A New Way Home

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 boyfriend Tom 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, Tom managed to get a job in a local tool and dye shop and 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". Tom and I got married on the anniversary of our fist meeting November 05th 2009, and welcomed two more children the following year with the birth of our twins Alexandria and Emma. It seemed as if everything was as perfect as it could possibly be.

Then…it fell apart. My oldest daughter Skilar came from a previous relationship, and 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 Ash 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.

"Lizzi, 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 Tom 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.

"Lizzi! 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 truly hated 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 reality 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 at her funeral. Would you put the past behind and just focus on her right now? We'll fight about the rest later."

The look of surrender flashed across his face. "Okay." he opened the front door "c'mon in I have to get some stuff together and tell Meg that I'm leaving.

I followed him inside to the sitting room. There his wife Megan was sitting on the sofa with their new born child in her arms.

"Meg, you remember Liz right?"

"Yea. How are you?" she asked with a smile.

"Exhausted I just drove 600 miles in from Stamford." I sat down in the chair across from her.

Steve sat down next to her. "Hun, there's something that you should know. You know that her and I were together. But there is something else you should know. Ezekiel, isn't my only child. I have a daughter Skilar she's nine…"

"Steve, she's thirteen she's not nine."

"…oh, well yea I have a thirteen year old daughter her name is Skilar Lynn. I haven't been involved in her life…well ever. So there isn't too much that I know about her other than she's mine."

" You waited all this time to tell me this? Why now?"

"She inherited his epilepsy. And she needs brain surgery he's coming with me so that he can be there when she goes in." I butted in.