Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
There was a small hill that I headed for because whatever was on the other side of it couldn’t be seen from the house. Then I could sit and enjoy my morning without feeling as if I was under constant surveillance. Correction: judgmental surveillance.
Than Carver thought he knew me. He’d placed marks against me before ever meeting me.
He knew nothing. None of them did. They were friends of Jericho. They hadn’t been his unwanted child. The little girl who had looked forward to any attention he threw her way until, one day, she was old enough to realize how unimportant she was to him. That moment was forever etched in my memories.
It had been on my ninth birthday party.
He’d come to visit Momma. I understood now that was why he’d come around. It was never to see me. She mentioned my upcoming birthday, and he smiled at me. Back then, I soaked up any attention I could get from him. He asked me what I wanted, and all I could think of was to blurt out that I wanted him to be there. He had never been at one of my birthday parties. When he said he would come and bring the biggest present, I had been so overjoyed that I squealed and ran to hug him. Looking back, I realized it had been awkward. He’d patted my head, not hugged me in return.
I’d had friends at school whose fathers would pick them up in the afternoons. They’d be beaming with happy smiles at the sight of their children.
One girl had a tall, handsome dad who would always hold out his arms, and she’d go running into them.
Then he’d pick her up, swing her around while she giggled with glee, and ask her, “How was my princess’s day?”
My heart had literally ached for a father like that. But I had Jericho, and my momma was just another one of his affairs—not that I’d realized it at the time.
He hadn’t shown up for my special day. Although Momma had warned me several times that week not to expect that much from him, I had. I was going to have a dad at my party. Someone to show my friends. He’d have a big gift for me, and they would all see that I was special too.
Momma baked my favorite strawberry cake, and she set up games for us to play in the yard. I could see the apology in her eyes every time she looked at me. Which made it hard to keep from bursting into tears. I’d told all my friends that my dad was going to be there with the biggest gift. The humiliation of his not showing wasn’t the final straw. It was when he didn’t even call to explain or simply wish me a happy birthday.
When I lay in bed that night, I listened as Momma yelled at someone on the phone, and although I couldn’t hear what she was saying in the distance with the door muffling the sound, I knew. She was yelling at Jericho.
That was the last time I’d wished for a father.
Shoving all those thoughts aside to think of something else, I crested the hill and stopped as I looked out at a stable up ahead. Moving closer, I searched for any sign of someone else, but only found a horse. A bluish-gray horse with a mane and tail as black as coal. I checked the acres and acres of fenced-in land that I could see, but the horse appeared to be alone.
The closer I got to it, the more stunning it was. Not wanting to upset it or cause a problem, I stopped several feet away and found a grassy spot to sit down. The horse and I stared at each other as I peeled my banana. I wondered if it was male or female and what its name was. I wouldn’t be asking Than. That would require talking to him.
Momma would have loved this. She’d always talked about how, one day, we’d save us enough money to buy a house in the country. She’d learn to do more than bake a cake from the box. She wanted to have a garden and grow her own vegetables. That had made me laugh because Momma couldn’t keep a house plant alive.
“I miss you,” I whispered, then took another bite of my banana.
Loretta Carrigan hadn’t been what most folks would call a normal mother. Many frowned upon her way of doing things. My third-grade year, she’d kept me out of school too many days despite the warnings that had been sent home, and I had to redo that grade. She was so mad. I could remember wincing as I listened to her cursing out the principal. It was a mistake she never made again though. I might have been tardy regularly—that was, until she finally started letting me ride the bus—but I was rarely absent. Regardless of what the world thought and saw, she was mine. She loved me unconditionally. She had been both mother and father to me.