After Grandpa Forgot My Four-Year-Old Daughter, I Decided to Abandon This Father

By the time I found my daughter, she'd been waiting outside the convenience store for six hours. She was four years old, missing one shoe, both knees scraped raw and bleeding, soaked to the skin, and still she hadn't dared to move. The moment I pulled her into my arms, she started explaining in a panic. "Mommy, I didn't run off." "Grandpa told me to wait for him." She pointed at the card parlor a little way off, sobbing in hiccuping breaths. "He said one round and he'd come out. I was scared he wouldn't find me." Six hours earlier, my father had gone to pick her up from preschool himself. He passed the card parlor, ran into someone he knew, left the child at the door, and went inside to play. At eight-thirty that night I called to ask where my daughter was, and I could still hear the mahjong tiles clacking on his end. He went quiet for a few seconds, then asked me back: "She didn't just go home on her own?" I called the police right then. At the hospital, the nurse cut open Nora Abbott's blood-stiffened pant leg. When I saw her little calf, white with cold, it suddenly threw me back twenty-four years. That year I was four too. That afternoon I was holding the moon-patterned quilt my mother had left me, getting ready to nap. My father had a card game come up in the back room of the corner store, and rather than deal with leaving me home alone, he brought me along. He had me sit at the door, holding the quilt. "Don't run off. Daddy will take you home when he's done." I really didn't move. But the game broke up and he forgot me. That night I slept under the eaves with my mother's moon-patterned quilt in my arms. The next morning, a stray dog bit clean through my left leg. Later my father said he'd had too much to drink and thought someone he knew had taken me home. For twenty-four years I believed he'd only forgotten. The next day he came to Nora's hospital room, and the first thing out of his mouth was: "The kid got found, didn't she?" "You call the cops, you check her into the hospital, you have to blow it up this big?" Nora heard his voice and shrank hard into my arms. I held her tighter, and the last scrap of illusion I'd kept about this man died. "Don't touch her again." "And don't come looking for me either." Twenty-four years ago, all I could do was sit there and wait. This time, I would not let my daughter go on waiting. …… My father didn't leave. The second I finished speaking, he stood in the doorway working himself up to say something, and what finally came out was: "When you called the police, what exactly did you tell them?" I looked up. "It's all over the card parlor now." He dropped his voice. "Everyone's saying I lost my granddaughter over a card game. How am I supposed to show my face after this?" The cup in my hand came down hard on the table. "Nora waited outside for you for six hours. She got three stitches in her knee." "And what you're worried about is how to show your face?" His expression darkened too. "I just forgot." "Who knew she'd actually sit there the whole time waiting?" On the bed, Nora suddenly grabbed a fistful of my shirt. "Mommy." She was looking at my father, her eyes already red. "I didn't run off." "I know." "Grandpa told me to wait." Afraid I wouldn't believe her, she rushed to add: "I really stayed in the same spot the whole time." Something twisted tight in my chest. Twenty-four years ago, I'd said almost the same thing. That night someone asked me why I hadn't gone home. Four years old, clutching the moon quilt, all I could say was: Daddy told me to wait. My father clearly shifted, uncomfortable. But he pulled his brows together again just as fast. "She got found, didn't she?" The line jammed up in my chest. "Get out." He walked to the door, then turned back. "That's how I raised you too." "You didn't turn out this soft." My head snapped toward him. "You mean the time you went to play cards and left four-year-old me outside the corner store?" His face visibly stiffened. I stared at him. "Was I too soft back then too?" "That's not what I meant." "Then what did you mean?" He frowned, irritated. "It's been over twenty years. How do you still remember that?" "I'd had too much to drink that time. I thought you went back with Ruby Dickerson." I'd heard that explanation for years. From relatives when I was small. From his own mouth once I was grown. Every time, it came down to the same line: He didn't do it on purpose. The nurse pushed the door open just then to change the dressing. Like he'd finally found his out, my father turned and left. That night Nora couldn't settle into sleep. Every time the nurse touched her leg, she opened her eyes looking for me. "Mommy, don't go." "I'm right here." Work was pushing too. I'd already taken two days off, and my project had been dumped on a coworker the whole time. Thomas had been in the mountains four days now on the emergency repair with his crew, and the storm had washed out the road. Not one of my messages had gotten a reply. In the middle of the night, Nora suddenly asked: "When Daddy comes to get me, will he forget too?" My nose stung. "No." Only then did she close her eyes. After a while, she said again, in a small voice: "My bunny shoe is still out there." When I found her, she'd had only one left on her foot. "Mommy will buy you new ones." She shook her head. "I want the old one." "Why?" "It waited out there a long time too." I looked at her and couldn't say a word for the longest time. The next afternoon, my father came again. His pant legs were caked with mud, and the back of his hand was scratched open. In his hand was that lost little bunny shoe. When I saw the shoe, I froze for a second. "Where did you get that?" "Found it." "Started at the card parlor and went back over everywhere she walked that day." "It had fallen by the storm drain." Nora heard his voice and sat up in bed. My father instinctively started toward her. She flinched back at once. And he actually stopped. He only set the shoe down at the door. "Grandpa won't come in." Nora stared at the shoe. My father stood there a moment. "Grandpa was wrong that day." "I said one round and I'd come out. I didn't do it." His voice dropped low. "I won't make you wait anymore." And with that, he really left. I stood by the door, looking at the muddy little shoe. The anger in me actually eased, just a little. When I was four, I lost a shoe too. The next day, when I came back from the hospital, the first thing my father said was: "Where's the other shoe?" No one had ever gone looking for it for me. That night he sent two messages. 【I won't pick her up alone anymore.】 【If she doesn't want me near, I won't touch her.】 I stared at the screen for a long time. This time he really had gone back and found a shoe. And for the first time, he hadn't forced the child to forgive him right away. I knew I shouldn't go soft this fast. In the end I still wrote back: 【You can come see her.】 【But I have to be there.】 He replied quickly: 【Okay.】