Ahead of him, he could see her glorious purple hair. He caught up to her and grabbed her hand.
“Hey.” Pixie snatched it away. He hoped it was because she hadn’t realized it was him.
“It’s me, Pix. Come here.” He led her toward a quiet corner.
“What—”
Dred cupped her face and kissed her. Kissed her the way he should have when she’d looked at him in his room and how she’d deserved before she stepped out of the limo. He ignored the camera flash that went off to his left, put away any thoughts of being a father, and tried to show her exactly how much she was coming to mean to him. When she responded, when her lips finally moved against his, he felt it in his very soul.
“I’m sorry, Pix,” he murmured against her lips.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, Dred.”
“Wrong? You didn’t do anything wrong at all. Have you been worrying about that all this time? Shit. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. I got a call before we left. I don’t know what I am going to do about it.”
“Can I help at all?”
He couldn’t tell her what it was about. Not yet. “Just don’t give up on me Pixie.”
Chapter Nine
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 of One Fish, Two Fish from 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.”