CHAPTER FIVE | RORY
“Daddy, it’s hopeless!” Charlotte declared. She folded her tiny arms across her chest and collapsed onto the floor with a dramatic huff of defeat. “He’s gone forever, I just know it!”
“Don’t say that!” I said, trying to sound optimistic. “He must be around here somewhere… we haven’t even unpacked all of these boxes yet!”
Charlotte blinked at the mountain of cardboard moving boxes that were piled up in the corner of her new bedroom, and suddenly her face crumpled and her bottom lip started to quiver.
Fuck.
I dropped the cardboard box that I had been digging through -- a tomb of half-naked Barbie dolls and stuffed animals -- and scooped my daughter up into my lap.
I immediately felt a sharp pain roaring through the first and second-degree burns that covered both of my arms; the consequence of running towards a burning car without any form of protective gear.
According to the EMTs on the scene, I was lucky to walk away with a couple of minor burns. They had attempted to mummify me in gauze, but I insisted on dressing my own wounds back at the firehouse.
I didn’t like people touching my arms; I didn’t like it when people could see the scars that were hidden underneath my tattoos...
I ignored the pain and hugged my daughter even tighter.
“Come on, Charlie, don’t cry!” I cradled her in my arms. “We’re going to find him, I promise!”
The subject of our apartment-wide manhunt was Mr. Flipper, a 15” plush dolphin toy that had become an honorary member of the McAlister family three summers ago, when I won him from a carnival balloon dart game. A balloon dart game that, for the record, was totally fucking rigged; the smooth-talking carnie who ran the game booth must have seen us coming, because he swindled me out of $100 before I got fed up and threatened to aim my darts at a different target. That’s when he caved and handed over the dolphin.
I never thought I’d fork out a hundred bucks for a stupid stuffed animal, but it was all worth it to see the smile on my daughter’s face. That was the same summer that her mother walked out on us, and smiles were in short supply back then.
We could use some of that Mr. Flipper magic right about now, but unfortunately the hundred-dollar dolphin has been M.I.A. since the day we left Boston...
Charlotte squirmed around until her face was buried in my chest, and then she started to sob softly.
“I just want to go home, Daddy!” her muffled voice croaked into my t-shirt. “I hate it here! Everything about this place is stupid!”
Watching my sweet little girl dissolve into a fit of tears hit me like a steamroller straight to the heart. What made it even worse? Knowing that I was the one to blame for my daughter’s heartache.
I was the one who decided to take an out-of-town job offer. I was the one who decided to uproot my daughter from the only home that she had ever known. I was the one who decided that it was time for a fresh start...
Believe it or not, I did it all for her.
It all started a couple of months ago, when I got a phone call from an old acquaintance back in Hartford. Apparently, there was an opening at the local fire department, and the spot was as good as mine if I wanted it.
I didn’t want it. In fact, there was a part of me -- a big part -- that never wanted to step foot in my hometown again.
Even as a kid, I had never really considered Hartford to be “home.” But, since I had never lived anywhere else, it seemed to get that title by default.
My father was out of the picture before I was born, so it had always been just my mother and me.
Correction, it was my mother and me, plus whatever low-life scumbag she was dating at the time. She had this revolving door of boyfriends; men who would embed themselves into our life, spend a few months playing house, and then vanish into thin air, only to be replaced by the next Tom, Dick or Harry.
My mother was about as good at picking men as a blind guy is at picking paint swatches. Unfortunately, I was often the one who paid the price for her poor taste in partners… and hidden underneath all of my tattoos, I still have the scars to prove it.
Cheaters, abusers, womanizers, drunkards, perverts… I thought I’d seen it all. Then she brought home the man who would become my stepfather. The day they got married, I realized that my life would never be the same.
I was right. Within months, life as I knew it had completely unraveled. Everything was spinning out of control, and then one day everything just... stopped.
I was fifteen when the state intervened. My mother and stepfather went to jail, and I was sent to Boston to live with the father I had never known.
Turns out those fifteen years had been a lot kinder to Mr. McAlister. While his bastard son was getting roughed up and cussed out by Hartford’s least eligible bachelors, my father had settled into a comfortable little life in an affluent Boston suburb, complete with a hot wife and two very planned, very wanted kids.
He had it all, the tenured teaching gig at an ivy-league prep school, the wardrobe of burgundy sweater vests, the receding hairline… I hated the prick as soon as I saw him. And even though he feigned patience and pretended to tolerate me, I knew that he hated me too.
I spent the rest of my teenage years making his life hell. I had fifteen years to make up for, after all.
I had always been a bit of an outcast back in Hartford, but to the preppy trust-fund kids in Boston, I was practically the devil incarnate. I was the only kid in school with tattoos and a criminal record. While my peers were concerned with college prep courses, the only thing I gave a shit about was wreaking havoc. Instead of sitting for the SAT, I lit my test on fire and stormed out of the room. I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, and I celebrated by skipping the ceremony and getting wasted on the most expensive spirits I could find in my father’s liquor cabinet.
I figured old man McAlister would kick me out of the house when I finally turned eighteen, so I decided to beat him to the punch. On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, I walked out of my father’s house and never looked back.
I spent a few months living on the streets in Boston, wandering aimlessly from one misadventure to the next. Some days I’d sneak onto a MegaBus at South Station just for the hell of it, to see where life would take me. Sometimes I’d end up in New York or D.C. or Maine. Other times I’d get busted and the driver would throw me out onto the side of some rural highway. Either way, it was always an adventure.
I didn’t mind being homeless in the summertime. I could explore the city by day, and at night I’d sleep under the stars in Boston Common. But my outlook changed with the seasons, and by mid-autumn I was sick of being cold and hungry. It was time to move on.
I spent the next few years hopping from one gig to the next. I toured the country as a roadie for a rock band. I worked as a bouncer for a bar in Boston. I took up the hobby of betting on cage fights and, when I got sick of losing, I decided to enter the ring as a fighter.
Women were just another misadventure. That is, until I met Haley Scott.
The only good thing I can say about Haley Scott is that she’s the mother of my child. That also happens to be the reason why I won’t tell you all the bad things that I could say about her…
When Haley told me that she was pregnant, I didn’t know the first thing about being a father, but I did know what it was like to grow up without one. And I was adamant that I wasn’t going to let that happen to my unborn child.
Even before she was born, I knew that I loved my daughter unconditionally. It never crossed my mind that she could love me unconditionally back.
Charlotte Rae McAlister radiated pure, unconditional love from the moment that she was born. I had spent my entire life being the Big Bad Wolf, but in my daughter’s eyes, I was Prince Charming.
Charlie was the reason I turned my life around. She gave me the world, and I wanted to give it right back to her.
I graduated from the fire academy and got a job at the Boston Fire Department. The starting salary wasn’t much, but it was enough to rent a two-bedroom apartment in a safe neighborhood for my new family.
That family included Haley. We weren’t madly in love with each other or anything like that, but we were both united by a common interest, our daughter.
At least, I thought we were…
Haley waited until our daughter was four years old to decide that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood. There wasn’t a big fight or a dramatic confrontation. One day she just packed her bags and walked out of our apartment.
I tried my best to fill the void that Haley had left, but it wasn’t easy juggling daddy duty with being a full-time fireman. Charlotte tried her best, too, but I knew that she missed her mom. No matter how many times I let her paint my nails or host teddy bear tea parties in the firehouse breakroom, I knew that it didn’t make up for the mother figure she was missing. I couldn’t be the daddy and the mommy.
Then, a few months ago, I got that phone call, beckoning me back to the hometown that I hadn’t seen since I was fifteen years old.
The ‘old acquaintance’ was Darren Rogers, and he happened to be the Chief of Police back in Hartford. We had had more than our fair share of run-ins when I still lived with my mother and stepfather, but he was one of the few people who had always seen the best in me.
We had stayed in touch over the years, and when he saw an opening at the local firehouse, I was the first candidate that came to mind.
I tried to turn the job offer down immediately, but the Chief insisted that I take a few days to think it over.
On the third day, Haley Scott’s face was plastered on the front page of every newspaper in town. It was a mugshot. She had been arrested on felony drug charges, among other infractions, and she was facing serious jail time.
I had heard rumors before, but I had always tried to protect Charlotte from the truth about her mother. Now that it was front page news, that would be next to impossible.
Suddenly Hartford didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Maybe it was the fresh start we needed, after all…
I glanced down at the little sniffling seven-year old that was sprawled across my lap and I smoothed out the wrinkles in her soft brown curls.
“I know you’re not crazy about Hartford,” I said gently, “But we’re here now, and we’ve gotta give it a chance.”
Charlie sniffled silently into my chest, and I felt her tears soak through my black t-shirt. I hugged my daughter even tighter and kissed the top of her head.
“Maybe we can make this place feel a little more like home,” I suggested. “Do you have any ideas?”
She raised her head and glanced up at me with puffy pink eyes.
“Can we invite Mommy?”
My heart sank. I’d go to hell and back for my little girl, but that was one wish I couldn’t grant.
“Not right now, Charlie.”
I saw the sadness in her eyes, and it crushed me. I had to change the subject, “Hey… do you hear that?”
Charlotte frowned and shook her head slowly.
“Shh… listen!” I pressed my finger to my lips, then -- subtly, so Charlotte couldn’t see -- I knocked on the floor with the heel of my foot.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Charlotte’s face immediately froze, and her eyes swelled.
“What is that?!”
“I don’t know…” I said, pretending to be just as puzzled as she was. “It sounds like a… dolphin!”
“Mr. Flipper!” Charlotte gasped, scrambling out of my lap. “He’s trapped! You have to find him, Daddy!”
“Ok, ok!” I said. I pushed myself up off the floor and crossed the room, heading towards the stack of boxes.
I vaguely remembered packing the plush dolphin into a box of toys back in Boston, and now I sure as hell hoped that my memory paid off…
As Charlotte watched with wide-eyed panic from the bedroom floor, I picked up the first box from the stack and gave it a quizzical shake. The contents inside jostled softly.
Clothes, I decided.
“He’s not in this one,” I chucked aside the box dismissively, then I reached for the next box in the stack and raised it to my ear. Charlotte sucked in a breath and waited anxiously for the verdict.
I gave the box a firm shake, and this time I heard the rattle of plastic.
“This could be it,” I said urgently. I propped the box up on my knee and ripped off the packing tape, then I yanked open the flaps and dug my hands inside. I immediately felt the soft grey fur of Mr. Flipper.
I hid my relief as I pretended to dig around in the box. Then, arms buried deep in a random assortment of plastic toys, I jabbed my fist against the inside wall of the cardboard box. The box jostled around on my knee, and with my free hand I pretended to hold it steady...
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
“DADDY!” Charlotte squealed, jumping to her feet. “Did you see that? He’s in that box!”
“I saw it!” I said urgently. I made a production of readjusting the box on my knee, then I dramatically started digging through the contents of the box, flinging out plastic toys and baby dolls as I frantically ‘searched’ for Mr. Flipper.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
“Daddy, hurry!”
In one swift movement I grabbed ahold of the dolphin and chucked the box aside. The cardboard box crashed onto the floor, spilling out the remaining contents, and I held up the dolphin triumphantly.
“MR. FLIPPER!” Charlotte squealed. She flung herself across the room, but she didn’t reach up for the stuffed dolphin toy. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my legs and hugged me tight.
“You saved him, Daddy!” she grinned up at me.
That’s when I realized that this was never really about reuniting a little girl with her beloved dolphin toy; this was about reminding my daughter that I’d always be her hero.