The first time I waited for you, I still believed that you would come. You didn’t.
I sat at that window and watched every car drive down that old desolate road and was convinced that it was you because “No one drives down this road it has to be him.” It wasn’t.
Blowing up your phone while I was at school because I didn’t have service or internet at home, and I wanted to make sure that you remembered. You didn’t.
Begging my mother to let me go walk up the hill to get phone service to call you. She said, “He’s not coming.”
I said, “He is!”
You weren’t.
“I’m sorry, babe, something came up.”
“It’s okay, daddy, how about next weekend?”
The next time I texted a little more, figuring you needed more reminders.
The time after that, I texted a little less, figuring that maybe if I wasn’t so annoying, you would come.
The next I told my mom to stop saying that you wouldn’t come because she was jinxing it. It was her fault, not yours.
The next time I stopped asking.
“I’m sorry, babe, I don’t have gas.”
“It’s fine, dad.”
Eventually, I realized that I can’t wait for you. If I did, I would spend my whole life sitting at that window waiting for a car that will never come.
The first time that I went to a father-daughter dance with you, it wasn’t mine. I wore a little overall dress with Dora the Explorer sandals. God, I was so young. I don’t remember much.
The next time was years later, at the last one I ever went to. You just got out of prison a few months before, not that you called me until you were already out for a month and a half, and you decided that you were going to take me. You told me to meet you there, but mom said no. You were to pick me up at the house, or her boyfriend would take me as he had the year before. The years before that, my papaw took me. I sat there on that ugly couch in my dress with its green top and zebra print skirt (mom bought it last minute at Meijer) and my mother’s boots, and I prayed that you would show up. You did.
I was so happy I tried to dance with you all night. We danced to Don’t Stop Believing by Journey together. You watched me dance to Cotton Eyed Joe and laughed at how silly I was because I was trying to remember the Just Dance moves. I hardly danced with my friends like I had the years before. Even when you weren’t talking to me, I still waited with you. I watched you talk to the other dads about your tattoos. I was so happy.
I didn’t see you for weeks after that.
The years before, when I went with your dad, and he was way too old for that. He couldn’t move around as much. He wouldn’t really dance with me, so I spent most of the time dancing with my friends, and he sat there watching me. Watching me miss you.
I watched a show with a father and his daughter today. She was scared, and he held her and called her baby girl. He told her he will never let anything happen to her. He would never let anyone hurt her. I cried.
You told me that, too, remember? You always said that you would kill anyone who hurt me. You would hurt any boy who broke my heart. I wonder if that is why you didn’t take care of yourself for all this time—keeping your promise. Hurt the person who hurt me, even if it was yourself. But that’s probably not it.
You never were good at keeping promises.
Were you, daddy?