Daddy?

The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me that he was coming back. I was the happiest I had been in the six years since he'd left. No contact from him, and then BAM! my mom gets a hold of his number, and he's somewhere in Southern California.1

Okay, okay, let me back it up a little bit to where the story begins.2

It was a tragic day in February, in the year of 1989 that no one in my family would soon forget. My Grandfather was murdered by an ex-employee of his. I don't think my family ever recovered. My mother, Vanessa, in her grief, turned to the only man that was there for comfort; her friend, David, who was a very convincing young man.3

Well, you know what people do when they're grieving. They have sex. And, yep, you guessed it, that's where I come in. December 15th, 1989 I popped out and into the world, joining my two older brothers, Andrew and Micheal. My mother decided to name me Lacey.4

Life was always a struggle for me from the very beginning. Despite domestic problems in the household, I was having constant medical problems. Going in and out of the hospital with everything from ear infections to a diaper rash that was so bad that I had to have a spinal tap, let's just say that things weren't going well for me.5

As you might have guessed, things weren't so great on the home front. The "dad" thing wasn't working out too well for David, and it looked like it was close to quittin time. See, David also has another daughter named Serenity. She's about six years older than me, my mother tells me. She's also very pretty, and David seemed to favor her over me; possibly because she has a decent singing voice and he was obsessed with fame and talent. I was still a toddler, and could barely talk, let alone sing.6

Now is where we come to the part where daddy leaves. I don't remember it; I was only two.7

He was never a good person to my mother or my brothers. He used to call Andrew a retard all the time because he had a reading disability. He called my mother a bad parent, because when I was about 1 or 2, she wanted to babysit some kids with chicken pox so that I would get them because I hadn't had the vaccine yet. He called her a bad parent all the time, anyways. And my mother had just had enough. So she kicked him out.8

She kicked him out and he decided he was never coming back. I'm not worthy enough for him to come back. He didn't even fight for me.9

Years after that, I would have horrific nightmares and wake up, screaming for my "daddy". I would scream and cry, and my mother would have to calm me down and I would have to realize all over again that my "daddy" wasn't there, that he had left, and that he was never, ever coming back.10

After that, my mother had bad relationship after bad relationship. From alcoholics to drug addicts, she just couldn't win. And when she didn't win, neither did I. It sounds hard, but after a while, you get used to being abused and neglected.11

And now that brings us back to me, at eight years old, having a telephone conversation with my father. I was so excited, even though he left me. I was too young to be angry at him.12

Here is what I remember of the conversation:
Me: "Hello, daddy??"
David: "Hey, baby."
Me: "Oh, daddy, when are you coming to see me?"
David: "I'm gonna come up and visit you real soon, baby."
Me: "Really? When?"
David: "I'm not sure, but soon. Do you have any parks around where you live?"
Me: "Oh yeah, there's one right down the street, it's really big, it's got a big swing set and lots of grass."
David: "That's good. When I come up there I'm gonna take you out for a picnic, and I'll give you a real big hug."13

That's all I remember, and that's the last I ever heard from him. Just another empty promise.