I spent hours in front of the aquarium my mother bought me, watching for my fish to swim out from behind the trees. I had only one fish in there and he liked to hide. I always thought he feared the plastic butterflies.
I called him Gone Fish, named after my dad. That’s what My Mom always said when I asked about him – “Your Dads just gone. Get over it!”
She entertained a lot of men. I hid like Gone Fish whenever they would visit our apartment. They usually smelled like alcohol and talked too much.
There was this one guy – He was tall, had a long gray beard and wore leather pants. He drove a Harley, that’s a motorcycle and it was loud! He was my Baby Brother’s Dad or at least that’s what Mom told him. I liked him. He always brought candy for me and diapers and milk for little Mark. Momma was happiest when he was around. She would clean and sing, sometimes even cook.
Then one day his visits stopped. Mom cried a lot and I had to take care of me and Baby Mark – until there was no more Baby Mark. He just up and disappeared.
I figured he was one of the lucky ones and maybe his Daddy came back for him.
I spent more and more time watching Gone Fish and Mother’s reflection in the glass of the aquarium. She sat on the couch – emotionless and rocked back and forth.
I prayed for my Gone Daddy to come back for me. I thought when those big men in uniforms and black vest with white letters kicked in our door that one of them had to be him.
They handcuffed Momma, who wasn’t much bigger than I was and jerked her around, pushed her out the door, she tripped over her own feet. Blood trickled from her knees after she hit the concrete. I told them to stop hurting her. They just kept yelling – “We have that baby’s body. You’ll never get out of prison.” She still didn’t say a word.
The nice Police lady took me to a new family. I don’t know how she found him but, my Gone Daddy was there. He hugged me real tight and cried. Tomorrow he’s taking me to pick up Gone Fish. I have decided to change his name to Lucky.
Leesa Writes 