Who's yo daddy?

"If you and I can't co-exist let's fake it,
cuz I aint got the energy it takes for this relationship."
-Atmosphere

Required Disclaimer: The ability to reflect, maintain an air of seriousness, and empathize needed to continue.

I sat on the back lawn raking my hands through pillow tossed curls and counting sprigs of Lavender plucked in vain. The midday sun basked down upon a paper airplane folded from the white standard size printer paper of my resume. A bottle of Avalanche pressed against my calf; the condensation licked at the warm skin. Erykah Badu swept through discarded earphones, her silk threaded words brushed against my chipped toenail polish. The toes are connected to the foot, the foot is connected to the leg, and the leg is connected to the hip – or something like that. My hips swayed to the beat; my waist pinned in between two gold squares of a bathing suit bottom. The paper airplane bore the letters of my favorite curse words written in a steady hand's cursive. Behind the eye of a camera the sun would have caught as a halo atop her brown hair. I shielded my eyes from the glare (my sunglasses crushed by a Macy Gray wiggle); into the yard walked a barefoot and freckled girl of four years.

"Hi Mimi," she folded her legs underneath a dress sewed with the patches of a fruit bowl. "Hi baby doll. What can I do for you?" She pulled tufts of grass and piled them high on my knees, waiting till they had become fleshy hills of green before saying, "The phone is ringing." The mounds of grass tumbled as I leapt to my feet with the anticipation of the caller's identity. She shouted calls of encouragement and laughter at my sprinting.

It was only a wrong number; a heavily accented voice spat broken English into the receiver. I grumbled and placed the phone back in its cradle. The caller had not been for whom I wished, and Claire is not my Christian name. I returned to the "garden" – what amounted to a blend of living grass to mask the dying, a towel, and cookie crumbs – the wingless barefooted fairy conducted a tea party with the outline of her imaginary friend. The auspice of a storm tumbled into the garden; she sent her troops of liquid to the tops of our heads. My face splattered with drops of fluid men, a shape I had not seen for many months walked into the garden. I remembered my phone tucked away in the folds of a sweatshirt from the morning and the defective doorbell. Dark hair curled around his ears; a frame for an oval face decorated with deep set eyes made with coal and full untamed eyebrows. He stopped two feet before me. Walk away right now. Flip one middle finger and float on an air of arrogance back into the house. My mind argued the side of sanity, but I only stared at his loose t-shirt, faded jeans, and black Converse.

"Hello," he offered his greeting on a platter of apprehension. The last time our two shapes had met a bottle was broken and a framed picture torn in half. Lost in the memory, a cool touch grasped my elbows, an alert for the here and now. My father, the senior member of a relationship marked by malicious words, jealousy, alcohol, and desperate love, held the sprinkled skin of his eldest daughter. An identical pair of eyes anxiously stared at their twin. Long fingers scrubbed clean of their paint stains squeezed the tender skin at the back of my arms.

"What?" I looked down at my own long fingers. "I tried calling, but you didn't answer, and no one came to the door when I rang."

There was a 45 year old man who still wears Converse; a man incapable of settling his feet in one place. There stood a man who drinks while he paints – his own version of escapism. This is a man who passed these trademark traits to his first-born daughter. As I struggled for words, I looked up at the apologetic face now drizzled with rain water, and I realized that I am only a copy of him with breasts and a head of his curls grown long.

"Well hell, let's get out of the rain. Do you want something to drink?" He nodded, and our steps fell in line with one another. What are another few broken bottles and torn pictures? I bought a broom and tape for such occasions.

"Is that your daddy? The fair faced child I had forgotten asked from the warmth of her sun heated home. "Yes, it is."

I promise a leave of absence from my mood depressing stories. Have no fear.