Her name was Janell.
It was a joke, a mix between her mother’s name, Jane, and her father’s name, Darell. A cute joke that turned sick when on her 3rd birthday he kissed her on the forehead and never returned.
That bastard, her mom said, couldn’t even wait until we cut the cake.
It wasn’t until 40 years later that she caught another glimpse of him outside of every look in the mirror, and every pronunciation of her name. The family he abandoned her for, the one he built when she was 15 years old and seemed to model after the Cosbys was gingerly seating themselves in her living room. A woman, her two daughters, and a son. In other words, her half siblings, although she wouldn’t dare call them that to their faces.
She sat in her favorite chair as they pretended to get comfortable on her couch, the one with the faded flowers that her deceased mother had covered in plastic. She offered them Oreo sandwich cookies and coffee. They declined.
Figures.
The conversation was stiff and brief.
Did she have a job?
No
Children?
3
Married? Divorced?
No
No.
No education, no passions, no future
Of course he left.
She’d ask her mother for her father every day.
Where is Daddy? To her diary he still went by that name.
The answer changed as the years dragged by; he went to the army, he went to New York, he’s in Atlanta now
And most importantly, he isn’t coming back.
Let it go.
Half of her DNA and namesake.
Let it go.
We don’t need that dusty nigga no way, Jane would spit, even though her tone suggested that she didn’t believe those words herself.
She’d heard stories about girls like her.
Girls without fathers need male approval.
Girls without father hate men.
Girls without fathers are easy.
Yo daddy prolly ain’t around ‘cause yo mama chased him away.
Girls without fathers never recover from the pain of abandonment.
And the lazy “She’s got Daddy issues.”
She’d heard stories of dads that didn’t leave too.
The ones that protected their little girls from nasty little boys
And predatory men
And teachers that were too strict or that put their hands on her.
If there were a Dad
Maybe there wouldn’t have to be Daddies
In gotdamn silk shirts and fedoras, tellin her how fine her mama was, or that she looked so much like her. Which, by the way, was inaccurate according to her half-family, who told her that she looked more like her father then they did.
Suppose they would know.
The men she dated took care of her; they gave her money for the kids they had together and went out for a nice dinner every now and then. They were handsome and they made her friends jealous until things inevitable fell apart.
They were nice, good men.
Too good to stay, too predictable to surprise her.
Break ups were always clean because Janell never expected much to begin with.
The child support payments were always reliable, and her favorite chair always cradled her as she cried herself to sleep in it for weeks afterwards.
By her third child she wasn’t sure who she was crying over anymore.
Three girls. Almost the same age as the haughty ones eyeing her meager accommodations.
Why are you here, again?
Because of a check. We have money for you.
Not an apology, not a hug, not a hot plate or an explanation. Just a flat envelope with her name scribbled on the front, delivered by his preferred family because 44 years later he was still a 20-year-old coward.
There were a lot of zeros in the check. Nearly all he owned.
They had made him do it.
For penance? Because of responsibility?
Out of the spite of living with a highly judgmental man who was hiding an abandoned daughter?
Thank you for having us, her half family said, and they sat in awkward silence for at least 15 minutes, every once in a while interrupting it with a question, or answering one of hers.
What do you do?
I’m a nurse.
I’m an author.
I am studying engineering.
Are any of you married?
Yes, for two years now. We decided he should wait to meet you.
Any children?
No.
College?
Yes.
The family and the half-family sat and looked at each other for a thousand evers.
Then someone cleared their throat and everyone had to go, so they all shook her hand and left together. Their heels clattered down the broken sidewalk, then there was a long pause, and then a door slam as the car started.
They left.
A note and a check and four warm dents in her couch, and not much else.
The note said pathetically, “I hope that you are doing ok.”
That’s all he had to say. The man who walked away with half of her and replaced the entire memory of her with them.
She stared at the piece of paper, then sat next to it, then screamed at it, then slept with it that night.
In an odd way, the meeting and the note were cathartic and final.
Where is Daddy?
Still running from his mistakes.
Still trying to make his perfect family perfect again by doing what they say
And nothing more.
What a good father they must have thought he was before she came along
Looking out for them and pushing them to be better than the people he knew before them
Than the person he made before them.
He must have taught them how to speak plainly and kindly so that people assume your pedigree and are nice to you.
He must have helped them write essays and fill out college applications.
Taught them how to swim and gave them music lessons.
He took her worth and gave it to them. Before she even started Kindergarten.
How could her half-family be so cruel
as to show up
Be generous
Be beautiful
Be so much like him
Be loved by him
Be the epitome of good, Christian breeding
While she was sad, and unhappy behind her smile, scraping by with no hope for change?
40 years since he looked her
and he couldn’t even fucking show up?
All he’d left her was his face
his money
a family worth abandoning her for
and the note that didn’t care how she was doing at all.
October 4, 2016 at 1:48 pm
I felt her disgust and envy. Good piece.
October 8, 2016 at 12:13 am
Thank you! And thank you for reading! 😀 😀
4 Comments
Wow!
“He took her worth and gave it to them”.
Thank you so much for reading <3