F or F: Daddy's Little Girl

She could still remember it like it happened yesterday. Coming home after a fun filled day of shopping with her mother, walking into her room to deposit her purchases, hearing her mother cry 'no'.

That was the most heart-wrenching sound. Well, at least up until that point in her life. There were many more tear filled conversations between she and her mother and brother after their father said he was leaving.

Being 21 years old and knowing that your father had an affair in the past, but ended it to stay with you, was bad enough. To hear your father say those most dreaded words to you in the present was quite another thing entirely.

"I'm moving to North Carolina, just as you all are, but I'm not going with you. I'll be going with Susan."

The woman he had the affair with "all those years ago". There apparently weren't enough years to keep them apart.

She always figured having your parents divorce and move on with their lives is was thing. Having your mother walk in on your father telling another woman he loved her and would be with her soon was the worst.

She screamed at her father; hated him for it. She and her brother comforted their mother; laughed in their father's face when he asked them if they wanted to live with him and 'the other woman'.

As the years went on, she tried to main some contact with her father, but it was never the same. He always had an excuse as to why he couldn't see her, or when he did, it would only be for a few minutes. He and Susan were meeting friends in the next town over.

Her brother was a little closer to him, but not much. He just seemed to force the issue more. He understood what it meant to have his father in his life. Not that she didn't, but she was older and had a relationship of her own beginning.

Then the bomb dropped. She was getting married; had set the date. She and her fiance were paying for the majority of the wedding, with a little help from his parents and her mother. Joking, she sent an email to her father, let him know the plans, and that "donations would be greatly appreciated *grin*".

Before she knew it, she was opening an e-mail letting her know that because all she had ever done was manipulate him for money, no, he would not be helping. Further more, he would set up trust funds in her childrens names, if and when she had them, but that was it. Nothing else.

He didn't even show up to her wedding. How could he when the invitation was returned to sender, due to the fact he no longer lived at that address and hadn't let anyone know, not even her brother.

They found out a few years later that he ended up marrying Susan. She assumed that invitation got lost in the mail.

The thing that hurt her the most, though, wasn't having to comfort her mother when she received the divorce papers on their 27th anniversary, or watching her mother and brother start over agin in a tiny little apartment with a threadbare sofa as their only piece of furniture. Or knowing the only time spent with her brother was a weekly outing to an all you can eat Chinese buffet or the library. It was the plain and simple fact that he chose to love someone else more than he loved his children, his own flesh and blood.