I couldn't tell you when I first realized our relationship wasn't like other girls had with their fathers. I can still remember when he acted like a dad should, buying me treats and doing my hair before I left for school.
I guess I should've noticed that something went wrong along the way. Mother and Father started fighting a lot. They separated and Mother moved out for a while.
Or for what I thought would be a while. All the stress my mother was experiencing got to her and she started taking drugs. Some I can't even remember the name of.
The point is, she owed someone a lot of money she didn't have and was too proud to come back to Father for. The last time I saw my mother was three days before she died. Murder more accurately describes the cause of death.
I wish I could say I miss her, but the fact is that she was never much of a mother to begin with, so there isn't pain to be felt.
Father took her death pretty hard and couldn't do a whole lot of anything after she died. I got a bit irritated with him, being seventeen at the time. If he was moping around all the time, who was going to pay attention to me? Talk about my day? Make me breakfast? Make me feel like I mattered?
Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.
It was three months after my mother died. I had been feeling rejected by my father. All he cared about was mourning her.
I didn't miss her. She was so high most of the time that she couldn't remember my name.
"Hannah," she would call me.
"My name is Harper, Mother." She would have always been zoned out on something else by then.
I didn't know why Father put up with her for so long. Eighteen years of his life wasted in a failed relationship.
I don't know exactly the date of when we switched from the traditional father-daughter roles.
He came into my room one night. I had just turned eighteen. He sat on the edge of my bed and smiled at me.
I scowled at him. "When are you going to stop wearing black? The bitch is gone and she's never coming back, Father," I hissed before pulling my blanket up over my head.
Instead of scolding me as he usually did before wandering around the house in a zombie-like state, he pulled the covers off of my head and said, "I'm over her darling. It's just you and I now, and I think we can have a lot of fun."
I smiled at him and nodded. Father and Mother were young when they had me. They were eighteen and not very well prepared for a child. Father was young and attractive and I often imagined what it would feel like to kiss him.
Father looked into my eyes, the dim light of my bedside lamp casting shadows across his face. "I want to try something new. Is that okay with you, Darling?"