Vice and Acceptance | Completed |

Rewriting the Past

As I dropped my daughter off at her pre-school, I began to think about Jadyn.

I haven't seen her in 18 years.

I think about the morning I woke up and she was gone almost every day. I wonder what she's doing now. Did she finish school? What kind of career does she have? Is she married? Do I have little nieces and nephews running around out there?

I've tried searching for her, I spent a lot of my late teens following any possible leads as to where she disappeared to that day back when I was 11, and nothing ever came of it.

You can't find somebody who doesn't want to be found.

So, I moved on.

I work for Child Protective Services now, helping children who are just as lost as Jadyn and I were. It's the most fulfilling thing I've ever felt, other than raising my own two kids. Being a parent makes me think of my mother more than I would like to, in all honesty. I could never think of doing what she did. I could never abandon my children. They mean the world to me, they are my second chance at life, and to put a gun in my mouth and leave them to figure everything out for themselves? What kind of human being would that make me?

I thought back to the day my mother killed herself. Jadyn shielded me from witnessing a scene that I'm sure still haunts her to this day.

I think about the pain that engulfed her face as I ran to Mrs. Novak's to call the police. That was the only time I had ever seen Jadyn cry.

I cried every night in the foster home, when nobody was around and Jadyn was fast asleep. I wanted to be as strong as her, but at the same time I wanted her to protect me. The day she left, I was ashamed of how scared I was. That's when I decided that I needed to take care of myself, because in the long run, nobody else would.

Now, I just hope my children never feel alone.

I started heading home on my lunch break, usually I would just stop somewhere in town and head back to work, but my son was home sick with the babysitter. I picked up a Happy Meal, excited that the toys this week were little action figures of the characters from Scooby Doo. That had been one of my favorite shows as a child, and now my son asks for us to put it on every night when it's time for him to go to bed.

Once inside the house, I heard the water running upstairs, and my son came dashing around the corner butt naked.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Lacaze! I'm just trying to get him into the bath, but you know how he is." The babysitter was red faced, and flustered from chasing him around the house.

"Are you giving Miranda a hard time son? Come on, I'll take you up to your bath and then you can eat your Happy Meal. You're gonna love the toy."

I swooped my naked little boy into my arms and began hopping up each stair, one by one, causing him to laugh uncontrollably. Eventually we made it up to the bath and he reluctantly got in, I handed the reins off to Miranda and told my son I loved him.

Right before I left the bathroom though he excitedly exclaimed, "Daddy! Daddy! You'll never guess who visited today. It was the lady from the tree! She told me she used to live here, and that I look a lot like her younger brother. Daddy... Are you the tree lady's brother?"

I tried to keep my eyes from watering as I looked at Orion, "Yeah buddy, I was."