It's not every day you find your long lost daughter standing in front of your doorstep. When Evelyn appeared at first I was confused because I didn't recognize her. The last time I'd seen her, she was just a newborn baby, and I was too busy nursing the bullet wound in my gut my lovely wife, Lilith, had given me. Lilith was a cruel bitch, always had been, and a part of me wondered what I'd ever seen in her. I suppose some men like the bad girls...
And Lilith was as bad as they came.
Her thing was cutting. She was a knife nut. And over the course of our so-called marriage she'd felt the need to express herself with a knife. Mostly to win an argument. She even took to cutting me a few times in the bedroom. She was that sort of weird, and I kinda liked it at first. Now I had the scars to remember her by. But it was all just a peek at the sinister side she barely contained under that prefab smile she'd perfected over the years.
In either case. Lilith decided to kill me, take the kid, and start a new life. And she succeeded in two of these three goals. After my gut was stitched up well enough I took to trying to find her and Evelyn, and found the trail ended at an empty grave in Belton, Texas. Once I ran out of money to fund my one-man crusade I fell into a depression and ended up taking a job as a bouncer in a titty bar in a no-name town just outside of Las Vegas. I developed a drinking problem, solved it with more drinking, and then added drugs to the solution until I finally just got sick of feeling sorry for myself and cleaned up my act.
Now I run the titty bar. Take care of the place and the girls. It's not much, but it's better than I deserved.
Then, one night as I was watching some TV before heading to bed, she knocked on my front door. My angel, who I never thought I'd see again. She looked a bit like her mother in the face, but she'd gotten my dark mane of hair. She had it long, and it spilled out of the hoodie she had on. She was dressed in normal looking clothes for the most part, a red and black hoodie-though it was so hot that night it was a wonder she wasn't sweating every last drop of water she'd had in her--and a pair of jeans. Though, like I said before, I didn't realize who she was at first.
"You lost?" I asked her.
"Are you Rick Lope?" She said, her voice trembling.
I frowned. "Who's asking?"
She stammered and bit her lip. Nervousness practically radiated from her as she fought back powerful emotions. "Your... your daughter..."
I froze. It was then I realized where I'd recognized her face. And I damn near fainted. "Evy?" I said, my voice cracked.
She started to cry.
And damn it so did I.
It was automatic. I pulled my baby girl into my arms and just held her tight. She was a little shocked by this, but I didn't care. After I had given up all hope of finding her, she ended up finding me. And I was just thankful to God, or whomever, that they'd delivered her to me at last. I could feel her shaking in my arms, her tears soaked my T-shirt, and after a while she finally found the courage to return the hug I was giving her.
"Oh my sweet angel!" I said through blubbery tears. "How in the blue blazes did you find me?"
"Friend of a friend of Lilith's... my mom's..." She said, stammering over her mother's name. "Told me you spent years looking for me. I just followed the breadcrumbs."
"And now you're here." I kissed her forehead. I was so damn proud of her. Smart like her old man, smarter even. Then a bolt of panic hit me. "Your mother!"
Evy finally pulled away, she looked down at my feet and shrank. "She's dead... She finally found someone who was better with a blade than her."
"Good riddance." I said without the slightest hesitation. The bitch was dead, and my angel was back with me. Life had finally decided to turn around. I invited my daughter into my home proper and quickly dashed into the kitchen to make her something to eat. I admit I was like a kid at Christmas. All the years I'd spent imagining this day, the day I had her back, and the reality simply blew it out of the water.
"What do you want to eat? I got some... shit..." I looked through the pantry, I had Raisin Bran, peanut butter, and some packets of taco seasoning. I had been living on fast food more than I'd like to admit. Worse yet I was out of milk so the cereal was a no-go. "Peanut butter..." I shrugged. I poked my head out through the little serving window that saw into the living room and shot her a guilty look. "I'm sorry darlin'. I'll run to the store in the morning. Get you anything you need. Anything."
Evy had taken a seat on my favorite recliner and just looked at me, I could tell she didn't care what I had to give her. She was just happy to be here. "Peanut butter sounds great... Dad..."
Oh shit there went the water works again.
I grabbed some spoons and went to the couch next to my recliner and handed her one. "You like crunchy, I hope?"
She chuckled, we were both so overjoyed it was ridiculous. "I love it."
So we ate the peanut butter in silence. Looking at one another. Happy that we'd found one another finally after all these years. In my lifetime I've eaten at some pretty bitchin' places. Had some of the finest foods that a guy could ask for.
But that peanut butter... that was the best meal of my life...
Eventually I had to grab something for us to wash it down. I had some sodas in the fridge that did the trick. After another long silence I finally felt the need to start asking her questions. There were a million of them, but there was one above them all that I felt I needed to know. The answer I hadn't been able to find on my own.
"So where the heck were you all this time?" I asked as I sipped my soda.
Evy had to swallow another spoonful of peanut butter before answering. "Nebraska. Lilith... Mom... she..." Her eyes seemed to stare off into the distance for a moment. "...She told me you had died around the time I was born. She moved there to start fresh. Or as fresh as a woman like her could."
"No shock that she'd think I was dead. She shot me the day she stole you from me." I told her.
"I know. After she died I decided to try and track you down, or rather find your grave." She sighed. Then she smiled. "I met a man in New Mexico, Trip Packard..."
I knew Trip. He was one of Lilith's booty calls, and a pretty decent card player. I had done a few jobs with him back in the day when I was married to Lilith. He'd stuck by me when she skipped town with Evy. A decent guy if there ever was one. If I ever saw him again, I'd fucking kiss him. "I know him."
"Yeah, he was the one who told me you were alive. And where to find you." She smiled again, god it was the sweetest smile.
"And you didn't call me?" I said.
She shrugged. "I guess I was afraid to. I didn't know how you'd react to seeing me. Trip told me how you had tried to find me but when the trail ran cold you gave up..."
