Chapter One: Origins of Depravity
My name is Brent, and until a week ago I considered myself as normal as most anyone else in America. Aged 38, in decent shape, a drinker, single dad of one amazing daughter, with a good job and decent income. My daughter's mom, long since estrange to me, had won a favorable custody agreement. Go figure, right? Sure I spent as much time as possible with Julia, my daughter, but never as much as I wanted.
That was why it was such a surprise to me when Julia, recently eighteen, decided to move from Georgia where she had been living with her mother and step dad to go to Iowa, where I was living. Her mother took it about how I would expect; blaming me for pressuring her to go to ISU so she'd be close to me, but truth was I never wanted to pressure her to do anything at all. I spent the last nearly two decades of my life trying my hardest to make Julia a part of my life, why would I endanger that by telling her how I think she should live her life?
I drove down to Georgia to the hillbilly town where Julia's mom had settled and it was an icy affair. I loaded my daughter's limited possessions in the truck I rented. Her stepdad was trying to act protective, and I might have respected him for it if it was anyone but my baby. I was there when she was born. When she took her first steps. Picked her up from school when I could. This man had no place to judge me. I had done the best I could, and Julia made an adult decision.
The drive back to Des Moines had been fun. Julia was bright, talkative, and full of an energy resembling her mother when I had first met her twenty-two years prior. We hadn't seen each other since her 16th birthday because of the distance, and her mother's power over my fatherhood.
"I missed you daddy," she said out of a silence born of long hours on the road. We were passing the Iowa border, thankfully only two hours from home.
"I missed you too, Julia. More than you know," I replied. I didn't tell her how good it felt to be called daddy by the girl I was afraid I had lost forever. I knew her mother hated me for her own reasons, but I was always angry when she tried to bring them between me and my daughter, who was and should remain innocent of the entire situation.
When we had unloaded her things to the second bedroom in my modest two bedroom home I returned the truck while Julia followed in my four door toyota. I didn't begrudge the loss of the second bedroom, which originally was to be my music room, but became forever storage when adult life crashed around my youthful dreams.
"So what do you do nowadays, dad?" Julia asked as we drove back home. She and I had talked on the phone, but I had always been too interested in her life to divulge much of my own. I wanted to know about chess club, and softball, boys should there be any, and her plans for the future.
"I sell ad space for local television stations. Sounds about as bad as it is, but I guess I'm good at it cause they pay me decently," I said. I was resisting the urge to smoke, that nagging feeling at the back of your brain that whispers to you, always reminding you that you need to smoke. Julia didn't know I did, but I was sure she could smell the stale tobacco buried deep in the fibers of my car.
"And what about you Julia? Big plans in Ames?" I asked. Ames was a decently short commute from my house, and was where she was going to school.
"Well... I'm going to major in chemistry, but I plan on narrowing it down further once I experience the classes," she replied. Her voice was bubbly, her face filled with the genuine excitement brought about by the naivety of a young college freshman.
Everything seemed happy-go-lucky and as normal as apple pie for the next two weeks. Julia settled her room, and spent most her time at home, only going out to talk to ISU representatives, or on a couple occasions went dancing downtown. We had dinner together, saw a couple movies, and it seemed to fill a lonely hole in my life. Her presence lifted my spirits, and my work was just as positively affected.
When I nailed a nice commission bonus, I decided to celebrate with Julia. I bought a couple bottles of champagne and two choice steaks for dinner. As I set her plate on the table and poured both her and I a generous glass of bubbly, she giggled, the sound almost as bright and crisp as the tinkling of glasses during a heartfelt toast.
"Daddy! I'm not old enough for that!" she had a smile on her face that lit up those cerulean eyes, and her brown hair was pulled back in a lost tail that still let strand of her curly hair fall around her face like a frame.
"Your mom doesn't let you drink at home?" I asked, knowing full well the answer to that question. Her mother's tightassness was one of the things that had ended our marriage. Julia only giggled again and shook her head no.
"Well this is your home now, and you're allowed to drink. ONLY AT HOME!" I added the last part in my best stern voice, but she just laughed me off and clinked her glass to mine. I drank mine rather quickly and repoured, feeling a warmth throughout my body. Julia hadn't seen, but I had drunk a generous glass of single-malt while cooking the steaks. Old habits, they say.
