The sky loomed over-head the night that scruffy, plaid-sheathed figure she so miserably had the fortune of calling her father got taken away, to serve a life behind bars.
"How could he?" Bessie asked herself over and over again; sometimes mumbling it under her breath as she brushed her knotty strawberry brown hair or whilst scouring the kitchen cupboard for breakfast ingredients to serve her younger sister, Joey, for breakfast each morning, often merely settling on nearly-stale Wonderbread and jam. Although Joey herself was only 12 years old, she knew. It was so very obvious, perhaps because of the way she toyed with the excess crumbs on her plate, pushing them around with the fat, fleshy tips of her fingers, the way he would, each morning, when something was bothering him.
Here they were, living in his image. Even if they tried with all their might to repress the memories they spent with him, if they tried to erase the marks he made on their palpitating hearts, they would still be left with the wound he severely ripped open, one much more dramatic and unnecessary than it should have been, given the fact that their mother, dear Lillian, had passed only weeks prior. Technically, they were not orphans. Technically, they had some brooding man, law-abiding or not, who still cared about them and who was still a part of them, demoralized and in hiding…from them? From the failing, little life they had all created together? From the shattered pieces that Lillian's sudden death created, which were now left on the dirty, hardwood floors, for them to clean up, in his absence?
According to Bessie, they were on their own now. All they had were each other. They were no longer merely sisters, but parents to each other, and more importantly – business partners, who had no choice but to run the Ice House, their father's quaint diner by the creek, all on their own. What broke Bessie's heart the most was the fact that Joey could no longer relish in being a kid. Her time was up and it had only just begun. Bessie felt sick to her stomach, being able to look back fondly on the times of her youth – bruised knees, first kisses, and plenty of mistakes that eventually made facing reality that much easier. Would Joey ever be able to truly experience her adolescence the way Bessie did?
Joey slid off of the second-hand, 19th century kitchen chair and headed into her bedroom on the other side of the house to change into her school clothes. As Bessie neared the table to pick up the plate Joey left behind, she got the answer to her question. Spelled out in those god damn bread crumbs was the word, "No."
Joey was well-aware that she was her father's daughter. And now that he was locked up, she knew that she had to do everything in her power to go against genetics. She would become her own person: just Joey Potter, answerer to no one but herself.