He stared at the folded paper. He’d been led astray, sure. Either by my mother or me, or a combination of the two of us. But he should’ve known. He should’ve tried harder.
“I want to leave that door open. Amanda and Jennifer know about you. I have pictures of you still. So if you ever?—”
My anger dissolved in the light of this news. “You have pictures of me? As a girl?”
“Of course I do. Baby photos. Right up until,” he looked down at the paper. “Up until this. Your mother never sent any. To me, you were always six years old.”
“I would love to see them. I have no idea what I looked like as a child.”
He pulled out his wallet.
“I have this one on me.” He tugged out a small photo, somewhat faded and rough around the edges.
I examined it. A young version of myself stared up at me. My dark hair was short and curled beneath my chin. I wore a red headband that matched the long-sleeved shirt beneath my dress. My smile was huge and genuine.
“Kindergarten,” he said. “The last good days. I wanted to hold that image of you in my heart.”
My eyes pricked as a rush of emotion coursed through me. He still carried my picture.
“I know you could have used me there. In hindsight, I see my mistake was enormous. I made sure you always had a home. I sent your mother money every month.”
“What I needed was you.”
“I see that. I wish I could go back and change things.”
“I think she kept me sick so I wouldn’t leave her.”
He sucked in a breath. “My God, Ava. What did she do?”
“I don’t know. I had prescriptions that quit getting filled. She stopped my education. When I piece together my notes, it seems every time I started sneaking out or seeing boys, she would move us, and then I couldn’t remember anything from before.”
He shoved back his chair with a squeal and stood up. “I’ll have her arrested. She will rot in jail for this.”
I held up a palm to make him sit back down. “How would we prove it? Accusations from a girl who can’t remember, who has a condition nobody understands?”
He leaned across the table to gather my hand between his, like when we first said hello. When I lifted my gaze to his, I saw what I’d been looking for, the things I’d seen in other fathers and daughters but had never experienced for myself.
Gentleness. Care. It was there.
My father had it.
“I need a dad,” I choked out. “I got away from her, but I still need a family.”
He rushed around the table. “Ava, I’m here. I’m totally here.”
He folded me into his arms. I tried to remember him, tried so hard. I had seen what fathers do with their children, swinging them in the air, pulling them against their chests.
I couldn’t picture myself that way. I couldn’t see that girl with her headband held in his protective embrace.
But maybe I could feel it.
Dad smelled of expensive clothes and hair products. That didn’t connect.
But the curve of his chest. The pull of his arms. The press of his chin on my head.
I felt that. I surged with a sense of calm, of letting go, as if I wasn’t in charge anymore. Someone else was at the helm. The impression ran deep, below memory, beneath understanding, and into the marrow of who I was.
I was a daughter.
