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Before: Patrick


Ashley

I stared at what seemed like a mirror, but was really a photograph. My mother stared back. It was a really old photograph, obviously from the late 60s judging by the clothes. She was in a pink prom dress that looked like cotton candy had been wrapped around her hips. She held a bouquet of white flowers - carnations, I think - and beside her, with his arm around her shoulders and a grin on his face was Patrick. He was much younger and less hairy and he didn't have glasses, but there was no mistaking his eyes in the photo, even with the dimmed coloration of old photographs, he still had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen.

I turned and looked into his green eyes in real life. He was staring at me, a breathless sort of dumbfounded expression on his face. I held Zoey out to Nick and he took her and stepped back. I licked my lips, "You knew my mother," I said.

"Very well," Patrick replied.

We all just stood there, facing eachother, Nick bouncing Zoey gently on his arm. Patrick took a deep breath. "I never... I never thought I'd see you..." he said, "I didn't think... I couldn't find you..." He shook his head as he spoke, his voice shaking.

I opened my purse and pulled out the letter from my father. I held it up to him.

He stepped forward and took it, turned it over in his hands, then looked up at me. "You met Henry," he said.

I nodded. "Briefly."

"How is he?" Patrick asked.

"Dead," I answered flatly.

A cloud passed over Patrick's eyes for a moment, his brow furrowed. Then he closed his eyes and I watched tension lift from him. Like a ghost leaving a person whom it had posessed for so long that its presence had been barely acknowledged. Patrick opened his eyes, "How?"

"He killed himself," I answered.

Patrick looked down at the envelope in his hands.

"I don't know what it says," I told him, "I only know what mine said. He told me about you. About my mom. About what happened." I paused. "He said he robbed me of a father. He said you went to visit him every year."

Patrick nodded.

"I had to meet you," I said.

Patrick put the envelope down on the table he was standing beside. I saw Nick's eyes dart to the envelope with longing. Stuff like not opening envelopes drove him crazy. But Patrick stepped toward me and my attention drifted away from Nick. "You're so beautiful," he breathed. He stood right in front of me and gently put his hands on either side of my face, looking down at me, "She would've been so proud of you. She wanted so much for you." His eyes were filled with tears. "I tried like hell to adopt you out of the system."

A tear fell from his eye, and traveled across his weathered cheek, dripping and crawling through the wrinkles and folds that lined his face, eventually disappearing into the thick beard of hair that lined his jaw.
"Why couldn't you?"

"It just wouldn't happen. I tried many times over the years..." he paused, "You probably don't remember, but I visited the group home once, when you were nine or ten..." Patrick paused. "You were listening to a walkman in the backyard, singing Don't Stop Believing at the top of your little voice, and playing on a swing set."

I used to do that all the time. My throat constricted at the thought of how close to having a father I'd been all those years and I'd never known it. I could feel my nerve endings shaking all over my body, my world was breaking apart in the best way. "Why didn't you contact me?" I asked, "After?"

"You disappeared."

I'd moved in with Nick for the first year after I'd gotten out of the group home and he'd helped me find an apartment and get settled. My first apartment had been in his name, I realized. Patrick was right. I'd disappeared after the group home until I moved to California, where I finally had enough credit established to get my own place - the apartment I'd lived in with Christopher.

"The only reason I went to see Henry every year was because I knew eventually you'd want to know about your parents, and I knew you'd find Henry and I hoped that he would tell you of me, that you'd find me, that we'd find each other. I knew if I'd given up on Henry, after all these years, that it would be like giving up on finding you." Patrick stared me in the eyes, "Ashley, I never stopped trying to find you, not even one day went by that I didn't think of you."

I felt tears burn the edges of my eyes. "Why? You didn't even know me," I choked. "Was it all for her?"

Patrick shook his head. "Ashley, you're my daughter. It was for you."

"Your daughter?" I choked out, "Biologically?"

Patrick shook his head, "It doesn't matter," he whispered. He pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. He smelled like Old Spice and peppermint mixed together, and I closed my eyes and breathed it in. It was exactly how a daddy should smell, I thought, and the rough of his beared scratched my forehead. "I love you the same either way, I always have," Patrick said thickly.

I burst into tears.




Nick

I took Zoey for a walk so Patrick and Ashley could catch up. God knows they had a lot of catching up to do. I had Zoey in one of those front loading knapsack things. The streets of Boston were loud and made her anxious and cry, so we took the T out to the aquarium. I sang the entire way over under my breath, head bent low so Zoey could hear me. She cried just the same, though much quieter when I sang than when I didn't.

At the aquarium, she quieted down. I pointed out the penguins that greet you at the front door. "Your momma will be jealous we were here without her," I said, snapping a picture of a couple of rock hopper penguins doin' the nasty on their little fiberglass rocks. "Don't look, Zoey, I'm taking penguin porno photos for mommy."

I walked around through the dark with Zoey peering out from my chest. I pointed out fish that she was way too young to care about, and showed her the big turtle in the spiral tank that ran up the center of the aquarium. I stood there, bathed in blue light with her and kissed her forehead, running my hand along her back in the little sack she was in. She was chewing on pink giraffe.

"You know," I said, "What that Patrick guy said to your mom's really true about me and you, too. It doesn't matter you ain't mine biologically, cos that's just like science stuff like petrie dishes and stuff like that, you know? You and me are more important than petrie dishes, kid. You're mine. I don't care what anyone says. I love you like you're mine so even if science says you aren't, you sure as hell are." I paused. "If your mom asks, I said heck there, okay?"

Zoey gurbled up at me.

I took a deep breath and continued on walking through the aquarium. My phone rang while Zoey and I were in the dark room with the jellyfish, their tentacles glowing bright. I could see Zoey's eyes following them as they fluttered through their fish tanks. I pulled out my cell, expecting it to be Ashley, but instead I saw AJ's picture on the display. I walked out of the jellyfish exhibit and to a corner where there wasn't anyone around before answering.

"Hello?"

"Nick," AJ's voice was panicked.

"AJ?"

"Nick, it's AJ."

"No shit. What's wrong?"

"It's Brian."

"What?"

"He's on the way to the hospital. Chris fucked him up man, he fucked him up real good."

"What!" I stood up, Zoey stared up at me. "What do you mean? What happened?"

"The dumbfuck tried to serve the papers --"

"I told him to hire someone!" I cried.

"Yeah well he didn't. He tried to do it himself. And he got fuuucked up man. I don't know the details I just know Kevin said the hospital called him 'cos he's Brian's emergency contact person and Kevin called me and Howie and we're all on the way over to the hospital. You need to get your ass over here."

"Man, I'm in Boston," I said.

"Boston? What the fuck you doing in Boston?"

"When Ashley and I found out about Chris being released, we left town."

"Shit man. Well I'll call you when I know what's going on. No cell phones in the ICU."

And just like that, AJ hung up.

My knees felt rather like the jellyfish.