"Cause there is danger in the embers
And you have only yourself to blame
If you get burned when you try to rekindle
That old flame
Speak to me plain
Tell me the truth
Is it really me you miss
Or just your long lost youth?"
Old Flame - Don Henley
Sharon Rose exited the driver's side of her mother's car, which had been handed down on her sixteenth birthday. She stood at the bottom of the long driveway leading up to the shiny white house. The car door rattled when she shut it. She was disastrously anxious; who wouldn't be, facing something like this.
Sharon remembered how she felt when she had turned eighteen in February. As an adult, she felt free: she could legally get a tattoo, though that hadn't stopped her getting a cheap stick n' poke at sixteen, legally vote, and, overall, she felt no longer trapped in her mother's house. A heightening feeling on a two year streak!
The idea to look through her mother's old records, documents, and such came about only a few nights after her birthday. It no longer felt blasphemous in Sharon's eyes to ask her mother questions about her father. When Lita wouldn't answer the way she wanted, Sharon grew angry.
All she wanted was answers, and she was bound to find them if she really looked.
So on one late afternoon, when Lita was out to dinner with her aunt Melissa and Sharon had 'stayed home to study for finals' – she really hated to lie to her mother – she searched the crevices of the house for clues.
She hoped they'd be stuffed somewhere in her mother's closet like all her old pictures were. Sharon had seen them since that time when she was just a little tyke, playing dressful and destroying palettes of makeup.
But they weren't there. She looked behind the dresses and under everything; the room was suspiciously clean. She checked every drawer in her mother's bureau, under the bed, in the drawers of her desk. She went into the empty cellar, hoping to find a few stray things that pointed to the information's whereabouts. Sharon didn't even know what she was looking for, she just wanted to find some random thing.
Finally, she stood at the end of the hallway, looking up at the ceiling. The opening of the attic was there, a string secured tightly to it, just asking to be pulled down. Sharon went up to it, looking at it briefly before making the quick decision of bringing the stairs down.
The attic was dark and the stairs dusty, but she slowly bound up them, looking for an overhead light. Her right hand grazed a switch and instantly the attic was illuminated with bright, yellow light. Boxes stacked high on the left side. The right side was empty except for old wooden bed frames – Sharon's from years ago – and broken chairs.
She ducked under the cobwebs toward the left side, reading the markings on the boxes. 'Christmas, Halloween, winter clothes, Sharon's old toys...papers!' she thought, yelping aloud when she saw something that might help her. It just happened to be the bottom box.
Not thinking, she picked up three boxes, dropping them to the floor and cracking whatever was inside. Sharon winced, then she carefully moved the rest of the boxes. When she finally got to the bottom, she ripped off the duct tape and ravaged through it, pulling out letters and photos. Then she found what she was looking for.
Under all of Sharon's old artwork and old tax documents was a large orange envelope with her father's name on it. She ripped it open quickly, displaying its contents on the attic floor. It was her parent's divorce documents, it turns out. Sharon thought she heard something downstairs, so she put everything away in the box except for a few things. She re-stacked everything in its original places and then found herself back on the second floor hallway.
Sharon visited every room she had been in, making sure everything was still in its correct places. The attic door was shut and the stairs were up, the string in its original place. She rushed into her bedroom and locked the door as Lita entered the house. In her hands were the documents she was looking at in the attic.
Sharon was shocked to see not only all of her mother and her own information, but also details of her father: name, date of birth, and even where he lived.
Sharon walked up the driveway, the paper in her back pocket. If it was still correct, he's been living in the same house for almost twenty years, before she was born. If he wasn't, maybe it was a sign that finding her father was hopeless, that he didn't want to see her.
After finding that information, Sharon had planned to see him after school got out, when she was no longer required to attend high school and could be on her own, alone in the world. But she hoped with all her heart that he was here.
She didn't look back, heading farther up the driveway and up to the door.
She knocked. A bark was heard on the other side of the door and Sharon stepped back. In a moment it hit her: all the anxiety came back. Did she really want to be here? Steps came towards the door and Sharon looked behind her, hesitating.
She had hoped to speak with him and form something, but now she wasn't so sure. But also, it might not even be him on the other side of that door. Maybe her mother was right to not tell her anything about him.
Someone opened the door and she looked back, catching the sight of a man in the doorway, a small black dog running around his feet.
Axl heard the knock from the living room where he was sitting, watching the television. It was midday and he was expecting no one. He got up slowly, Blu running to the door before him and yelping aloud.
He got to the door, opening it and meeting the back of the head of a redhead. She turned her head, frightened and staring him in the eyes. He was immediately struck by her beautiful bright green eyes, shining off the midday sun.
He felt overcome with confusion by her appearance and emotions over her expressions. He recognized the spitting image of himself
"Dad?" she asked.
