AllFreeNovel
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He remembered that weekend. One of the best of his life. Him and his kid.
He’d taken her to Oklahoma for her fourteenth birthday. To watch a skateboarding competition, of all things. He’d never understood why she loved skateboarding so damned much, but she had.
He’d surprised her. She’d been thrilled.
He would never forget the joy in her eyes when he’d pulled in to the parking lot and she’d realized…
Where they were. Where her dad had brought her.
Her idol had been there. That girl, several years older, who Maribeth had wanted to be so much like. She’d been so excited to see that older girl. To watch that girl skate.
There was a poster in the bedroom of that skater still. It had hung there in Sol’s house for years. Probably would hang there for eternity. So he could remember.
He’d bought it for Maribeth that day, and that skater had autographed it, personalized it and everything. She had spent a few moments talking with Maribeth personally. Making his girl feel important.
That skater girl hadn’t had to do that. But she had.
Those girls in that competition—they’d worked hard. He hadn’t realized it until that day. They’d spoke of dedication and drive and working for what they wanted. Having goals and plans for their futures. They’d seemed so sensible and practical—the exact opposite of what he’d expected.
He’d felt good that his girl had looked up to young women like that after that day.
But Maribeth had made bad choices.
Like father, like daughter.
He banged his hand on the edge of the table. The knuckles protested. There were bruises there now.
From where he’d helped hurt his old friend Gordon’s little girl. Hell, Hallie used to babysit Maribeth sometimes. When his girl had been so young.
Sol disgusted himself. This was not the kind of man he ever had imagined being. Hurting one of his old friend’s baby girl now.
And for what? Money? What good was that damned money doing him now? It for damned sure wouldn’t bring his girl back. He had nothing to spend it on. No one to give it to.
It was just sitting there, cold hard cash. Cash he’d intended to give to Maribeth for her education. An education his girl would never get now.
She was dead.
Her own daddy had helped kill her.
Now he had to live with that until the day he died.
He flipped the page again. A small snapshot fell out. Somehow, he caught it.
Turned it over.
He had taken it that day, there in Oklahoma City. His Maribeth grinned back at him, her arm around a slightly taller, bone-thin girl with long, shaggy dark hair under a slouchy maroon knit hat, big dark eyes, ridiculously long eyelashes, pale cheeks, and a smile that could rock the world.
And freckles. The skateboard kid had freckles over a pug nose, too.
They surprised a laugh out of him to see.
It was that girl. The one Maribeth had idolized.
Sol just stared at that photo for the longest time, hands hurting and cheeks wet.
As he remembered.
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