Page 72 of Art of Love
“What about your dad? Won’t he miss you?”
Maybe I should have explained that part more to him and let him know I didn’t exactly have a father. An unwanted memory filtered into my mind. It was of that day at the park when I’d last seen him. He was with his family. The family he wanted. The wife and two girls, who were just a little older than me.
I was ten at the time and wearing rags. The girls wore beautiful dresses.
Mom had taken me with her to ask him for money. The way he cursed her that day in front of everyone, in front of me, was awful.
He called me athing. Told her to never bring that thing back to see him and to stay away from him and his family, then he called her a whore who tricked him. I didn’t even know what that meant.
He called her that and made us both feel like the nothing we were.
I remembered watching him ushering away his wife and the two girls, taking them away from us.
Hunter touched my face, and I blinked. The memory faded, and I came back to reality.
“Hey.” He tweaked my nose playfully. “We’re you thinking about it? Cos if your dad won’t miss you too much, I was wondering if I could steal you from him, and maybe you could spend Christmas with me.”
“Really?” I beamed, loving the idea. “You’d want to spend Christmas with me?”
“Yeah, I’ll make scones.”
“Yes, I’d love that. Yayyy.”
“Yayyy me. I promise to make it good, with all kinds of food.”
“I’ll cook too. I make really good pigs in blankets.”
“Okay, lady, looks like we’re spending Christmas together.”
It sounded good, although the week before would see us getting the long awaited answer on who would get the job.
I wasn’t sure what sort of Christmas we would have with such tension.
But hey.
I’d play...
God.
