Can't Get Used To Losing Her...

I looked at Katy, her tiny hand covering her mouth, her eyes starting to tear up and I felt like a fool, never expecting my pent-up aggravation to cause the girl grief.

Belle reached for her daughter and held her tightly. "There's a blood test you can take, if you want. You'll see. I know you're mad but don't take it out on her. It's not her fault."

"But," I asked, still furious but trying to control myself, "why now?"

"I realized that what I had done was wrong and that Katy needed her father in her life. She needs you, Brian, no matter what I had done, she's still your daughter."

What little I knew about blood tests wasn't going to guarantee that Katy was my daughter. It could only rule out that she wasn't but if Belle was so positive, it had to be the truth.

"All right," I said, finally. "What do you propose?"

"Be in her life, do things with her, be her father."

With all that said, though, I realized how much I had missed already in Katy's life and a great sadness filled me.

Over the next few months, I filled my weekends with Katy, taking her to the zoo, the beach, the park, just playing with her in my house which now had a room just for her.

One day she was drawing with her crayons on the kitchen table and as I watched, I saw that she had drawn me, Belle and herself in front of a simple square house that children are prone to draw.

"Here, Daddy," she said, giving me the picture. I looked at the picture and began to cry, knowing what I had lost five years earlier when Belle had walked out of my life.

I wondered what Belle was doing on the weekends while Katy was staying with me, knowing full well that I probably wasn't going to like what I found out. And so, like taking medicine that you knew was going to taste bad, I had some friends follow her around on Saturdays and Sundays.

After two months, they found nothing worth mentioning except that she donated time working on Goldwater's campaign.

And yet I couldn't find it in my heart to forgive her for what she had done.

And then, one Sunday evening, taking Katy home to her mother, I found Belle seemingly asleep in bed and yet I knew that she was gone. There was a note on the nightstand, saying that she had breast cancer and couldn't live with it any longer and she was sorry but needed me in Katy's life so that her little girl wouldn't be alone.

And so that's the way life turned out, sharing a lost son and a found daughter but nothing else, wishing that life had turned out differently but living with what it was.

But still, I couldn't get used to losing her...