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Her father had left, gone for a trip around the world for his job while she was alone with her Abuelo and cousin.
He barely even sent her any letters anymore, and it was to the point that new lids in her preschool thought her abuelito was her dad.
It stung every time someone mistook her abuelito, like a cold breeze at the beginning of autumn, knowing it’d be the end of warmth and fun, then having to face the freezing reality that she was alone.
The last time she saw her dad was at the train station, that of which wasn't even a block away from her home. Her real home, not her abuelito where she stayed. The station was a staple in the area, with all to white pillars making the shift from neighbourhood to industrial more jarring. White buildings surrounding the train station towered over the eastside cabana and favela. She was sure that small area held the most foot traffic on the small island.
She remembered it clearly as the night how her dad, on the steps of the train station, handed her his white guitar with a sad smile on his face and a promise on his lips. A promise that he broke, “I’ll be back,” He said, “Sooner than your birthday.”. His words where sweet like honey and filled full of mirth and joy. She used to be so sure her dad would never lie to her, exited for his arrival. She was so hopeful. Hopeful that he’d come home early and they’d run into each other’s arms, teeth bared in a smile and “I love you”’s on their tongues.
But the day never came, and her birthday passed. Pretty purple balloons and all of her friends by the beach, but she wouldn’t help but wonder why her dad wasn’t there. Staring at the sea with a silent question of what she did wrong for her dad to leave.
Her abuelito said her dad had an “impromptu extension” and two weeks turned to three months, and three months turned into crying by her abuelito’s side and asking – pleading – why her father left her. Why he hated her so much to just leave her?
He left in February, and on Christmas she waited by the fireplace for Santa, with a plea for him to bring her dad back. She hated being alone.
She was abandoned.
Unlike her siblings with their jokes, their parents off running errands for a minute or two, she was fully abandoned. Her dad hadn’t a care for her, her abuelo was always the tiniest bit too busy. Chayanne was always off doing something else, and was it too hard to ask for a simple “you’re doing great”? She felt as if she was holding the world on her shoulders and if she knew being taken out of that damned adoption centre with less than ideal rations and the cold of loneliness she would choose her dad every time but why’d it have to hurt so much?
It was crazy to think, a simple thought in passing, that the one thing that actually went out of its way was the thing trying to kill her. Something that gave her flowers after looking into her interests and taking the time to learn about her.
It made her feel special, and she was blinded by the grief she felt for her father that she couldn’t see how anyone on the island would do the same. How they all treat her with the most tender care.