Rent-A-Daughter

Tomorrow?  In surprise, I shifted in the bed to look directly at her, and almost knocked her off me.  “What?”

“Everything’s already packed.  I almost wasn’t going to tell you.  I didn’t think I could bear to say goodbye.”

I could feel the loss already.  It was heartbreaking.  After a few seconds thinking of what to say, I came out with, “It doesn’t have to be goodbye,” I said.  “You can still visit.”

“We’re moving in with my aunt.  In Florida.”  That put visits out of the question.

“Oh.”  It seemed pathetically inadequate.  Just “Oh.”  Like she told me she didn’t like one comic and wanted to get another.  It was news that was just too big to process all at once, I knew I’d be losing something that had become an incredibly important part of my life, and I’d be losing it tomorrow.   In some ways it was like losing a best friend, a lover, and a daughter all in one. 

She sniffled, like she was choking back tears and echoed one of my biggest worries aloud.  “I’m never going to see you again.”

My need to comfort her outweighed my own sadness.  “You don’t know that,” I said, trying to be soothing, but my voice cracked a little with my own pain.  “Nobody knows what the future will bring.”

“Do you think I could call you, sometimes?  Just to talk?”

Although on one level I’d have loved that, I also knew how dangerous it could be.  One long distance number appearing on the bill and her mother might grow suspicious.  “That way might not be safe,” I said, hating that I thought of my own safety at a time like that.  “But I’ll give you an e-mail address.  For once you get a computer, or you can get on from a library or something.  I’ll check it every day.  Then maybe we can work out some safe way to talk voice.”  Maybe we could eventually Skype or something.

She smiled a little.  “Okay.”  A few seconds later, she looked at my clock.  “I should probably go.  Mom said she’d be coming home early today.”

While she got dressed, I slipped on my boxers and went into my office.  There, I wrote down an e-mail address… it was one of the backup ones I had for signing up to places that I might use again, but that risked spamming me.  I gave it to her out in the living room, then suddenly thought of something, and told her to wait a minute. 

I returned with a trade paperback collection of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, stories of Spider-Man she’d never yet read because they weren’t part of the main series.   While she read the main books, sometimes they referred to things that happened in the Team-Up book, between the regular comic arcs, and when Maddy asked me about those references, I tried to explain… but I didn’t have a copy of it at the time.  I’d read them online when I first started getting into the series.  Last time I was at the comic store I picked up the collection, but I hadn’t showed it to her yet.  “Here,” I said, crouching a little to be closer to eye-level.  “Take it.  A going-away gift.  Something to read on the trip.”

She took it from me, turned it over to look at the cover, and gave something that was between a giggle and a sniffle, and wiped her eyes.  “Thanks,” she said as she tucked the paper with my e-mail address in between the pages, like a bookmark.  “I’m really going to miss you, Daddy.”

Tears were beginning to well up in me, too.  “I’m going to miss you, too.  Whatever happens, you’ll always be my little Supergirl.”

She ran into my arms and gave me one last, desperate hug, then pulled back a little, looking into my blurry eyes.  After a moment’s hesitation, she leaned in again, and kissed me… on the cheek.  At first, I thought she might be about to kiss me on the lips, but she moved aside at the last second.  I returned the kiss on her own cheek.  “I just want you to know I couldn’t imagine having a better daughter, even if it was just pretend, and I hope one day you find the kind of people who deserve to have you around.”

She laughed ruefully and started to pull away.  “Okay, I better go or I’m going to start bawling and I won’t be able to stop.”  With one finger she wiped away at her eye once more. 

“Yeah, me too.”  My eyes were more than a little dewy, although so far none had broken free and dripped down my face.  “Goodbye Madeline.”

She took a few steps back, reached behind her for the doorknob, and slipped out, leaving my apartment for the last time.  I did see her briefly the day she left, just long enough for her to wave goodbye while her mother dragged her by the hand to the elevator, and then, she was out of my life.  She never e-mailed me.  Every so often, I’d try to look her up, but even in the Google and Facebook age, I never managed to find her.  I never forgot her, but tried my best to put her in my past. 

It was over ten years before my past caught up with me.