His words were venom burning deep inside my memory. I’ll be there he had said to me the day before. Outside I sat on the curb waiting for that obnoxiously loud tan truck to pull up. I wasn’t alone, however. Including me there were about twelve other kids, knowing they would be voyaged away in a matter of time. Sometimes I got up just to pace around, sometimes to ask somebody the time. It went from three O’clock to three thirty, to four O’clock. My lip would quiver and my stomach would join in with back flips. Where was he? Could he have been so naïve and forget to pick up his daughter from school? I couldn’t wait any longer; I yanked on the front door with all the strength I had left and walked into the main office.
My fingers shook, not only with fear but with a gripping sadness that went deep through out my veins. I called my fathers cell a few times only to get his voicemail. My mother was the next phone call. At first when she didn’t pick up I seriously thought the vomit turning in my stomach would just pour itself out. So I called again.
“Hello? Rachel?” she said curiously.
With that I didn’t need to explain anything.
“Daddy never came, mom,” were the only words that escaped my mouth.
“I’ll be there,” she reassured me.
It was a matter of seconds between the time I hung up and the time she pulled up to the same curb where I sat before, waiting for something that would never show. I jumped in the car, not knowing whether I would have slipped out my true feelings and cry or just hold it all in and pretend nothing happened. When we got home I waited forever for a phone call. For my daddy to say “I’m so sorry but I’m in a hospital dying and that’s why I couldn’t pick you up”. No. Not even that would be a good enough excuse. I wasn’t even sure what I would say to him when he called. Almost nine o’clock and the phone rang. I stared at the caller ID. It told me my father was calling.
“Sorry Rach, I forgot,” He told.
“Whatever, but I’ll never trust you again. Nothing you can do can change that either.” I replied.
It’s been four years and I never did open up my heart again for him. For the next four years I was betrayed, lied to, and broken into pieces. So when he pulls up in that same thunderous tan car outside my house, my stomach hurts. It begins to toss and turn remembering the day he never showed. The only day I would have been glad to hear that car roaring at its loudest.