Father and Daughter

“Mina,” my dad called. The curtains were drawn and the house was barely lit. Summer heat filled all of the rooms and sweat gathered on my forehead. “Mina.” I dropped the plastic doll that was in my hand.

I rose from the floor, abandoning the toys that lay on the carpet. I took tiny steps towards my dad’s voice. I walked past the piles of trash and dirty clothes in the hallway and approached the open door. Dad appeared and he got down on his knees to match my height. “There you are,” he said, sniffling. He held me in his arms for a moment before pulling me away and looking me in the eye.

“You know that Daddy loves you, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

He burst into tears and brought his hands to his face. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry...”

“Don’t cry, Daddy,” I said, wrapping my arms around him.

He looked up at me a minute later and placed his hand at the side of my face. “I want you to go play out on the swing, okay? Can you do that? I’ll meet you there.”

I nodded again, grinning. I ran out of the house and into the humid outdoors, jumping onto the tire swing. I swung higher and higher until a startling, loud bang scared me off the tire. The moment where I was up in the air filled me with brief tranquility until I was headed straight for the ground.



I opened my groggy eyes to a false sensation of falling out of my bed. I naturally held out an arm to catch myself, but I was far from the edge. The sunlight beaming through the window forced me out of its radiance and kick started my full awakening. I looked underneath my bunk to see an empty bed. I had once again forgotten that Mandy wasn’t here anymore. She was plucked out almost a week ago.

We were like garden flowers. Expensive and state-owned flowers. When a couple came in to look around--they picked the flower that they liked the most--and signed some papers to take it home and care for it themselves.

To put it simply--we were orphans.

There weren’t many orphanages left in the country, but the town I grew up in happened to be fifty miles south of one.

It had already been ten years for me. I was placed in “later than usual children,” but was certainly staying longer than usual. With Mandy’s departure, I became the oldest one at the orphanage. Fifteen wasn’t old in the real world, but in here, it certainly felt that way.

The room grew lonelier within five days. Mandy was my only friend. She left me a letter and the phone number of her new home before disappearing through the front doors. She didn’t shed a single tear when she was saying goodbye to me, but I certainly did. Mandy was the more optimistic one. “I’m not flying to another planet, silly,” she said. “You can call me anytime you want.”

I think the main reason I cried was because I felt as though I were in love with Mandy. She was the only person that ever showed me any true sympathy or love. Her stay here was four years shorter than mine, but her arrival certainly saved me. I loved Mandy, but I never had the guts to tell her.

I was the last person to get out of bed. It surprised me that the younger kids woke up earlier than me. We were in the midst of a scorching summer and we were given a two month break like the kids in the real world. July was nearing its end and soon we would start our education cycle again. When August came, I’d be a tenth grader.

I didn’t have any hope of being adopted after the first five years passed. I used to get excited every time people would come in and talk to Sister Margaret about adopting a child. I would sit pretty for them, but some other girl or boy would catch their eye first. I slowly began to give up and by the time I was ten, I was done with trying to impress strangers.

I didn’t bother with showering when I got out of bed. Rising late always made me lazy. I threw on a new pair of clothes and exited my tiny, lonely room.

“You’re up late again, Mina.”

I turned to see Sister Margaret standing next to the door. “I’m sorry, Sister,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“That’s what you said yesterday.”

“Well,” I said, scratching my head. “I’m telling the truth... It’s been hard to sleep without Mandy around.”

Sister Margaret continued on her path down the hall. “You should utilize that alarm clock in the room. You’ve already missed breakfast and two visits.”

Like I care, I thought. No one’s going to pick me out and you know it.

I soon followed her path, finding myself downstairs. I passed the noisy playroom that I used to play in years ago and entered the library that Sister Margaret and the other nuns used. I was eventually granted permission to enter the library once they realized that the books in the playroom were too simple for me.

I entered the library and left the door wide open--just as I was instructed. The library was extremely small and crowded. The room was half the size of the playroom and had one, small window up high by the ceiling. It was also used as storage for school supplies, educational books, and boxes of graded papers. Luckily for me, there was enough room on the central table for me to stack several chosen books.

I scanned through the books quicker than any other person in the orphanage would be able to. I’d been coming to this library for almost three years. Nothing ever changed and I always put things back in order.

Eventually, my eyes stopped at To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I’d read it twice before, but it never failed to keep me turning the pages. I pulled it out of the dusty shelf and turned around to sit at the table.

I began to read steadily through the pages like the last two times I’d read it. Even a story about a small town with no luxuries and bad weather made me want to go out into the world and discover all there really is to life. It just sucked that I had to wait another three years before I could be on my own.

I was a good twenty pages deep into the novel when two people passed by the open library door. I acknowledged them with a swift side glance and then carried on with my reading. One of them was Sister Margaret. The other was a man I didn’t recognize, which meant that he was visiting.

At the corner of my eye, I saw the man appear in the doorway again. I tried to keep my eyes on the book in my hands, but my curiosity defeated me. I looked up and the man was quietly asking Sister Margaret something. She nodded to him and he entered the room.

My eyes widened as he approached me. I’d never found a man his age to be so handsome, but he certainly changed that. His butch-cut hair was beginning to thin and turn gray, which contrasted his younger-looking face. He was dressed in a black long sleeve, faded jeans, and a pair of brown work boots. He walked up to me with a smile that caused the corners of my mouth to twitch. I didn’t want to smile--for all I knew, this guy could be a complete creep.

He grabbed the next open chair beside me, closest to the door. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Dan. What’s your name?”

“Mina,” I replied, shutting the book and setting it down.

He raised his eyebrows. “What a beautiful name,” he said. “I haven’t heard it in a while.” He looked down at the book underneath my hands. “What’re you reading?”

“To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“I love that book,” Dan said. “I read that when I was in high school.”

I looked away from him and down at my hands. I could still feel his eyes on me, but I guess he was expecting me to speak. Despite how much I wanted to, I didn’t know how to interact with people--properly, at least.

“How long have you been here, Mina?”

That question got me to look up at him again. Behind him, I could still see Sister Margaret standing there, watching me like I was her prey. I felt scared to tell him the truth, but I was sick of lying to make Sister Margaret look good.

“Ten years,” I said.

Dan’s smile disappeared. I could tell, from the look in his eyes, that he didn’t believe me. He parted his lips to speak, but it took him a while to put words together. “You can’t be serious,” he said.

I nodded. “I am. I was taken here when I was five.”

My peripheral vision allowed me to see Sister Margaret shaking her head. I could imagine the angry thoughts going through her head and fought the urge to laugh. For the past three years, she would tell me to say that I had only been at the orphanage for a couple of years and that I was happy. I followed along with it for a while, but the lies began to make me sick.

Dan continued to look in my eyes and finally nodded a moment later. “Do you want to get out of here?” he whispered with a little smirk.

“Yes,” I said. A tear slithered down my face.

He placed his hand over mine. “Then wait here.”

He stood up and walked over to Sister Margaret. After he finished speaking to her, the look on her face filled me with triumph. She was completely shocked.

“Is that okay?” Dan murmured to her.

She snapped out of her daze and nodded. “Yes, of course. I have some things for you to fill out... Come with me.”

I tried to read while I waited for Dan to come back, but I couldn’t sit still. It was hard for me to believe that someone actually wanted to take me home. I would be able to live amongst society and experience a normal teenage life.

In the back of my mind, I was sort of frightened to leave with a man I just met and consider him my father, but in a sense, I didn’t care. I felt an immediate connection from the moment Dan first walked in and I never felt that with anyone.

After what seemed like an hour, Dan appeared in the doorway again with that inviting smile on his face. Sister Margaret showed up seconds later, looking a bit remorse. “Come now, Mina,” she said. “You’re going home with Mr. Kaufmann... Go pack your belongings.”

A wide grin came across my face and I jumped out of my seat. “Okay,” I said, nodding excitedly. I walked past them. “I’ll be right back!”

I ran up the stairs and into my room. I reached underneath Mandy’s old bed and pulled out the black suitcase that had been sent here with me ten years ago. I threw my set of drawers open and shoved all of my clothes into the case without folding them. Within a few minutes, my belongings were packed.

As I descended the main stairway, Dan was waiting for me at the entrance with a briefcase in his hand. I paced towards him, but was stopped by Sister Margaret’s arms pulling me into a hug. “You take care, Mina.” She took a step back to look at me one last time. “Here,” she said, handing me the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. “You can take this.”

I took it in my hand. “Thank you,” I said. “Goodbye, Sister Margaret.”

I stepped past her and approached Dan. “That was quick,” he said, turning from the window. He reached for my suitcase. “Here, I’ll carry that for you.”

We exited the building and I didn’t turn to look back. I knew Sister Margaret was watching me. Walking out of those front doors relieved a weight that had been sitting on my shoulders for years. I was glad to leave a place like that.

Before us, a blue 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle sat next to the curb with the classic white stripes painted along the hood and trunk. “Wow...” I whispered as we got closer. “This is an awesome car.”

Dan chuckled as he opened the passenger door for me. “Thank you. This is my first and only car.” He walked to the back of the car, opening the trunk.

The interior and exterior looked completely brand new and there wasn’t one bit of scuff or trash laying around anywhere. The car was a serious beauty and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I cautiously got into the passenger seat and shut the door. The car had no particular scent apart from the smell of the leather seats.

Dan joined me seconds later and started up the engine. The car began to accelerate and we were soon on the road. “Are you hungry?” he asked, rolling down his window.

I turned my head and squinted at the gust of wind that flew into the car. “Yeah,” I said. “I missed breakfast this morning.”

“How’d that happened?”

I smiled, laughing a bit. “I woke up late.”

“You’re like me,” he said, taking his eyes off the road for a second. “We’ll get along just fine... So, what kind of food do you like?”

“Burgers,” I said simply.

“Sounds good,” he said. “There’s this place I used to go to all the time. Haven’t been there in a while. We’ll go there, okay?”

“Okay.” I looked out of the window and watched the other cars on the road. The other children from the orphanage and I were only driven out to places every few months. The orphanage was running out of money and they couldn’t take us out like they used to with the kids from twenty years ago.

The ride to the diner Dan had talked about was quicker than I expected. The place was getting a growing crowd as the sun reached its highest point in the sky. Dan parked in the first open spot he could find and shut off the engine.

“The service here is pretty quick,” he said. “Don’t worry about the crowd.”

We both got out of the Chevelle and headed towards the entrance. My pace began to slow as I watched Dan walk. “Wait!” I called.

Before Dan could get a chance to fully turn around, I had already closed the space between us and had my arms tight around his torso. I knew the people inside of the diner were watching us through the wide windows, but I didn’t care.

“Thank you,” I said, soaking his shirt with tears.

His arms came around me. “I should be the one thanking you.”

I didn’t know why he said that, but I was yet to find out.