So now the whole Julie affair is in full swing. My daughter is crying at all hours in the night. One evening, we ran out of formula and I was broke, so I went to IGA with my leather coat, filled a basket full of shit I didn’t need and stuffed a can of Similac in my jacket. I went to the counter and acted as though I forgot my check book. The man ringing me up new something wasn’t right, but I gave a long look to him and he said “just go now”. I did.
Stealing was never something I planned on, but for my daughter, I will do anything. I still remember his face and know he knew I was stealing something, but I think he saw the desperation in me and as a good man, didn’t call me on it. I thank him in my heart to this day 16 years later.
Stealing smokes as a teen and getting nailed is one thing, but doing what is necessary for your child, when you have a shithole meat plant job, that is another. I never told Lynn what I did, she just thought I bought the formula. No one to this day has ever heard this, but I have no shame for it. It was for Britianny, my beautiful blond little girl. And she was hungry.
Now you may be seeing a different side to the scoundrel. Love for women comes and goes, but the love for a child is forever. She hasn’t spoke to me in months now, she’s angry and her mother, Lynn, has some nasty influence. She sounds just like her mom though, the same tone, the same inflections, she has a beautiful voice and she sings at school. She has my musical gene.
The last time we did talk, we talked for 3 hours on the phone. I just couldn’t quit listening to stories of her life. As I mentioned, she’s blond and she also looks much like my cousin Natalie, not too good for a teenage girl in a Cherokee boarding school. I wouldn’t have her there, but she was put there by the state.
While I was off living drunken rock and roll dreams, she was with her mother who abused her. Butch, her Grandfather, stepped in and called the law. The only good thing he ever did that I know of. He has custody now and the state of Oklahoma placed her in a boarding school in Tahlequah. A Cherokee school, even though she’s less than a quarter and white as can be. Sorry but full bloods have quite the distaste for us whiteys, or pinkys as some call us.
I think about her every day and keep in touch with her psychotic mother just for the chance that she may allow me to again speak to my only daughter. That is slim though, Lynn uses her as leverage against me and Butch is back to not giving a shit. I have faith though, I really screwed up bad, but one day she will forgive me and one day her mother will not be able to lock out my calls to her or her calls to me.
I’m going back down to Oklahoma next week, I think I’ll try to call her from a different number that her mother can’t block. One day soon, I’ll go for custody as well. Brit was wanting to move up here with me at one point, that’s when the shit hit the fan. Lynn saw it as an attack against her and spread some poison and blocked my number from Britianny’s phone.
God I miss that little girls voice, far more than any of my woman troubles. She’s my only daughter.
By the way, this wasn’t the planned focus of this post, but love of your child always comes first. I know that now, though it’s too late in so many missed ways.