*TWO WEEKS LATER*

I was laying on the couch at Kiana and Ben's. When I got the notification, my father had been paroled. I sat straight up, knocking over my sprite. I opened it, he had been paroled. He was getting out tomorrow. I sucked in air, I was shocked. How could this be happening? He said he was locked away for a long time, but apparently non-violent offenders get rotated out after 20% time served. Since, the time for the Domestic Violence sentence had been served, they were releasing him due to overcrowding as well. It was then, ten minutes later I received a call. I answered.

Line: This is a collect call from, Then in his voice Jack Ross. To accept this call, press one.

I didn't wait to hear the rest of it but I answered it. There was silence for ten seconds, and I debated hanging up, until I heard his voice.

Jack: Evie? Is that you?

Evie: Yes, yeah I'm here.

Jack: I'm getting out, you're the only one I thought to call, sweetheart.

Evie: I know, I heard. Can I come pick you up?

Jack: You would do that?

Evie: Sure, I just have to get a hold of a car.

Jack: I'm sorry, if there was anyone else I could think of, I wouldn't have asked you.

I told him, it was no big deal. I would be happy to pick him up, and drive him up to Denver with me. Even try and loan him some money for a hotel room. He had told me he only had a minute left to talk, but that all he wanted was to give me a hug. I told him, that sounded nice. I told him I would be there, ignoring the fact that I was supposed to be at work. I'd had the call on speakerphone and Kiana had overheard. When I set down my phone, I exhaled breath I didn't know I was holding. She had come to sit next to me. She slung an arm around my shoulder.

"Shit! OMG how are you feeling?" She asked. I remained silent. I needed to answer that question. Because I didn't know how I was feeling, I was about to go pick up the man who had abused my mother, and maybe if he hadn't, everything would've been different. But, said man was also my flesh and blood, and we were family, jail, foster care, missing mother or not. We were still father and daughter. Maybe he was different now, and maybe he could help me find her. I wondered, if he would want to. From the way he had talked about her when I had visited him, he had loved her. The way his eyes lit up, saying her name, and the sadness when he told me he hurt her. I wondered, if love could last that long, if after so many years, he still did love her. In whatever way he knew how to.

"I don't know how to feel. I wasn't expecting this." I said, leaning back against the couch. She nodded.

"I get that you know, you can borrow my car." She said, rubbing my shoulder. Kiana, had been saving for a car for years. She'd finally bought one, a used Lexus, and it was very on brand for her.

"You'd let me?" I asked, a little surprised.

"Sure, it's not like you can take a train down there." She said laughing. Then she held me for a minute, my heart still beating a thousand miles a minute.

"Hey, you know whatever happens I've got your back right?" She said, standing up. I nodded and smiled at her, it felt good to know I had her too. Even though I always had.

-------------------------------------

In the morning, I picked up Kiana's car. After I called out sick to work, saying I was throwing up. Which was technically not far off from the truth, I felt as I might puke. Thankfully Kiana had smoked enough the car already smelled like it. On the two hour drive, I smoked a half a pack of cigarettes. The nicotine, was the only thing keeping me from spinning out about the whole entire thing. When I pulled up in front of the prison, I got a parking spot right in front of the doors. I got out of the car, and began to pace back and forth. Apparently I was supposed to just wait here for him. I lit my seventh cigarette, and stood there. I checked my phone periodically, it had been about thirty minutes when I decided to get back in the car. An hour passed and I wondered if something bad had happened. But, just then the door swung open, and I saw my dad. Wearing sweatpants and a t shirt, holding a bundle of things. I ashed the cigarette and tried not to run to him. He wrapped me in a bear hug.

"Hi sweetheart." He said, releasing me, looking me up and down, he smiled. In his eyes, shined happiness, true happiness. I gestured to the car.

"I didn't know you had a car." He said climbing into the passenger seat. I wanted to remind him, he didn't know anything about me. I started the ignition.

"It's my friend's." I said. He kept looking at me, in awe. The way father's look at their daughters when they are newborns. I pulled out of the lot. Jack, looked straight ahead. I wondered how it must feel, to finally taste fresh air, to be leaving the place he'd spent most of my lifetime locked in.

"I can't believe it." He said, and he sounded like a little kid on Christmas Morning. As I got back on the highway, I made a gesture to an exit sign.

"You hungry? There's mcdonald's and Wendy's and Sonic and stuff." I said smiling. He nodded.

"After sixteen years locked up, a cheeseburger sounds heavenly." He said, and I took the exit, deciding Mcdonald's would be the best. When I pulled into the lot, he pulled a wallet from the bundle of stuff. He pulled outa fifty dollar bill. I raised an eyebrow. he opened the car door, and walked around to open mine. I grinned. I couldn't believe after all this time, here I was with my father. He hugged me once more.

"I'm sorry, you're just, I can't believe I'm with you." He said. I nodded, as we walked inside, Jack seemed out of his comfort zone. I could imagine, as he scanned the menu he looked at me.

"Let me pay, the least I can do is buy you some fast food." He said, once we had ordered. He had ordered a mcdouble and huge coca cola, fries, and two cookies.

"Prison food is so shit." He said when we to sit down. He kept looking around taking in his surroundings. I nodded, I didn't have much to say.

"I can't get over how much you look like her. But you got my eyes." He said.

"Do you miss her?" I asked. Which I felt stupid for, but he nodded and sighed.

"Only when I'm breathing." He said, eyes filled with sadness again. A silence passed between us.

"But you, tell me about you. I don't know anything, my only memories you were so tiny, and sweet. You made your mom and I so happy in the midst of everything." He said. I sighed.

"What is there to say, I grew up in foster care, it wasn't so bad. You know, you get used to change. I dropped out, got my GED so I could work, and save money. I have my own apartment now, and a boyfriend." I said, that was all that came to mind. There wasn't much to say. That had been my life, that was my life.

"Foster care? I didn't know." He said, but I shrugged, not wanting to make him sad.

"It's long gone now, the people were nice. But you know, all I really wanted was you and her. I never knew anything about either of you, until about a month ago." I said, and he nodded.

"I wondered, all the time I was in there, where you were. I'm not a religious person, but I Prayed you were safe, that she was safe. Only in these prayers, you two were together. In my imagination, you and her, and the baby were all together living somewhere far away from me. I prayed she would be happy, maybe bring you to visit one day. But, she never did. But at least now I know why." He told me.

I realized then, we were two strangers. Tied together by shared DNA. But what really tied us together was her, was her. Someone who left the both of us, and left a hole in our hearts. He needed the girl he fell in love with back, and I needed my mom back. Just then, they called our number, and I went to get our food and brought it back to our table.

"The baby, the baby died." I told him. He looked up from his cheeseburger.

"I didn't know." He said, because according to him, the last time he'd seen her she'd been pregnant.

"The night she died, mom left me too. Never came back." I said. Jack looked stone faced, a trait I'm sure prison teaches you, but I could read him like a book, the benefits of being an empath I supposed.

"She? The baby was a girl." He asked, or stated I couldn't tell. But I nodded anyway.

"She signed herself out of the hospital apparently, and disappeared." I told him. He raised an eyebrow, and a look of knowing crossed his face.

"Don't let this get your hopes up kiddo, please." He said, and I wondered what he was about to tell me.

"We had a friend, who lived a little away from the hospital, if I had to guess, she might've went there, needing comfort, or a distraction." He said, he didn't give me a name though. I tried to think of a story that matched this, but he did it for me.

"I don't know the full story, but maybe, maybe she went there to his place, and maybe she relapsed. Maybe, after that she made a drug induced choice, like that you'd be better off without her. Maybe they ran off together, maybe she needed to start over. She did that, she ran when things got hard."

"So you think, she abandoned me on purpose?" I asked, a lump forming in my throat. Jack, met my eyes, his own eyes looking sad.

"High Kaitlyn, might have, sober Kaitlyn wouldn't have. She loved you, but sometimes, she loved drugs more. When she was good, she was great, but when she was bad, she was horrible." I didn't know what this meant. Why he didn't want me to get my hopes up.

"But she never came back for me? She just left."

"She might've tried, and you were already gone by then. Since you were under eighteen, they wouldn't have allowed her to get you back. And, she was a drug addict, family court doesn't tolerate drugs. If there's been no reported employment, no nothing since that night. She did run, and changed her name, and if she's not with Alex, it'll be impossible to find her."

I just listened then, he was so serious. for what he would say next.

"I think, if we can find Alex, we might find her. If she didn't go home, it would've been to him. Plus, It's a long shot, but if he still lives in that house, than it's easy."