do, and I had cultivated those relationships with other parents where sometimes I could ask for favors when I really needed them. I was sure I could ask for favors more than I did, but I didn't do it. I was too busy trying to get by on my own. I was too busy trying to make things work without asking other parents for help. I didn't want any of them to offer me a hand out, or to offer me help I didn't need, so I only asked sparingly, when it was absolutely necessary.
I knew it was my pride that was stopping me from asking for help. The same pride that wouldn't just talk to Zac. The same pride that had caused me to hide the pregnancy, then the child, for years. She had been hidden away all of this time, and even if I wanted him to be part of her life, would it really be achieving anything? Would it really help my daughter?
I pondered that, and the refections of Zac never knowing his daughter. Was I okay with that? I had been okay for so long why not continue to be okay with it? If I needed a father for my daughter, I was sure I could find someone else. This man was not the one. He was someone else's one now.
So I struggled and I struggled to let go. I struggled to let go of the fantasies I had in my head. It had been so long since we had seen one another before that day, let alone since we had been together. These fantasies were silly, and were futile. I needed to move on. I needed to get on with my life and help my daughter grow into the amazing person I knew she was, bit by bit, every single day. My daughter was lucky that she had never met this man who had lacked the sense of commitment to not have an affair when he had been away, perhaps that was a blessing for her.
Making the commitment to myself and to my daughter, I told myself that I would simply moved on with my life, as would my child, ad we wouldn't let the lack of father figure bother us. He wasn't here, he had never been here, I was just being silly by ever - even for a moment - painting him into the narrative of our lives. This man did not have a place, he had never had a place in her life, and he no longer had a place in my own.
Then, almost as if he had heard me make the silent commitment to shield my daughter from her absent father, Zac found a way to break down those brittle walls I was so busy building, and I didn't even see it coming.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My daughter's leg had healed. Having her cast removed was like a small ceremony, not only did it mean that she would be back to full mobility - for which we were both grateful - but it also meant that we could get back into our regular routine of her running around like a mad thing, unable to sit still or slow down. The same routine I had missed - even as I wouldn't admit it - which would have me rushing to keep up with her.
It doesn't take much for a parent to become fatigued while trying to keep up with their child on top of adult responsibilities, but I was beginning to. Although I had still picked her up after her gymnastics while her leg was broken, it had been far more sedate during that period with her injury. She hadn't done anything physical but had been watching the other children and listening to the trainer. It was like after watching everyone else, she had realized again how much she loved the sport and had pushed herself that much harder when her leg was healed. She was now doing things at gymnastics - and at home, and at school, and at the park - that she hadn't done before and organizing to go to the gym a few extra nights, just so she could keep up her fitness and work on her moves. Of course, I was the one who had to drive her to the gym, and to all the other places she wanted to go on her fitness journey.
Having a broken leg normally slows children down, but my daughter seemed to see that awful injury as an opportunity to learn by watching before she would enact all of those things she saw other children doing.
My daughter was clever, and I appreciated her tenacity and hard work. I also appreciated - because the coach had told me about it - that she seemed to have used this time of compound learning really well and was now further ahead than the other children when it came to her gymnastics skills. She seemed to have leap-frogged their efforts in the eight weeks where she had been healing in just under two weeks of physical practice.
As astounded and happy as I was for her, I was also a little frustrated at the same time. All this extra time at the gym meant that my long days had become even longer. Where my daughter could go home and just be home, I would need to get her home, feed her, get her clean and ready for bed, then do the bed time routine where I would listen to her talk about her day before reading her a bit of a book and turning the light off with a sweet 'good night' before going to my own room and collapsing in a heap.
I felt like I did that a lot recently, collapsing in a heap.
By the time the Friday of the second week came around, I was so exhausted that after dropping her off at school I went home for a long nap before doing the chores I knew I had to do around the house. The place needed to be spotless for my daughter and myself, but I also had bills to pay, phone calls to make and a bunch of other things to do in this time I had to myself, daughter-free.
I tidied, and called, and paid bills after my nap, then I realized how time was running out, so ran off to pick up my daughter from school.
Because I didn't have a long day on a Friday, neither did she. I would pick up my daughter at the school gate when school finished, then would rush off in search of food at the store then rush home to cook it and we would spend our Friday night together on the couch, catching up on all of the things that we didn't get to talk about during the week as I ran her around and she did all of the work that she heaped onto her own kid-plate.
Arriving at the school gate just in time for the final bell, I said hello to the other parents and we gossiped idly about our children and about how they were all doing. Even though I had seen a few of these parents since my daughters cast had come off, they still politely asked about how she was doing and when I told one of the fathers that my daughter had thrown herself into gymnastics he gave me a knowing smile.
"I'm not surprised, a daughter like yours behaving like that." He told me and I looked him in the eye for a long moment.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, that you're a hard worker, and your daughter is too. I didn't mean anything bad -"
I cut him off, "oh no, I wasn't offended, I was just curious."
The father smiled at me as his twin sons - boys with dark hair like their father and deep, soulful brown eyes like their Latin mother - approached.
I bid them goodbye as I waited for my daughter and the three of them headed home, wondering if other people could see her father in her like I could. If perhaps they looked at me, then at her, then saw the differences in our faces and figured they must be her father shining through in her features. I wondered if you just looked at my daughter, how much of her father you could see if you had never met him.
What would she ask me one day when she was a teenager and realized her father in her face? Teenagers were more self-conscious than younger children, after all.
Then, just as I was thinking of her, my daughter appeared. Her usual big smile on her face. It always made me smile how the smallest children looked funny with their big square school-issued backpacks with the school colors and logo were. They were bags children grew into, bags that looked funny on smaller children, but as they grew, and the bags didn't, the proportions
changed to make the children look a bit less cute. The children looked a bit more in control of the world around them as their school bags suited their bodies more. Bigger kids could yield these large, awkward bags much better.
"Hello sweetie!" I called out as my daughter sped up. The spring in her step made me smile as she ran towards me and threw her arms around me, as I kneeled down to catch her in my arms. It felt perfect, to hold my tiny little person like this. The bliss I felt when around my daughter was amazing. When I tried, I honestly couldn't think of what it would be like to be without her.
As I drew away from the hug to ask her how she had been today, she smiled at me and started jabbering animatedly about how great her day had been and how happy she was and how she had so much to tell me, and, and, and -
Saying a quick goodbye to the other parents who were still waiting for their children, I took my daughter by the hand and led her out to the parking lot where my car sat waiting for us.
Opening the trunk for my daughter who threw her bag in, I smiled to myself. A week was over and I was going to begin a really wonderful weekend with my daughter.
I had plenty planned, but had told her it would be a surprise what we were doing. I knew she liked surprises, even as she constantly pushed me to tell her what they were whenever she knew a surprise was coming. I knew she loved the anticipation and the build up, even as she pretended not to. It made me smile to see her carrying on about it.
"Ma! Ma! Please tell me!" I should plea, and I would shake my head no and she would exhale, shake her own head and roll her eyes dramatically before looking out the car window with a stubborn look on her face.
Today though, she was busy chatting to me about her school friends and what they had all been doing today. She was telling me about how they had played a trick on their teacher.
