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4
Mia wasn’t prepared for this.
After leaving the train station, she had expected her Lyft driver to drop her off at a dilapidated pre-Civil War home with broken windows held together with duct tape and holes in the steps of the front porch.
Before making the trek, she did her research. There were some zip codes in coastal Georgia with poverty levels as high as thirty-eight percent.
So much for the government looking out for its community.
Based on the personal information she dredged up, her bio-dad lived in one of those zip codes. To be honest, she was glad.
To a degree, and for her peace of mind, she needed to see him living in squalor. Preferably sad, alone, and destitute.
According to Google, that’s exactly where he lived. At one time.
When the Lyft driver stopped at the first address she found on Google, in front of a two-story house that needed a fresh coat of paint, like ten years ago, and no grass in the yard to speak of, she was prepared.
This was what she expected. What he deserved after abandoning her and her mom.
After a kind elderly lady with dark skin, wearing an apron with a ladle in one hand, answered the door welcoming Mia inside, she was taken aback by the worn but welcome kitchen and the aroma of something delicious cooking on the stove. She soon learned the lady had been a foster parent for decades and her name was Bernadette.
Apparently, when she asked if Lucas Santos lived here, she was told he had been one of the kind woman’s foster children. Years ago.
On the pretext, or lie, that she was the daughter of an old friend of Mr. Santos’s, coming for a visit to tour a local college, the woman’s eyes narrowed with skepticism. To Mia’s relief, the lady handed over her bio-dad’s current address.
Her third Lyft driver, this one much older and wearing nice slacks, a sports coat, and calling her “ma’am,” dropped her off at the address provided to her by her dad’s foster mom.
She now stood in front of another house altogether.
Where the first house was everything she had envisioned, this house was anything but.
That made her angry.
So very, very angry.
How dare he live in a beautiful white-sided home with black shutters and a newly painted red door.
The nerve of that deadbeat dad.
It was late, but she looked up and could see the roof of the porch painted a light blue, thanks to the illumination provided by the burning flame in the light fixture next to the door.
From what she read when researching the area, the light blue porch ceilings warded off ne’er-do-well ghosts and evil spirits.
Jesus, the jackhole even had a wreath. She glanced down and her mood took a nosedive as she viewed the freakin’ welcome mat beneath her Chuck Taylors.
So not fair.
He didn’t deserve a nice house in a nice neighborhood. She turned her back on the idyllic home in an effort to settle down and get a freaking grip.
Because, She. Was. Mature. Like. That.
Except she discovered yet another problem.
The douche canoe had a swing hanging from a gargantuan tree in the front yard, with something moss-like hanging from the branches giving the front yard a cool, mystical feel as opposed to creepy.
It should have been creepy.
She must have missed it when she got out of the Lyft car, mesmerized by the damned idyllic freaking house.
