Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of others.

He’s not here yet. I’m getting anxious. My tummy hurts. My bedroom window is foggy from my steady breath while I wait for my daddy’s orange pick-up truck to appear around the corner at the end of our street. He was supposed to pick me up half an hour ago. I sit here waiting for that bright orange truck to peek around the corner, but it is not happening. I’ve been so nervous waiting for him that my stomach hurts and my palms are sweating. My red faux leather suitcase waits by the front door. Mom is in the kitchen preparing dinner for her and Jack to eat after I’m gone. I was supposed to be gone by now so the smells of dinner are just a tease for me. Daddy is never late, and I started to worry that he wasn’t coming. He hasn’t even called to tell me where he is or why he is late. Maybe he forgot about me. No, never.

Just as I am about to step away from the window, I hear the familiar roar of a vehicle with a stick shift. Then I see the orange. Daddy! He’s here, and I will get him all to myself for the next three hours on our drive up to Michigan, his new home. I run out to the kitchen. My mom’s face falls and the lines on her forehead become more pronounced. Her frown lines on both sides of her mouth seem deeper than normal. She looks sad. She hates letting me go. It’s almost like she hates seeing me happy. That can’t be right.

“Mom, he’s here! I’ve gotta go!”

“Give me a hug honey.” The smell of vanilla and musk wafts over me as she holds me, a little too tightly, as always.

Jack stands by the sink with his arms crossed. He’s playing the macho-man guy. He always stands there like that with his big puffy chest. He watches me hug my mom and then stretches out his hairy arms. He wants a hug too. God, I hate him.

Reluctantly, I walk over and give him a half-hearted hug with one arm. I’m distracted by the anticipation of my dad, and I want to go. He juts out his cheek for a kiss, and I kiss it. I hate kissing his cheek. His beard smells like wood chips and beer.

“Be good,” he says, and he winks at me.

I want to kiss my cats goodbye, but they are put off by my excitement and run away before I can even pick them up.

Running for the front door, I grab my bag and then fling myself out of the house like a slingshot. I can’t control my excitement. Daddy’s face makes me so happy. Once I see it, I don’t notice anything else around.

He’s already waiting at the end of the porch by the time I’m outside. He stands there with his warm smile and crinkly eyes. His black shiny hair moves all in one piece in the wind. He uses a lot of hairspray. He has a black beard and it hides most of his mouth, but I can still see his teeth when he smiles. I don’t even know what his mouth really looks like because I’ve never seen him without a beard, other than old pictures from Vietnam. In those pictures, he looks anorexic; I don’t know who that person is, he just looks like some young boy in trouble.

I drop my bag and run up to him and throw my arms around his neck. He picks me up off the ground and swings me around three times. His laugh sounds like Santa Claus, “Ho, Ho, Ho! Hi honey!” His voice is so warm and inviting and he smells so good. He smells just like Brut aftershave and Irish Spring soap. I bury my head in his neck and breathe in as much of him as I can. I want to crawl inside of him and never leave. Before I can do that, he gently places me on the ground and we both hop into his orange pick-up with a buzzing anticipation of the trip ahead. His truck smells like stale black coffee and aftershave. An empty McDonald’s Styrofoam cup with brown coffee stains on the lid sits crookedly in the cup holder. It feels like home.

I stare at Daddy for the first ten minutes of the drive. I can’t believe I’m actually with him. Every time I see him I feel like it’s the first time— like it’s too good to be true. I can’t believe he’s my daddy. He is so interesting and handsome, and he’s all mine. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

“There’s a surprise in here, but I don’t know where it is,” he tells me after a few minutes. He’s teasing me. He’s hidden a gift for me before picking me up. I knew it!

“Where, WHERE?”

I look at him anxiously, and he replies that of course, he can’t tell me where it is. “I forgot where I put it,” he says with a sly smile and a wink. There aren’t many places to hide anything in a two-seater pickup truck, so I start by looking in the glove box. It’s a good first try because as soon as I open it, I find something. It’s fake barf! At first, I think it’s real, but then I see the look on Daddy’s face and realize it’s just joke-barf. He remembered. He remembered that I wanted practical joke and magic stuff. We have the same sick sense of humor. He remembered.

“Barf!” I yell. “I love it Daddy!” Somehow something so grotesque had become the most beautiful gift in the world. I loved my new barf. I couldn’t wait to use it.

“That’s not all,” he says.

“There’s more?” I can’t believe it.

“Keep looking!” He laughs my favorite Santa Claus laugh again.

I look under my seat. There is something green in a plastic bag, but I can’t tell what it is. It takes some effort to pull it out because it’s stuck under the seat. Finally, I get it. It just looks like a cup. A plain, green plastic cup.

“Is this a…um…cup?” I ask, uncertain.

“Yep, but put some of this bottled water in there and see what happens.” He hands me a water bottle, and I pour some water into the odd little cup. I take a drink. Water dribbles down my chin.

“Oops!” I wipe the water off. I start laughing.

Daddy starts laughing.

His eyes crinkle up. It makes me laugh harder.

“What?” I don’t get it. “What’s so funny?”

Daddy leans over and points to two little holes at the top rim of the plastic cup. It’s a trick cup! I laugh so hard I almost pee my pants. He laughs again, and his laugh just makes me laugh even harder. Laughing like this feels so good. We laugh for a good three or four minutes.

Over the course of the trip, I also find a plastic ice cube with a fly in it, a deck of trick cards that are different lengths so it looks like all the cards are nine of hearts when flicked a certain way, a whoopee cushion, trick gum that burned my throat and fake black ink that dries clear. My dad probably spent under twenty bucks for all these gifts, but they are the best gifts I have ever received. I know it took him a while to pick out the perfect items just for me.

“Daddy, I love you.” I stare at him some more.

“I love you too baby.”

He pats my head and continues driving.

He talks to me about music, playing the guitar in smoky bars, the government and his conspiracy theories, how it would feel to win a million dollars, and other things that make me even more fascinated with him. He even tells me that one of my uncles, one of my mom’s brothers, is gay. He thought I knew. I said I never knew, but now it all made sense why my uncle had always had a guy for a roommate and absolutely adored decorating.

For the rest of the drive we play FIND THE SOMETHING, which is a game where he says “I see something, and it is green.” And I have to figure out what and where the object is. He stumps me every time. It is our version of I Spy. He always guesses mine in under a minute. And sometimes I know what his object is, but I pretend I don’t so he’ll feel like he’s the smartest man alive. I like him to know that I adore him. I love to see him smile because it fills me up with a white light on the inside.

These drives are the best part of my weekends with him. Once we get to his house, I have to share him with my stepmom and step-siblings. I love my Daddy so much I could just explode sometimes.

And after visiting Daddy I have to go back home. Going to Michigan is so much fun, but it’s always time to go home to Ohio sooner or later. I kind of miss my mom when I’m there, but I don’t miss Jack at all. I miss my cats and my dog and my room. But I never want to leave Daddy. When we’re on our way back home, by the time we get to Bowling Green, Ohio (which is right between where Daddy and I live) I start to feel the feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s a hollow feeling with a dull ache right in the middle. By the time we get to Lima, which is forty-five minutes from home, I feel the dull feeling creeping up into my throat. There is a lump in my throat so big that it hurts to swallow, and my ears start to hurt. By the time we get to Wapak, which is fifteen minutes from home, tears start falling down my cheeks uncontrollably. No sound comes out, just tears. They don’t stop, and I can’t control them. Thoughts race through my head: Why can’t I just stay with Daddy forever? Why can’t Mom and Daddy get back together? Why do I have to have a family that doesn’t live together? Why are we broken? Why do I hurt so badly when I go home? Is Daddy sad when he drops me off? Does he cry all the way home? I think he might. I don’t want him to cry. That makes me feel even more sad.

By the time we arrive in St. Mary’s and I see the pet food factory on State Route 33, I am sobbing. I put my head in Daddy’s lap, and he strokes my sweaty hair. My face is hot and tears burn my cheeks. I don’t want to leave him. I am so sad, and I know he is sad too. I feel like it’s my fault that we are both sad because I am the one that has to go. I have to go back home so I can go to school and live with Mom. I don’t know why no one asks me where I’d rather be.

When we pull into the driveway of the forest green-stained house with the white shutters, I climb onto Daddy’s lap and bury my lobster-red face into the nook between his neck and shoulder. He holds me and hugs me so tight that I almost can’t breathe. But I do my best to breathe him in.

All he keeps saying is, “It’s okay, baby. We’ll see each other again real soon.”

But it feels like the end of the world. I don’t know how I’ll go on.

We get out of the truck and Daddy grabs my bag. I am shaking from head to toe. My face looks like a turnip, red and swollen.

My mom’s shadow waits at the screen door, and she opens it to let my dog Casey outside. Casey is smiling ear to ear and runs up to me to greet me with licks on my hands and face. She tastes the salt. She tastes the sadness. Immediately, her demeanor changes to calm, and she simply leans against me and looks up at my face. She waits for me to move.

Daddy turns to me and picks me up one last time, but he doesn’t spin me around three times. He just holds onto me tightly and gives me one last kiss on the cheek.

“Love you, baby.”

“I love you too Daddy.”

I breathe in his Brut for the last time.

I turn away and walk into the house. He never turns away first. After I was inside, he must’ve finally left. He never lets me see him leave, and I never look. My bag is in the hallway later when I come out for supper. My mom must’ve brought it in for me.

After I get home from my dad’s, Mom always asks me if I’d been crying. I don’t ever answer. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t know. I go to my room for hours to be by myself. My TV and my cat soothe me a little bit. Sometimes I write a play about kids my age. Sometimes I play school and act like a teacher, teaching a room of invisible kids that adore me. Sometimes I dress up my cat in doll clothes. Sometimes I read the Babysitter’s Club books. Sometimes I just lie there on the bed. I try anything to not think about my daddy’s face, his strong hands, and his warm smile.

I am now home with Mom and Jack I am in my supposed home. But I feel alone. I wonder why I feel more at home in Daddy’s car than right here in my own bed. I cry so hard my eyes swell shut for the rest of the night. They are puffy in the morning, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t hide my sadness.

Visits with my dad continued on like that for years. I always cried when he dropped me off, and my stomach churned and hurt for days after he left. I knew what it felt like to miss someone, deeply. It was a constant ache. A hole in my insides. I didn’t want to know what that felt like, but it was out of my control – I was forever wounded by the separation from my father. Even worse, I was approaching an age that would confuse my dad. I was approaching puberty. I didn’t realize that his demeanor toward me would change as I grew, but it did. He continued loving me and spinning me around in circles, but he would not pick me up as high off the ground or squeeze me as tightly as he did before. He would not look me in the eye as much or let me sit on his lap so I could steer the steering wheel. Our time together grew increasingly awkward. FIND THE SOMETHING wasn’t as fun as it used to be, but I still played because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I wanted to remain a child so he would love me in the same way. I became childlike whenever I spent time around him, no matter how old I was. He still called me his little girl and his nickname for me, Boo-Boo, but I could tell he wasn’t sure how to accept me as I changed, and as I grew into a young lady. More and more I became an anomaly to the man I cherished as an innocent little girl. During my visits, I began spending more time with my stepsister, and less time with daddy. She and I were only a month apart in age. Over time it was only when we were all alone that I was his special angel; never in front of my new stepbrother, stepsister, and stepmom. Only when we were alone, driving to Michigan or back to my home in Ohio, would I be Boo-Boo, the special daughter and daddy’s favorite. I knew I was his favorite; he didn’t have to say it because I just knew.