Petal was addicted to drugs.
The words played in his mind, over and over.In the forty-eight hours since Pixie had left, Dred had been caught up in a whirlwind involving lawyers and social workers.The only constant was his anger and his absolute hatred of narcotics.Not only had he got a woman pregnant, she had been an addict.What the fuck had he been thinking?
The subway pulled out of Dufferin, he’d be off at the next stop.Lansdowne.His daughter was living in a crappy shared house south of Bloor Street.Train tracks and strip clubs.So familiar.
He didn’t know where he himself had been born.Didn’t have a birth certificate.Wasn’t even certain that Theodred Zander was his real name.His first memories were of a Christmas spent in Hamilton, miserable because he didn’t have a winter coat, and of his mom taking her “vitamins”as she called them through the broken end of a glass bottle.
School had been a joke.He’d lived in so many places.Burlington, Imola, Brampton.The school boards had lost track of him, and his mom usually moved them on before any services could be informed.
Lansdowne approached.Dred stood and picked up the bag filled with gifts, ready to exit.
Leaving the station, he headed toward the address he’d been given.One bitterly cold February day, when he’d been around nine, his mom had bought him a tattered copy ofOne Fish, Two Fishfrom the local Goodwill.He was too old for Dr.Seuss, but desperate to show his appreciation for her unsolicited gift he thanked her profusely.She’d finally thought of him.He’d seen it as positive start, until she told him to take it into the bathroom to read while she “met her friend.”Punctuated by the groans of her sleazy encounters, he’d read it so many times he could still repeat all the words by heart.
Dred reached the uninspiring three-story building.Bed sheets were hung as curtains in the downstairs window.The frame was rotten and condensation ran down the inside of the glass.The garden was overgrown and garbage bags were piled up in corners.
Awkward didn’t even begin to describe how he felt standing at the door of his child’s mother while not one hundred percent sure what she looked like.He’d spoken briefly to Amanda, Petal’s mom, the previous evening.She’d sounded stoned, but the social worker had assured him she was under strict supervision.Thanks to the wonderful nurse who spotted Petal’s symptoms quickly, social services had been involved before Petal had even left the hospital.
There were four apartments in the building, and Dred pressed the buzzer for apartment three.Moments the later the door opened.
Amanda stood in front of him.Tall, blonde, pretty, huge rack.The very type he’d usually go for.Now, in the cold light of day, he could see the skin caked in makeup and the chapped and split lips.
“Dred,” she sighed with a big smile.“How are you?”
Something was off.She was too bright, too cheery given the awkwardness he felt.
“Hey, Amanda.Where’s Petal?”
“She’s in my room.Come on in.”
Amanda led him upstairs, the sound of a baby crying getting louder and louder.A guy with long hair wandered out of a room on the second floor.“Hey, are you ...you look like that singer from Preload?”
“No, dude.You got me confused.I get that a lot.”
They stopped on the third floor and Amanda pushed the door open.She hadn’t locked it when she’d come downstairs to let him in.The room was compact.There was a small washroom in the corner.The door was wide open and he could see a toilet and sink.No shower.Outside the toilet was a small plastic tub that he assumed was a baby bath.
An unmade double bed sat in one corner; posters of Preload, Avenged Sevenfold, and others adorned the wall.On the floor, by the rusted radiator, was a tiny bassinet, the source of the crying.The social worker had warned him about the screaming.A side effect of neonatal abstinence syndrome.He wondered briefly what the other tenants thought about the new arrival.He needed to get them out of this dump and into a better home immediately.
Dred dropped the bag and walked over to see his little girl.His heart tripped.For a moment he thought about running.Running far away from her, from the responsibility, and from the chance it was very likely his chest was about to split wide open.
A little red face screamed angrily at him, a contrast from the knitted pink hat she wore and the cream blanket she was wrapped up in.“So you’re Petal?”he asked, offering her his pinkie finger.Petal gripped it tightly, her little fist shaking furiously as the cries continued.He reached under her and gently collected her, blanket and all.The little hat on her head fell forward over her eyes, angering her more.Without missing a beat he fixed it.
In his arms, she started to settle, the shrill screaming turned to hiccupping sobs.Brown eyes flecked with gold that matched his own widened to look at him.
Dred started to hum to her, and the crying stopped.This was his child.His child.A piece of his heart, a part of his soul.What the fuck did he know about kids?He wanted her to have everything he didn’t.Wanted her to have opportunities he’d never been given.She deserved better than this shitty apartment, she deserved better than a life on the road with him.She deserved a family that would love her and cherish her.But the idea of her not being with him burned through him like an inferno, leaving him in ashes.
Petal pulled his little finger to her mouth and sucked on it gently.She had the tiniest nails on her fingers and little tufts of dark brown hair poked out from under the pink hat.Despite her blonde mom, Petal was all him, and the thought of it made him feel like a giant.
Amanda sidled up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder.“We created a miracle, Theo.”
He hatedTheo.His mom had called him Theo.His first social worker had called him Theo right before she dropped him off at the foster home where he was beaten up nightly by two older boys.
But Amanda was right about one thing, Petalwasa miracle.And he could do the right thing.
“We need to talk about what’s best for her,” Dred said as he moved away from Amanda.She was in his space and didn’t belong there.He regretted the decision to come to her house.The social worker had offered to set up a private meeting, but he’d been so desperate to see Petal he’d been unable to wait.With a sudden pang of longing to take Petal home with him, he sat down in the only chair in the apartment.Petal fought sleep, but slowly and surely, her eyes drooped closed.
“What do you mean?”Amanda asked.
“I’m not sure you or I are the right people to take care of her.”He said the words, but his heart dropped in his chest, a solid fall that stopped it beating as it shattered into a million pieces.And like Humpty fucking Dumpty, it couldn’t be put back together again.Now he’d held her, he couldn’t imagine her in anybody’s arms but his own.
