A Tear In Her Dress, John O'Callaghan.

John’s eyes widened, “No.”

I nodded, “Yup.”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, “Your kidding me.”

I snorted, “Oh I wish I was, John. I wish I was. You know, its going to be hard telling her. Her father never knew she existed the first four years of her life.”

He shook his head, his face became serious, “I cant believe you waited until now to tell me this.”

I looked at him, hard. “What was I going to tell you? That ‘Oh hey John, yeah its Els and I just wanted to say that you have a daughter. And I hope you can stop every little fucking thing your doing just to see her.’ No. Why would I even want to mention this to you? You wouldn’t care.”

John looked at me like I was insane, “You don’t think I care, that I helped make a living breathing child?”

I snorted again, “John, your in a band, who has groupies. I’m pretty positive you’ve fucked a lot of your fans. You didn’t help, you took what you wanted and left me with a surprise.”

John ran his hand through his hair, “Fuck, man. Are you going to tell her.”

I watched Sophia giggle and laugh, “I don’t even know. I’m only going to tell her, if you actually take the time and get to know her. No, I don’t mean just the oh I know her favorite color, her favorite stuffed animal, her favorite food. I mean why those are her favorites, and why she acts the way she does. Like really get to know her. Cause if your not, John. I don’t want her to be bruised all her life, asking herself why her father never took the time.”

John bit his lip and stared back at Sophia in a different light, “I’ll have to think about this, Elsie.” He looked back at me, “Why’d you name her Sophia? And what's her middle name.”

I closed my eyes, “I named her Sophia, because when we were dating…we settled that was going to be our baby girls name.” I opened them to find John looking at me in awe, “And her middle name is LynnRose.”

A smile slowly made its way on his face, “My mother and your mother’s name combined?”

I shrugged, “Yeah, and I didn’t think I’d be sitting here explaining this to you.” I looked at the time, “I gotta go drop Sophia off at Shane’s mothers house. And I have go.”

John nodded, “Yeah. I’ll let you know, later.”

--

“Mommy, mommy, mommy! My birfday is in a couple weeks, Shane told me!” She was jumping up and down on my bed.

“Sophia!” I shook my head and started to sort out all these papers. I did piano lessons and I hated having a wave of new kids wanting to join. “Sophia, go ask Shane to play outside.”

Sophia loved the outdoors, she wasn't afraid of getting muddy with Shane’s dog; Gracie. And she defiantly wasn't afraid of bugs, hence why she gets stung half the time. Sophia’s eyes lit up, “Okay!” She ran out the room with Mr. Snuggles.

It was five minutes later when I heard them outside. I got up and looked at the window. I smiled, Shane was chasing Sophia around the yard. She looked like she was having the best time out there, Shane finally caught her and they were rolling on the ground. Sophia got up and started skipping around, motioning Shane to do the same.

It made me giggle to see Shane skip. It also warmed my heart that he was doing this for her. He didn’t have to, he could have told her some other time. But, no. He made the sacrifice for me. But then my mind started to wander, would John do that? Would John go outside and skip around and play with Sophia.

My phone interrupted my thoughts, John was sprawled across the screen. “Hello?”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

I kept watching Shane and Sophia, “And?”

“I think its time, I meet Sophia and tell her.”

I nodded, “Okay, um…when do you want to do that.”

He sighed, “How about tomorrow, in the afternoon…I have to do things in the morning.”

“You can be blunt with, John. I wasn't born yesterday.” I hung up the phone and continued to watch my only daughter and the man I was going to marry bond.