7:46 | COMING SOON

01 | THE BEGINNING

T H E   B E G I N N I N G

On Friday morning, as I'm pulling on my rain boots, getting ready to leave for school, there's a double tap on my bedroom door.

"Come in," I call, looking up from my boots and at the door.

"Hey," my dad says, walking in with an awkward look on his face. It's not unusual though; he's always wearing an awkward look.

"Hi," I reply, trying not to sound as confused as I really am. My father and I live together, yes, but we don't really talk that much.

"I just wanted to come and tell you that I'm going away for a couple of days," he vaguely tells me then.

"Okay," I say, following his gaze to my carpeted floor. He's not good at eye contact. "Everything okay?"

"Nothing's wrong," my dad assures me and then he clears his throat. "Scott and I are going to Palafox."

Scott is my dad's older brother — my uncle — and his best friend. His only friend, really. My dad isn't really a sociable person; he never has been, not for as long as I can remember anyway. Maybe he used to be though, before the incident. Anyway, Palafox is the name of a pier and yacht harbor here off the coast of the Inner Harbor Channel. A couple of weeks out of the year, my dad drives there to go fishing.

"Okay," I repeat, nodding my head. "Well, when are you guys leaving?" I ask, looking up at him, but he's still just staring down at the floor.

"He's already there, but I'm going to drive up today after work, weather permitting," he says. "I'll leave you some pizza money downstairs."

I nod in response and then stand up from my bed, knowing that if I'm going to make it to school on time and find a spot, I need to leave.

"When will you be back?" I ask him, pulling on my blue rain jacket.

"Sunday," my dad sighs. "Probably before you get home from work."

"Okay, well, have a nice time," I reply, not knowing what else to say.

My dad nods and then, with an awkward smile, he turns and walks of my bedroom, closing the door shut behind him.

Here's the thing about my dad: he's emotionally unavailable. He always has been, ever since I was a child. Don't get me wrong though, he's a good father, in terms of provision. He's always made sure I have the essentials: food, water, clothing, and shelter. That's about it though.

He's never been the type of dad that did fatherly things. When I was a child, he never took me to the park or the zoo or anything like that. And now that I'm a teenager, it's worse. He doesn't ask me about my day, we don't watch movies, and he doesn't seem to have any interest in my future, despite the fact that I'm in my last quarter of high school and am going to college in the fall. It's fine though. I'm used to it.

He's works for the Pensacola Police Department in the Criminal Investigations Division as an investigator for the Crime Scene Unit. It's all very Law & Order-esque. He's had to deal with a lot of things in the job, so I think that's part of the reason why he's so emotionally empty.

The main reason though, of course, is my mom. I never got the chance to properly meet her, because she died before I could. When I was a kid and always asked him why all of the other little boys and little girls had a mommy and I didn't, he would always say to me, "Sadie, you do have a mommy, she just isn't here." That was his answer until I was around eleven and still didn't know the status of my mother.

That's when he sat me down and explained that due to complications with the pregnancy, they had to make a choice: continue the pregnancy and risk the death of my mother or terminate the pregnancy. Obviously they chose to take the risk and in the end it cost my mom her life. I don't really know all the details behind it though. My dad just doesn't like to talk about it, so I just try to never bring it up.