Jess
Ihad the letter completely written and signed.
But I just didn’t know if I wanted to go through with it. If I went downstairs... if I went into the leasing office... if I dropped it off...
I was locked in for another year here in Springsville.
Funny how, once I had made my decision, instead of becoming surer about the next steps, I had actually found myself wavering again. Yes, my father had made some great points about not staying here, but...
I started to distract myself by looking for other things to do. I grabbed my phone. No new messages from Phoenix. Not much of a surprise. By this point, he’d probably deleted my number and moved on completely. It was too bad—I really liked him, still did, and imagined his good side contained a man more than worth having.
My father had sent some casual texts since our intense conversation, but nothing too serious had emerged since. That didn’t bother me, because at least he and I had had the heart to heart to reconcile our differences. Phoenix...
He’s not going to come around. If you decide to stay, you do it because you believe you can best work on yourself here. Not because you think there’s an outside chance for a miracle.
“Damnit,” I said out loud, even though there wasn’t even a pet, let alone a human, to hear me talk.
I decided to grab some fresh air. It was still daylight, and—
TAP TAP TAP.
A knock came at my door. I shook where I stood, startled at the unexpected tapping. Still, figuring it was just a maintenance worker or a delivery, I headed over without too much concern.
I opened the door and gasped.
I hadn’t seen the man in front of me in what felt like forever. I hadn’t even seen a photo of him in quite a bit of time. But I recognized him instantly.
“Dad?”
He had his hands in his jeans, brown dress shoes, a white button-down shirt, and a silver watch on his wrist. His face had wrinkled a bit since I’d last seen him, but he still had the majority of his brown hair. Silver streaks had started to work their way in on the sides, but overall, aside from the wrinkling on his face, he didn’t look too dissimilar to when I had last seen him.
“Hi, Jess.”
“Dad...”
Was I dreaming this? Was this... this couldn’t...
“Oh my God, Dad,” I said, the emotions starting to get the best of me.
I held my arms out and fell into his, sobbing. What in the world... was this some sort of hallucination? What else could it be?
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I imagine you have a lot of questions you want to ask me.”
I nodded against his shirt, apologizing for the tear streaks I was making on it. I pulled back, dabbed at my eyes, and let him enter my apartment.
Once the door shut, I still felt profoundly emotional, but a new mood started to set in—curiosity.
“How did you... how in the world did you find me?”
He gave what looked like a guilty but compassionate smile.
“Don’t be mad at me, but I’ve actually known where you’ve lived for the past five years,” he said. “I... I never told you much about me, because I just wanted to know how you were, but I’ve been working as a police officer for the last few years.”
“Seriously?” I said.
Of all the jobs I would have pegged my father to take, cop was the last one. Granted, that assumption was largely based on my father, the raging drunk, and less on my father, the man who’d been sober for several years now, but still. Going from a man who couldn’t stop himself from twisting a cap off to a man who could pop a cap of a very different kind was just too...
“I have so many questions.”
