Chapter One
I put the turning signal on and turned left passed the old hotel, I knew this area well. For a long time it was my way home. Now it was only a memory. I had taken my then two year old daughter and left Erie behind 10 years ago. We packed everything we owned up in the back of our car and drove away from the only life we had ever known. I never looked back. True, things weren't always easy and were never perfect but we made it on love. We headed 600 miles east to Stamford Connecticut, I went to live my dream of headlining in the WWE. I spent 2 years training at Trax and eventually everything fell into place I got a contract for Raw and worked my way up to the status of a "Maineventer". I met fell in love and married Andrew and we had two more beautiful children. Eden and Cayleb twins born five years ago. Up until then everything had been perfect I had my dream career and a wonderful man to come home to at night who I loved more than anyone could imagine. But sadly all good things must always come to an end. Just after the twins' first birthday Andrew revealed that he had been involved with Skilar's piano teacher. He moved in with her shortly after that.
I got through that just fine. I was too busy with the kids and my career to mourn over a broken heart. Then my whole world fell apart. As it turned out, Skilar had inherited her fathers epilepsy. When she was younger we were able to treat it with medication and a special diet. But as she entered adolescence it no longer worked. We switched medications several times and seen several specialists and the general consensus seemed to be that she needed brain surgery to stop the seizures. The doctors would map out the specific areas of her brain giving her the seizures and then remove them. It was highly risky and there was no guarantee that my little girl would pull through.
That's what brought me back. Even though Steve hadn't been involved in her life since she was a baby I felt that he had the right to be at the hospital when his daughter was going in for brain surgery .
My heart sank to my stomach and a million thoughts raced through my mind as I crossed the intersection the intersection to Market Street. I had been having second thoughts all along but now the doubt was really starting to settle in. It wasn't more than a couple of seconds before I reached his house. The large gray one on the corner. 405. My past and the skeleton I had kept hidden in my closet for all those years. I glanced over at the house and in a blink of an eye I was 16 years old sitting on the sofa in his parents living room.
He wrapped his arm around me and moved a strand of my blond hair from my face it was July 13th 2003 and
the summer sun was intense as it streamed through the windows that morning.
"Sammi, I want to kiss you." he whispered in my left ear.
I smiled and looked up at him. "Then why don't you." I replied
He then knelt down and kissed me tenderly. I knew at that moment that I would spend the rest of forever with him.
A honking horn brought me back from my day dream. I pulled into the parking spot in front of the house and turned the ignition off. As I took the seatbelt off I caught a glimpse of my self in the rear view mirror I had changed so much I was no longer the girl he once knew. My blond hair had grown to my waist and my dark brown eyes had gone blue. I once again wondered if I was doing the right thing. Skilar didn't even know him. The last time he saw her she was eight months old. She never knew the man who claimed to be her father she had written him so many letters over the years and never heard anything back he wasn't there to see her in a school play or ride a pony for the first time he wasn't there for the transformation from ribbons and bows to perfume and make up, he wasn't there for anything. She had no interest in getting to know him, not that I blamed her. So why was I here? How would she take all of this she had been through so much was I just adding to it? She loved Andrew as a father. He was her daddy. Not this man not the one that had left her behind.
After having sat there in the car for several minutes wrestling back and forth with the idea of just turning around and going back home I finally convinced my self to get out of the car and go up to the door and go a head with what I set out to do. I knocked on the door and a few moments later he answered. Standing there in the same light and position as he was when we left was the man who had left us behind all those years ago.
"Sammi! Is that you?" he asked excitedly stepping out on the front porch.
"Yea, it's me. " I said coldly I didn't realize until that moment how much I had been hurt by what he had done to us.
"Wow! How the heck are you!" he said reaching to hug me.
"Stop" I put my hand up to stop him. " This isn't a social visit, believe me you are the last person I would drive 600 miles to see. If I had my way about it I would have never seen you again."
The smile on his face faded. "Then why are you here? What do you want?"
"It's Skilar. She's sick."
"And?"
"Look, I know that you could care less. But she is still your daughter and you should know that next Tuesday
morning she goes in for brain surgery to remove the areas of her brain that cause her to have the grand mall seizures. And I think you should be there."
"I'll think about it."
"You'll think about it! What is wrong with you! Are you not hearing what I am saying! Your daughter, your flesh and blood, the you helped to create. Is going to have brain surgery . She could die and then it'll be too late. God! Would you grow up and act like the man you claim to be? Would you get your head out of your ass and step up to your responsibilities?"
" Step up to my responsibilities! You want me to take care of her now! Don't you remember, you are the one who left. You are the one who took her away from me! You are the one that made this choice!"
" Well, I see that the marijuana has finally eroded what little brain you had to begin with because it was the other way around. You left ME! You told me that you were too young to be a dad. You are the one who walked away before she was even born. Then you show up in the rain one night bawling because you want to see your daughter. She was six months old. You stick around for two months then decide that you can't live with being a dad. So you took off again. It was you who left first I waited long enough for you I sacrificed too much! I have never in my life asked you for a damn thing. If it was about me I wouldn't have even showed up here but its not about me it's about our daughter. You have never cared before but by god it's about time you started caring." tears of frustration and past regression swelled behind my eyes I did my best to fight them off. "Look, we could loose her. Do you want the first time you meet your child to be at her funeral. Would you put the past behind and just focus on her right now? We'll fight about the rest later."
He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. "Okay" he said after a pause. "C'mon inside I have to get some things together and tell Jaymie what's going on."
