My Daughter

Months had gone by, and there weren’t any major issues.

Life back home seemed to be going as well as it could be. My boyfriend was there to help take care of my daughter and me. At that time, I had a job working for a car rental agency. They were very family-orientated, which allowed me to travel for my daughter.With the new parenting plan that was in place, my daughter would go up to her dad on certain holidays, extended weekends during the school year, and every other two weeks in the summer for visits. It was so difficult the first few times to have her gone, because I was accustomed to having her all the time. She was with her dad for the Christmas break for the first year of the new plan. And to make things a little more difficult, her dad had moved to one of the furthest north towns in the state which was about a 10-hour drive from his house to mine.

It was about 9pm one evening, and I received a frantic call from my daughter. Instantly, my heart was pounding through my chest as I heard her little voice. She was crying hysterically that she wanted to come home and begged me to come get her. I tried to calm her down and let her know that everything would be okay. But I was also trying to figure out what why she wanted to come home. I asked to speak to her dad.

He was less than cordial on the phone with me. His demeaning tone was almost unbearable to deal with. I told him something was obviously wrong, and she was in a new place and needed to have his security at night. I told him that I would drive all the way up there and get her that night. He said there was no reason I needed to come “save” her and I was just over-reacting. I said my daughter wouldn’t call acting like that if something wasn’t wrong. He finally said, “Fine! Just fucking come get her then!” I asked if I could please speak to my daughter again, and he handed her the phone. I let her know that I would be leaving my house very soon, that it would take me 10 hours to get there, but I was on my way.I called my mom in tears and told her what had happened. She said that she would ride with me up to his place, and we could take her car. We finally got on the road about 10:30pm and headed north for the long drive. At least my mom was there for me, and my daughter knew that her mom was there for her. As we got about half way there, we hit bad road conditions and weather, which made travelling stressful. This was on top of all the wildlife that was out that evening on our trip.As we got into town, I called her dad and let him know that he needed to meet us at the gas station on the outskirts of town. He said that he would be there in about 15 minutes. As my mom and I waited, I started to feel the anxiety building. Why did this always have to happen when I met up with him? I wished that I had a stronger backbone and not feel like I needed to cower when I saw him. I saw his vehicle coming up the road and I could feel my face go flush.My daughter ran out of the vehicle and jumped into my arms and held onto me tightly. I closed my eyes as I squeezed her back; my heart just broke for her. Here was this little girl with the biggest heart who cares for everyone and everything, and her heart was being broken. I shot daggers at her dad as he set her stuff down by me. My mom started to say something to him, and he put his hand up and said, “Stuff happens, and I don’t need to talk about it right now.” He got in his car and left. On the way home, my mom and I were exhausted but so thankful we had my daughter back with us. I could see dark purple circles around her eyes as she chatted in the backseat. She obviously hadn’t slept most the time she was there. We would nonchalantly ask her about her stay with her dad. But I could tell that she was told not to talk about it. So, we didn’t push her to answer our questions. Later, her dad finally came clean with all that had happened that week. They were living with his girlfriend’s mother because she was pregnant with their child. The girlfriend’s mother worked the early shift and required quiet in the house at an unreasonable time. My daughter doesn’t do very well with change as it is. She had to sleep on a couch in the cold by herself in a new place. The girlfriend’s mother would scream at her if she was a little bit noisy. I asked my ex how he could even think about putting his daughter in that position. He shouldn’t have even had her there knowing how his girlfriend’s mother was. I would like to say that was the only instance where something like this happened. It wasn’t.