There were times in your life you could call pivotal. The times that shaped you, made you who you were, took you past a step in the crossroads of life and directed you down one way and not the other. The day he met Jocelyn Darnell, the day he asked her to marry him. The day she told him they were going to have a child, the death of his father, the birth of his child. All of them, spots in the road that shaped who he was today.
But the greatest of them all, the one that meant more to him than any moment in his life ever had done, and ever would do, was the birth of his beloved daughter.
Joanna was his world. The reason he had for breathing, the one person that he knew he would die for without even a first thought, never mind a second. The love he had for her was a love that he'd never expected to feel. Encompassing everything he ever did, he ever thought of. He wanted to be a better man every day just because he knew it was what she deserved. He would sell his soul to the devil just to see her smile. Which was ironic, considering the demonic status he'd put upon Jocelyn in their divorce.
He'd searched high and low since being parted from her for something, anything that would bring him closer to her. He lost himself in the bottom of bottles of liquor, sobbed himself to sleep with photos of her by his bedside, smiling at him with blissful innocence. She didn't know how much it hurt him to be away from her, and she never would do. Nobody would know, or feel the pain that he felt every single day that passed, that he missed part of her childhood.
Birthdays went by with an ache to be near her, a sorrowful message apologizing for not being there because Daddy was 'trying to help sick people get better'. In reality, he was just trying to find a way back to his daughter, after running from his problems.
The truth was, he would really have given anything to be there for her. To be the one that tucked her in at night, and woke her for her day in the morning. He wanted to see her excitement at discovering new things. To support her with her school work. To hold her hand when the nightmares came, and to soothe her when she scraped her knee.
Years wasted. Wasted not being by her side, not being with the one person he loved with every single breath he took. Regardless, he knew it, of how she grew up or what she chose to be, he would love her. Whatever choices she made or path she took, he would be her biggest cheerleader and supporter.
Some nights he lay there wondering if he should have simply turned the other cheek to finding Jocelyn in bed with Clay. Maybe he should have put his pride aside, bottled up the agony and hurt. A small sacrifice, he often thought, for being there for Joanna. He knew, in his clearer and more well balanced moments just how unrealistic that would have been. The tension and awkwardness between her two parents may have created an even more toxic atmosphere for her, hurting her even more than any abandonment ever could do. As much as it hurt him, he had to consider what would be best for her above all else.
If I traded it all, if I gave it all away for one thing.
He would have given his world just to hold his daughter in his arms one more time.