Promises of Paisley

Chapter 1 Sabine

             A few days into driving across the country chasing history clue after clue to find anything that traced me back to the child I never even knew about for twenty one years, I got the biggest tip from a second cousin, Dario, that led me to this ocean breeze tip of Florida. My father's side of the family is all Colombian, and families are big and close. Dario is quite a bit older than me. I was a younger kid when he was a moody teenager steeling beers from his dad's fridge and trying to sneak away without being seen. I always watched his calculated moves striding in front of big groups with loud jokes to place him at the scene before striding out the front door with the full confidence in not looking back. Dario is a grown and married man now pushing his early thirties, and I had sent him three frantic emails asking him to take lots of pictures of old pictures in his parent's albums then email them to me immediately, stirring up a massive lie about planning to throw my father a surprise birthday party for his 50th when he is still only 48. No questions were asked, which means Dario must have remembered I'm a nerdy planner, and a relentless one. It took him a few days which felt like a long time, but he eventually came through with some hints. Three pictures of the past my father hid from me showed my father holding onto Michelle adoringly during various family celebrations. I recognized her from the only photo of his past with her he keeps in our home, hidden for himself in an album under his bedroom nightstand.

Finding Michelle in the same local harbor town of Florida was easy, breaking and entering into her small stucco bungalow while she was on her routine shift at the grocery store was even easier. A typical woman with love lost, finding and taking Michelle's box she shoved in her back closet labeled, "Him and Her," made me a thief of the heart.

A treasure box full of old letters, journals, pictures, a marriage certificate, and a gold band from when her and my father's love was pure. Before I came into the picture, before they took me. But I felt pretty good about hitting the jackpot when I also unfolded what turned out to be articles written and posted about none other, than Frenchman photographed only in a suit, Charles Desjardins. I guess Michelle did some of her own digging.

Purpose is a weird word, but it's an even weirder emotional drain when it gets clogged up with elements proving to instead, be fate. Fate isn't weird because of its cruel timing. What's weird is trying to understand what that very fate's purpose is in my here and now.

I have read every article within Google that discusses my branded ink. Most are just conspiracy bloggers without any hard proof and only hear say stories about the groups in the Colombian Cartel who take, steal, barter, and who knows what with human beings like animals. Yet, all the information adds up to one difference in my human trafficking. The brand means I was worth something, meant something to them. I was marked to also be accounted for.

Weeks after deciphering through my stolen loot of memories around local libraries, I managed to find two important leads in Michelle's articles and journals that could help me find what I am looking for, or whom I am looking for. One, the ship was owned by a French Company with billionaire Charles Desjardins named as a financial partner. And two (or rather seven), he has seven residential addresses still linking him to Florida.

Here under no umbrella, In Miami's least prevalent Havana district being scorched by the blazing hot sun, I'm sitting in the patio section of the local café that's located conveniently across the street from townhomes labeled as one of those linked residences... secretly watching out for his arrival.

The first time I sat in this very sticky spot, the cup of coffee I was drinking spilled out from my shaky, nervous hands and all over my crème cardigan. The waiter who stands shorter than me and looks older than my father, threw one of the restaurant's used wet towels onto my lap to clean myself up. It smelled like pure vinegar. But after using it to wipe myself down with no time nor intention of getting up and excusing myself to the restroom, I handed it back to the waiter for him to then scold me in Spanish that I was a "sloppy whore."