Daddy (standard:other, 2958 words)
Author: Finn McKool	Added: Apr 12 2003	Views/Reads: 3279/2309	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A short story I wrote a while ago. Thought y'all might like it.

So she was lying. I never knew. Not until now. When did she finally tell
you? How long did it take you to decide to track me down? A year, huh? 
I dohn't know what to think about that. Or what to think of you for it, 
to be honest. 

I know. You've got questions. I know all about those questions, kid. 

But hey, like the old commercial said, "You've got questions, we've got
answers." 

But I gotta tell you. You ain't gonna like'em. They just won't be
enough. Some things are just better left dead. 

Right now, let me make something perfectly clear. I didn't know. Your
mother was...I loved your mother. We met, a long time ago. In the 
summer. 

It was a different world then. It was a middle school summer. Do you
remember those? No job. No hassles. You got up at noon, watched some 
cartoons, and fucked off the whole day. That's what me and my friend, 
Dave did. We'd always be sitting on someone's front porch. We still 
are. We've spent our lives that way. 

Middle school summers. Running around, playing comic book heroes, riding
our bikes to the old corner store for chips, candy and soda. That 
corner store is long gone now. I think its a church. Sweat and 
lemonade, and sitting on my front porch, watching our world (which is 
to say our street) go by. 

And the first day I saw your mom was no different. We'd had our asses
parked in those plastic chairs for about two hours. Gabbing about this 
and that, like we knew anything in the seventh grade. We were probably 
makin' fun of the girl down the street, even though ol' Dave was sweet 
on her (and dating her in that seventh grade way). And across the 
street, your great grandma's van pulled up. And out walked your mother. 
I was stunned. She was beautiful even back then. Dave was telling me 
about some Saturday Night Live skit, or somethin'. But I wasn't 
listening. I was hooked on something else. 

I watched her go from the van, through the yard, and up those steps with
that tacky ass astroturf carpet. I never understood that carpet. As 
much as I liked the house and the people in it, that carpet used to 
worry the shit outta me. But not that day, buddy. That moment, there 
was nothing but her. 

Dave kept pestering me, "Whaddy doin? You there? Whaddya starin' at?
Whoa!" He only caught the back of her for a second before she 
dissappeared into the cool dark recess of her grandparents' house. 

Later we met. She knew the other girl on the street. My mom was on a
business trip to Hawaii. It was one of the best weeks of her life. Mine 
too. That first night, your mother and I stayed out late, just talking, 
just the two of us. It was a perfect summer night. We were sitting on a 
scaffolding in the driveway next to her grandfolk's house. You could 
smell the summer. You could see the moon. It was almost full. The Man 
inside was just turning to smile. I don't know why we decided to sit on 
that scaffold. But it was a good idea. Because I even though I don't 
remember a damn thing we talked about, I remember the smiling. Me 
smiling at her. Her smiling at me. And the Man in the Moon smiling at 
us both. You could see his smile flashing in her dark eyes. They 
sparkled with reflected moonlight. 

After we'd said goodnight, I spent the night in my mom's bed. My room
was in the attic, and nice as it was outside, that attic was a fucking 
inferno at night. It was an oven. You could smell the dust and heat. 
And your sweat. You felt like you were sleeping in cooking oil on a 
cookie sheet. I spent a lot of summer nights downstairs, usually on the 
couch, but, hey, my mom was outta town, so I slept in her room. I'll 
never forget that next morning. It is engraved in my memory. Etched 
there, in stone. 

I was fast and sound asleep. I was gently shaken awake. When I sleep, I
sleep hard. I sleep like the dead (though not as well as I used to). I 
remember trying to open my eyes, and everything was a big, yellow blur. 
Then I heard your mother's voice. 


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