Chapter Nine

SHAWN

After staying in a hotel on Church Street for a few days, I decided I should taste Philly again after years of being away from it. The Philly I knew. Not the upper-middle-class neighborhoods with houses and nice gardens.

The Philly that had cars with broken engines that would never be fixed. The Philly with the houses that weren't so new and fresh, and the things inside them weren't so new either. The people didn't go school-clothes shopping. It was either hand-me-downs or make due with what you got. The kids that hid behind leather; others were shy and sometimes skipped lunch because all they found in their fridge or pantry was an old bit of cheese and a stale box of cereal, and they didn't want to be seen with a bag of Cheerios or picking around the crusty part of the cheese.

The trailer-park Philly.

The Philly that was my home.

I walked down the sloping hill that stopped short, leaving gravel and mud to lead to the trailers. I wasn't looking for family. My Uncle Mike had left when I was a teenager and I hadn't seen him since. Everyone else seemed to either fade away or I knew they were in jail, so I didn't bother like I would have when I was a kid.

All I saw was nothing different. The tin houses were lying around as if they were some bad milk a baby had spat up in Heaven. There was a couple with a brunette girl who was skipping rope. I sat on a tree stump, careful not to seem stalkerish as I watched her play.

She was singing "Friar Jacques" as she swung the bright pink rope around her. Her tiny voice made her out to be no less than five or six, but all I could do was listen. It was beautiful. The same way a baby bird twittering in a tree, safe in its nest was beautiful.

And in my heart, I could not help wishing my daughter was just like her. I hoped that tomorrow, Danica would wake up as the little girl that clung to my leg instead of swinging at my face. The little girl that cried to her daddy and didn't yell. I wanted her to be that girl again.

I hated who she became. I hated Malcolm for influencing her. I hated everything that managed to break her any further. And in the pit of my stomach, I was beginning to hate who she was.

She reminded me so much of Angela when she was her age. She was just as beautiful. She could have easily picked a nice, clean guy without a criminal record or time spent in Juvi, Danica thinks I didn't know about when they were fifteen.

The little girl made me think of Danica again. She stopped singing after she fell over, but she didn't scream. Instead she giggled, the noise traveling around the sky until it wrapped around the trailer-park. She kept on giggling until her dad came to pick her up. He kissed her cheek and she cuddled next to his.

It almost made me cry and I kept biting down on my lips to stop the tears from coming. I wasn't more thankful for when they went inside their trailer.

Was I selfish?

Dear God…what happened to my daughter, God…I hardly ever come to you for anything…Just answer me please…