I had a lot to tell Don, when I got home that night I texted him everything I'd gotten from my dad. Jack, had given me permission to tell him. I mentioned he already knew about the Domestic Violence, and Jack had just shrugged. He said he wasn't surprised. When I got home, I made myself a bowl of cheerios, and snuggled up with Mary on my bed. I needed to shower, needed to do laundry, needed to take a deep breath for fuck's sake. But I couldn't. According to Jack, Alex, and Leo had moved to Denver from Aspen. That's where he said they'd all grown up. He said Alex, moved soon after he went to jail. Lucky for Jack, they had been on speaking terms back then, and he had an address he'd saved sixteen years.

Also, in the pile of things he'd gotten once released was his phone, now sitting at my kitchen table I watched him turn it on. It showed the apple logo and he smiled.

"At least the password is easy to remember." He said, as the home screen flickered to life. On it, was a photo of my mother I'd never seen before. It was him and her, and she had her lips pressed to his cheek, and he was smiling. it looked like an average pinterest couple photo. He smiled seeing it.

"What's the password?" I asked. He smiled at me.

"You're birthday." He said. As he typed it in, I watched him unlock his phone, which not surprisingly was not being serviced. he was using my apartment complex's shitty wifi. He opened the photos app then, I watched them load. There wasn't a whole lot, but he clicked the first one. It was him, my mother, and me, a selfie she had taken and evidently sent to him. He was holding me, and she had her head pressed into his shoulder. She was obviously high, her eyes red as shit, and hair tangled on her head. But she looked happy. Then, he closed the app. A look of sadness crossing his face. He opened the messages app and the last texts, from sixteen years ago, were to her.

Jack: come back, please come back.

Jack: I miss you, where did you go?

Jack: Are you okay?

Jack: Kaitlyn? Kaitlyn??

Jack: Please, just tell me you are okay.

In that moment, watching him read those, I realized how much he missed her. He returned to the photos app again, scrolling through them, all photos of her and him really, a video of her passed out on the floor, and him laughing with her.

"What was she on?" I asked him.

"Heroin." He said, no hesitation.

"Was that, her normal?" I asked. But he wasn't present, he was lost in memories and thought, thinking of that day I'm sure. He'd said the video was before I was born.

"In the end, everything was her normal. But you can't blame her, I don't anyway.." He said, scrolling through more photos. He smiled at some, and sighed at some. Eyes sad. I wondered, how this felt for him. When you love someone, but not correctly. Softly, he said:

"I was never mad at her for leaving. I was mad at myself for making her leave." He said, shutting off the phone. I nodded, I didn't know what to say, what could I say to make him feel better. How could I comfort, the person who was supposed to comfort me.

"Do you think, things would've been different, if you never went to prison?" I asked him. He shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe she would've come back. But not because she wanted to, because she had nowhere else to go. But likely, she would've let me have partial custody, which might've turned into full custody, if she chose drugs again." He said, there was honesty in his voice. He wasn't lying. I wonder which one a court would see better fit to parent, the homeless, drug addicted twenty year old abused girl. Or, the drug dealer, abusive, also drug addicted, husband. I had a feeling, I would've ended up in foster care either way, although maybe I would've had them for a little longer. Would've known my mother, even with all her flaws.

"She wanted, to be a good mother. She would've died before she let you die. But, she was only seventeen when you were born, it wasn't a good situation, she thought she wouldn't have to chose. But she did, and she chose what could numb the pain the best." He said bluntly. I could see now, hw my mother fell for him. He was kind, and he looked handsome in those photos, they looked happy. I wonder, if she had ever posted any of those photos, and if people thought she was genuinely happy, I doubted it.

"How do you just abandon your child?" I asked, and he sighed.

"I don't know, If I'd had the choice, I wouldn't have. But I didn't have a choice, and we don't know much. Maybe she didn't either."

"You mean, maybe she was forced to leave?" I asked, this hadn't really crossed my mind. That maybe, drugs or not, some kind of foul play was involved. But, it was still low on the list to me, and Don, and to Jack. Or so I thought, until his eyes flickered.

"I have no idea. I've speculated about it for years, everyday hoping maybe she'd show up to see me. Never did. So maybe, maybe someone took her with them, against her will, she's known to do things for drugs, maybe she ended up as a prostitute again, maybe worse." He said, anger shining in his eyes. It was then, I picked up on the fact he said "again" being a prostitute again. She had been one before. I saw it, it was common in denver, you'd see the girls standing on street corners, but I never thought, one of those girls was could've been her.

"She was one before?" I asked him, and he nodded.

"Yeah. When we were strapped for cash, and she met a guy, he acted as her pimp I think. She'd come with cash, and we'd use it to buy you food. I remember, everytime she came home she'd shower for a half an hour, and when she came out, her skin would be rough and raw, like she tried to scrub away what she'd done. She did it for you, she wanted you to be taken care of." He said.

"I didn't know."

"I doubt she wanted you too, she wouldn't want you to think she was a whore." He said, the word bitter on his lips, like it stung to say.

"I wouldn't think of her, like that."

"I'm glad, makes you less like me." He said. I raised an eyebrow. How strange was it, that the same man who seemed to miss her so much, had abused her, had hurt her, and now spoke of her like he loved her. He did love her, I could tell that much.

"You thought she was a whore?"

"No. But, we were fighting, and it was the last thing I said to her before she left me. I called her a whore. Which I regret, to this day, I wonder constantly if I hadn't said that, if she'd still be here. You, me, the baby." He said. Then I allowed silence to wash over us, I could tell this conversation brought up memories he wanted to forget. I wondered, if I was a walking reminder of her. If when he saw me, he saw her, saw what he had lost, saw who he hurt.