Hey ppls. I am super sorry this is sooo behind but I'm working on that. Seriously, you have my word that this will be updated more periodically. I am trying to update on all my stories but i do have school so it may not be a new chapter everyday but i promise not to make you wait months this time. Anyways I hope you guys like this. It's just getting to the point where I can set up the major plot so when I update the next chapter things will all come together and make sense. Enjoy and Review.

TPOV

Alyssa never really felt like she was missing something, not having a Mother. She knows she has one. She knows her name. She even knows what she looks like and where she lives but as far as Aly is concerned she doesn't exist. But that's always been the way she preferred to think about Gabriella. Like having no mother at all was better than being abandoned. Adrianna on the other hand took the same information given to her about her mother and created this super unrealistic profile. She made her into this perfect person, who could do no wrong in her eyes. A perfect figure who had no choice but to leave her daughters behind.

As their father, I hate what not having Gabriella around does to them. Sure they have me. They have their grandparents and godparents, all people who adore them but even with the attention and support, there are something's that only their mother could give them, teach them, and show them, things that I have no clue about. I suppose they'll learn about them somewhere or another but not the way that other girls will.

They believed the stork story until they were five and started school. Not once before that had they ever asked about Gabriella. I guess seeing all the other children being dropped off by their mommy's raised a few questions. I'll never forget that day.

"Daddy," Anna asked me as I was tucking her into be that night.

"Yes Princess?"

"Where is my Mommy?" My mind of course went blank.

"Um, What do you mean?"

"My teacher made me sit next to a boy named Dylan, and he said that everyone has a Mommy, so where is mine?" She asked persistently. I turned my head to see Aly staring intent on an answer.

"Come here," I say motioning her over. She does and sits down on her sister's bed.

"You're Mommy lives far away,"

"Where?" Aly asked.

"California."

"Where is California?"

"Far away,"

"Well why is she all the way there?" Anna followed.

"Because that's where she goes to college," I answered simply.

"But Why?"

"Well because she decided that, that's where she needed to be." I was trying to answer their questions as honestly as possible without telling them that Gabriella just didn't want to be their mother.

"How come we never met her?"

"You did, you just don't remember because you were a baby."

"When is college over?"

"Um, it depends…on what you go to college for."

"How long is her college?"

"Well, she is in school to be lawyer so that could take anywhere from five to eight years."

"Wow that's a long time." Anna pointed out.

Aly added "Yeah when her college is over is she gonna come back?"

"I don't know," I told them as I picked up Aly and carried her back to her to her bed.

That was the truth. I didn't know. I had always hoped she would come to her senses and come back to us, but she never did. She graduated about four years ago and moved to New York. She did come home twice. She came home for her baby sister's graduation from East High School and once two years before when her father died. Both times she stayed just long enough for the event and then it was right back on a plane.

Richard Montez's death came as a shock to all of us. The call came in early, it was Maria and she was crying so hard that she couldn't even talk. Alex had to take the phone. She told me that Richard had a heart attack and didn't survive. My first thought was Gabriella will be crushed. Up until she got pregnant she was her father's little princess, but since she left they'd become terribly estranged. Hell everyone was estranged as far as Gabriella was concerned.

At the funeral we sat in the front with the family Anna's arms wrapped tightly around her grandmother. For whatever the reason was I turned my head and sitting in the back in the last pew all alone was Gabriella. Her hair was long, much longer than I remember, but her eyes were the same. Either filled with joy or sorrow I would never forget her eyes.

As soon as all of it was over the girls went back with Alex to their Grandmother's house, but I stuck around because I knew she would. Eventually all the cars were gone and A familiar stranger stood before he father. She didn't see me nor did she say anything. She just stood patiently wasting the better part of an hour until she is startled but the musical vibrations of her phone.

"Hello?" She answered letting the sadness leave her voice. I felt like Romeo silently pleading for Juliet to speak again. "Yes. I'm coming home tonight. I decided not to stay… Alex understands why I can't be here….I'll be fine.…you too." She sighed heavily and left and I stood unnoticed.

Her sister's graduation wasn't much different. She sat in the back, only stayed long enough to see the event and hug her sister and then she was gone again. I thought maybe being back at east high would change her back but…wrong again. She left like the ghost of Christmas past.

She did however make one small gesture. Every year like clockwork she sent a card to the girls on their birthday. I never opened them but after they asked about her the first time I really had no choice but to give it to them. Adrianna waited with excitement every Christmas Eve while Alyssa pretended not to care.

I wonder if she does really care. Gabriella I mean. I wonder if she thinks about us more than once a year. I wish she knew what knowing our daughters as people is like. The life changing experience is wonderful. I couldn't imagine my life without them, living the way she does. I just can't help but wonder if she gets what she's doing to herself.

I always told her that if she wanted it I would leave the door to girls open. I just want her to use it. We do fine without her though. When the girls were born I got a night job and finished high school. Then I got a day job and did online college at night. It took me four years but I had finally saved up enough to move out of my parent's house. Our first place was a small one bed room apartment, but we eventually were able to move up into the two bedroom house we live in now. I got a job as a Science teacher at East High, which is actually pretty cool.

When I get home the girls are watching a movie with their babysitter Aaliyah.

"Hey guys," I say walking through the door.

I'm almost knocked over when the girls rush up to hug me.

"Daddy," they cry. And it seems then that life is perfect. No matter how hard it is to keep the bills paid, or how hard it was to work while my friend were able to go out and party and play basketball, having them is truly the best part.