*Author's Note: Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.
Disclaimers: This story has been edited by myself, using Microsoft Spell-Check. You have been forewarned.
*.*.*.*
"You're not my father; you can't tell me what to do," sixteen year old Gloria Esposito sneered at her daddy, Jared Broussard.
Jared resisted the urge to slap his impertinent daughter. She was right; he wasn't her biological father, but for thirteen of her sixteen years, he'd done everything he could to be her daddy.
"Yeah," thirteen year old Kathleen Esposito giggled.
"As long as you're living under my roof..." Jared started.
"Oh yeah, what the fuck ever," Gloria sneered.
Kathleen gasped, then giggled at her sister's vulgarity.
Jared turned and stomped from the room.
"Yeah, go on, run away, just like you did last time you found out Momma was fucking around on you," Gloria jeered.
"You know she ain't stopped, right?" Kathleen called out.
That declaration stopped Jared in his tracks.
"What? What did you say?" he thundered.
"Oh Jesus, Daddy, like you couldn't tell?" Gloria actually laughed.
"She's been fucking Chad..." Kathleen ticked off on her fingers.
"My real father," Gloria laughed smugly.
"...Tommy, my real daddy, Uncle Billy, Mr. Leblanc..." Kathleen continued.
"The guy next door," Gloria clarified which Mr. Leblanc they were talking about.
Jared stormed away again. He wasn't just seeing red, he was seeing blood red.
He had loved Gloria with all his heart when the child was born. He had not loved Rochelle Esposito-Broussard, but he had loved his daughter. It had broken his heart when a former classmate, friend of his wife had let it slip that his wife had been unfaithful. So he demanded a blood test on Gloria, and a blood test on the unborn daughter. Both had come back with different fathers, neither of which was Jared.
Because he had loved the toddler Gloria, Jared had applied for the right to adopt her. His attorney had asked Jared if he thought it right, that Gloria would have a daddy that loved her, but the infant Kathleen did not? So Jared had relented and applied for the right to adopt Kathleen as well.
Every Wednesday, and every other weekend, Jared when to the Esposito home and picked up his girls. He brought them to his home, played Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders for hours on end. When they learned their numbers, he bought a box of dominos and taught them how to play. Then he taught them the fun of setting the dominos up, then knocking them down.
Each time he'd pick his girls up, each time he'd drop them off, Rochelle, their mother, his ex-wife would be there, blue eyes boring into his brown eyes. Each time, she'd beg and plead for another chance. Each time she'd promise to be the best wife.
"Maybe should done that uh, the FIRST time we was married, huh?" Jared snapped.
When Gloria was ten, a teenaged girl was texting on her phone and jumped the curb. The driver felt the crunch of a bicycle, panicked and tried to run. Thankfully, a fire hydrant foiled her escape. But for four long days, Gloria lay in a hospital bed, beautiful head swathed in bandages, small body encased in a fiberglass shell.
Jared stayed in the hospital room with his baby. The only time he would leave was when Rochelle or Kathleen was there in Gloria's room. He'd go down to the cafeteria and grab a bite to eat, then rush back up.
Somewhere in all of the heartache and prayers, he found himself kissing Rochelle. He'd clung to her with the desperation of a drowning man, lips and tongues mashing violently against each other.
When Gloria did wake up, she tried so hard to smile, to be a brave little girl. The pain was excruciating, though and she whimpered when her father gently touched her tiny hand. Then, after three weeks, she was released from the hospital and brought home, to her grandparents' home. Again, Jared was there almost every day, after work. He even refused offshore work, even though those assignments paid more.
Gloria's first few visits to Daddy's house were hard on Jared. He had to care for her, as if she was an infant again. Thankfully, this did not involve diapers, but he had to carry her to the bathroom, had to assist her in cleaning herself.
"Daddy, Momma loves you," Gloria announced on one of her visits.
"Yeah, Daddy, she told me so," Kathleen echoed.
"And I love her too," Jared said, helping Gloria with her Math homework. "After all, we got two beautiful girls, don't we? No, no, Sweetheart, sixteen times two point five, what's point five, what's half of sixteen?"
"Then why you make her cry?" Kathleen asked.
"I make her cry?" Jared asked and nodded when Gloria wrote 40 as her answer.
"Yeah, she cries when you just leave," Gloria said.
"Well, Sweetheart, see, me and your Momma, we used to live together, but then Momma started kissing another boy and decided she loved him more than she loved Daddy," Jared said, giving a sanitized version of Rochelle's blatant infidelities.
"She says she's sorry and won't do it no more," Kathleen offered.
They'd talked, quietly. Rochelle swore that she was not making Gloria and Kathleen say these things. She swore she was not using their girls to coerce or manipulate or influence him.
"But you remember when we was kissing? When Gloria was in the hospital?" Rochelle asked quietly.
Yeah," Jared agreed.
"Man, I ain't never been so happy," Rochelle admitted.
Stupid. He knew it was stupid. He knew he was asking for it, asking have his heart broken all over again. But Jared did let Rochelle, and his two girls talk him into trusting his ex-wife again.
The passion they'd had the first few years seemed to die down somewhat. Jared attributed it to the fact that they were both in their thirties. Connie Esposito, Rochelle's mother suffered a debilitating stroke shortly after Jared and Rochelle's reunion and Rochelle spent a great deal of time caring for her mother. That certainly would take some of the passion out of a marriage.
Then Gloria got busted for selling marijuana at school. The police were involved, Gloria was expelled, and now the girl was laughing at him.
