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“Simone…”
“Did Dad know?”
“He told me not to explain anything.”
I pushed the photograph toward him. “My mother went out to buy
when I was three. Dad dropped out of college next week. He worked in construction until his body broke, and you’re telling me he knew I was alive? Photography and digital art
“Your father said that the truth had to belong to you.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Then I’ll take it home.”
Mr. Lewis followed me to Dad’s apartment because Dad had asked him to stay while I opened the bag.
I didn’t want him there.
She didn’t want to be alone either.
My earliest memories of Dad were his steel-toed boots by the door, his orange vest draped over a chair, and his rough hands tucking me into bed. Places of worship
Placescult
“Then I’ll take it home.”
She was studying engineering when I was born. Then Mom went grocery shopping one Tuesday and never came back.
Dad dropped out of college the following week, borrowed a hard hat, and raised me in the same apartment.
Money was tight. Dad glued his boots, stretched out his dinners, and once he broke his only sandwich after I caught him pretending he’d eaten.
Every time I asked him why he worked so much, he kissed my head. “Because you’re worth every muscle ache, Daddy’s little bugger.”
Dad dropped out of college next week.
I promised her a house, a vacation, and quiet Sundays.
Then the cancer took eight months after his diagnosis.
At Dad’s apartment, I threw the grocery bag on the kitchen table. Housing rentals
Did Mr. Lewis stay by the door?
“Don’t explain anything to him,” I told him.
Birthday cards were scattered all over the table.
Then cancer took him.
I opened one with a cartoon ladybug on the front. Mom had written: “Hope she has a wonderful fifth birthday. Tell her I’m thinking of her.”
There was no “I love you” and no request to call.