My childhood had been built on lies and mistrust. I decided then that I wasn’t going to continue that cycle with my daughter.
“No, baby girl, he’s not,” I answered. “I wish he was though.” My eyes watered.
“Don’t cry, Mama. We can pretend he is. Okay?”
“Pretend?” I asked. Georgia had such a huge imagination.
“Yeah. We just pretend he’s my daddy.”
I couldn’t say no to her liquid green eyes. “Just for pretend though, okay, baby girl? He’s not your daddy. Not really.”
She looked down at the picture then back at me, smiling like she’d just ransacked an ice cream truck. She also lost all interest in knowing anything more about who her father was. She was satisfied with her new picture and the promise of a game we could play together.
“Yes, Mama. Just pretend.” Then, she ran off to her room with the picture in hand. It wasn’t until I changed the sheets on her bed a few days later when I realized she’d kept it under her pillow.
The day we moved into Nan’s house she requested a frame for her picture and announced she wanted it hung over her bed. I didn’t want to do it. It took the pretending a little too far for my liking. But, the picture went up, and each night when I put Georgia to sleep I came face to face with what had almost been.
Before I started tackling the boxes in the kitchen, I changed into shorts and a tank top. I was in need of some comfort, so I threw my old black hoodie on top of it all.
I wondered what Nan would have said if she could have seen all of the changes her little house had been through. I was sad to see the old avocado appliances and white cabinets were gone, but I wasn’t about to complain about the stainless steel and cherry wood that had taken their place. The stained and ripped linoleum floors had also been replaced with a dark hard wood in varying shades. Nan’s home, even in its new and improved state with its landscaping overhaul and new coat of paint, still looked like Nan’s house…just mixed with an ad from Island Home Magazine.
I slipped out of the house through the back sliding glass doors. The investor had torn out the old screened in lanai and built a new outdoor kitchen area, complete with a brick paver deck, state of the art grill, mini-fridge, sink area, and granite counter tops. But the view was as spectacular as ever, with the mangroves floating over the dark blue waters of the Coral Pines River. It seemed to be the only thing left completely unchanged.
I opened the grill and felt around for the key I had taped to the inside of the hood. I used it to open the lock on the drawer below the grill meant to house cooking tools.
I had no such tools.
I retrieved the old tin pencil box I hid the day we moved in. The box had been doodled on and taped together more times than I could remember. It contained a small yellow glass pipe, a lighter, and a dime bag. I’d tried to be one of those women who had a glass of wine at the end of the day.
I’d never developed a taste for it.
I’d bought a couple of plastic reclining chairs from a garage sale to use on the patio. Those chairs, plus a twin bed and mattress for Georgia and a mattress and box-spring for my room, were all the furniture we had. I had planned on buying myself a real bed, along with a couch and table for the living room by perusing the weekend flea market and swap meet the week before.
My plans for more furniture had been derailed when Frank died.
I’d been calling him all throughout that day to tell him about having rented Nan’s house, and to tell him I would be by with his groceries a little later than normal. After two hours with no call back, I had a sick feeling that something was wrong.
I pulled up to his house and banged on the front door. When he didn’t answer, I tried the door...which was already unlocked. As soon as I had entered the house, I knew he was dead. It seemed to radiate a chill throughout the space.
The smell only reinforced that.
I found Frank’s body upstairs in the guest bathroom. He’d been sitting, fully clothed, in a pink tiled bathtub with no water, clutching a picture frame in one hand and an empty bottle of Wild Turkey in the other. His eyes were closed and if I didn’t have that feeling of death all around me, I would have just thought he was sleeping.
I went downstairs to use the phone and called the sheriff’s station. I waited upstairs, sitting on the bathroom rug on the floor next to Frank. He’d been alone for such a long time. I didn’t want him to be alone anymore.