The Disappearance of Jack Reese – Year Five
The first time Jack Reese saw his daughter in five years - was in of all places a supermarket. He thought he saw her all the time. Every petite dark haired young woman with a pony tail got a second look from him and often a dirty stare because they presumed he was looking at them for something he wasn't. He thought perhaps he'd see Dani on the news, at a crime scene or maybe when she was promoted to a political position in the Department, but even Jack had to admit – departmental politics and his daughter would never work out.
This day however, he was picking up some breakfast cereal, when he saw her turn the corner down the aisle he was shopping on and it really was her, his Dani. She was looking directly at him, but focused about three feet off the ground searching for something or someone small. He didn't think she'd recognize him in the ball cap and dark sunglasses and she was so distracted she didn't.
Jack stared right at his daughter scrutinizing the fine details. She was almost exactly the same, save a few tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes, ones that usually came from smiling, which was odd because his daughter never really smiled much. Her dark eyes were intently focused and searching, her was body tight and tense, balanced like a dancer. She was wearing her hair down and she looked worried, her brow furrowed into a tight crease. Then instantly she raised her vision and visibly relaxed – even smiled.
Jack thought it was a strange reaction to seeing him again after his disappearing act, but returned her smile. Just as he did, however Jack realized she was looking beyond him, through him, not at him at all.
"Mommy" a small voice behind him announced from just over his shoulder, as the child passed by in the arms of a tall man with reddish brown hair.
"She was helping someone who was lost" said the man whose voice Jack instantly recognized. He stood spell bound as Crews released the child onto the ground and she scampered at his daughter. Dani lifted the girl, with dark curly hair like hers, up quietly scolding her with a smile still playing across her features.
Jack wondered when Dani found time to have a child and what man had captured his daughter's heart. He could see she was still partnered with Crews and they remained joined at the hip. Inwardly he cursed Karen Davis for letting the Department put his daughter with that maniac ex-con, but at least he was loyal, Jack begrudgingly gave Crews that.
Dani was still quietly chiding her daughter when Crews caught up to them and he caught a fraction of a child's "outside voice" used inside "and then Daddy found me".
The implication chilled Jack Reese and froze him to the spot. The "Daddy" the child referred to as she twisted in her mother's arms and pointed towards was Crews.
Charlie Crews had a child with his daughter. He leaned in and kissed Dani on the mouth and patted the girl on the head, scolding her slightly "Honey you really scared your mom, I know you want to help people and that's good, but tell us before you run off okay?" The small tight knit family was in a tiny bubble that included only them. It was as if the rest of the aisle, store, block, city, state and planet existed somewhere else. Dani and Crews so focused on their daughter and immune to any other distraction. "Let's have mango" the little girl's outside voice got away from her again. Charlie smiled brightly, Dani scowled and pronounced "you can not have mango for dinner" then as an added aside to Crews "she may look like me - but she's definitely her father's daughter" then another aside almost as if she was talking to herself "honestly, who eats fruit for dinner?" before delivering a feigned exasperated sigh, sending the little girl into a fit of giggles.... "Daddy does" the girl laughed. Crews just smiled amused at the interaction and opened his hands as if to prove he had nothing to do with the exchange.
Jack executed a stiff "about face" and clenching his fists marched away from them. Everything he sacrificed, planned and gave up to keep his daughter safe and here she was with Charlie Crews. Crews, a convicted murderer (never mind it had been a frame up); the man spent twelve years in federal maximum security prison, where god knows what had happened to him. And the idea that Crews was with his daughter, had a child with his daughter…it made Jack's blood boil.
The question was did it make enough of a difference to bring him out of hiding. Five years is a long time to stay away from your family, even if it was for their own good.
When you make a single poor choice, do you pay for it forever? Apparently he did. Or at least so it seemed to him. If he came back now, would his family take him back? No amount of money could replace what Jack lost that day when he decided to sell his integrity for money he didn't earn. Would it make any difference that he regretted it everyday since that damned robbery? If he came back, what would she say? Would it make any difference at all to his stubborn daughter?
Jack remembered Dani as a small child, so stubborn, so willful, so absolutely intent on things. She could not be made to do anything, but tell her she couldn't do something – and she would do it or die trying. And once she made up her mind, Dani was impossible to move, in that way she was just like him. If she had chosen Crews, what possible hope did he have of changing her mind?
He was still fixed in thought when the family exited the grocery store, Charlie dutifully carrying both the groceries and the daughter and Dani clutching the keys. He watched transfixed as they climbed into a dark sedan, strapping the little girl safely into her child restraint, before Crews placed the groceries on the floorboard and slid into the passenger seat.
Dani remained vigilant, scanning the parking lot like a hawk, as if she knew she was being watched. A comment from someone in the car drew her attention, caused her to smile again, duck into the car and slip behind the wheel. Jack never knew his daughter to smile as many times in a week, as he'd just witnessed in the last ten minutes. What would happen to those smiles if he came back into her life?
Still undecided, Jack started his car and followed at a safe distance as Dani wound her way up the hillside toward Crews home.... Jack guessed probably now hers as well. He'd have to make a choice up there at the top. It was a cul-de-sac, one way in, one way out, she'd see him for certain, unless he stopped now and faded away. But five years is a long time to hide and Jack Reese figured maybe his fading away days were at an end.