I cannot begin to express how sorry I am for not updating this. I promise to do better. So if you read this, you have my most sincere appreciation, and my promise that I will make more timely updates in the future.
Caryl on!
"Hmm?" I whispered.
It was all I could do. I was dizzy. Faint. I felt the world tilting and spinning under me. Daddy said something to me, but his voice seemed far away. All I could hear was his voice echoing.
"I wasn't your sister's Daddy." "I wasn't your sister's Daddy." "I wasn't your sister's Daddy."
He grabs me by my shoulders and guides me back into my seat, gently but with enough force to make me look at him again. He's crying. He's not even aware he's doing it but he's crying. Then he gets blurry again, and I hear his voice again whispering.
"I wasn't your sister's Daddy."
He pushes my head between my knees now, with his hands flat on my back. I hear him coaching me to breath and whispering nonsense words in my ear. He just keep s telling me to breathe and I just sit there, my head resting on my own knee. I finally pull my head up and notice that the knee to my pants is wet with tears. I look at my Daddy. He looks so sad. His eyes are wet, and dirt tracks are on his face where his tears fell.
"Who?" I simply say.
My whole life I've been told that my sister died at 12. My older sister, Sophia. I've heard her named screamed from my mother's lips in the dead on night, and whispered soothingly by my father in the early morning. Stories were told to me, and in my mind, she was a folk hero, a Davy Crockett, a legend. I have never seen a photograph, only been told she looked a little like I do now. Carl's even told me a few stories. She would be Carl's age now. Maybe I would have be an aunt, as I am to Carl's baby.
However, in all those stories, whisperings, reminiscing, no one told me she wasn't my Daddy's daughter. Our family rarely mentions her name, but when they do, they all give a sympathetic nod to both my parents.
My Daddy kneels in front of me grasping both my hands. He starts to speak, but falters.
"Dixie…I… she wasn't mine." His voice quivers and he angrily releases my hand and wipes the new tears from his face. Grabs my hand again.
"Baby, when I met your Momma, it was when the dead first started walking. It was just me and your Uncle Merle. She was with..."
He takes a shaky breath again; looks at me; looks down at our hands; rubs them with his callused thumb; starts again.
"She was with her husband and your sister." He squeezes his eyes shut, snaps them open. "He was a bastard Dixie. He beat on her and your sister. And I didn't do anything about it, and I'm so sorry." He's crying again, but he forges on.
"He got bit, the asshole finally got bit." Daddy growls "They were free of him, Dix." He pauses then, to compose himself.
I just stare him wildly.
"We lost your sister on the road. We were trying to find a place, somewhere, and there was a herd…" He stifles a full-fledged sob. Something I've NEVER heard come out of my Daddy's throat. Crying, he continues.
"I TRIED Dixie. I tried to find that little girl. I tried so hard, baby. We found a farm. Pop Hershel's farm. AK's momma was pregnant with her, and we needed somewhere to stay. Pop Hershel let us stay, but he had this barn…" He sniffs "This goddamn barn Dixie. And your sister, she just walked out of that piece of shit barn, and she was…." He looks at me, broken. He sobs again.
"Stop, Daddy!" I cry and grab for his shoulders. We just hold each other like that for a while, just sobbing on each other's shoulders.
After a few minutes, Daddy stands up, knees popping and motions for me to follow him into the living room. He drops on the sofa, and I drop down beside him. I put my head on his shoulder and he slings his arm around me, allowing me to cuddle up with him.
"I loved your momma then, and I love her now. I'm sorry Dixie. I failed her. I failed you. I couldn't save her." He strokes my hair and starts sniffling again. "I shouldn't have let you think she was mine, Dixie. I shouldn't have lied to you."
I look up at him then, and squeeze out a smile.
"She was yours though Daddy. You loved her. And she's yours now, right?" I blink back more tears.
That was all it took to make my big, strong, gruff, father dissolve into a million tears. He cried for an hour straight that night, and I just held onto him. We finally both fell asleep, exhausted, me curled into my Daddy's side.
