“You know what, Tarah?” Darcy said, the words rushing out like water suddenly released from a dam, “My Dad just came back into our lives after being gone for five years. It’s just so weird. I don’t even know what I feel. ”

“That’s wild,” Tarah said with concern. “You mean he just popped in?”

“Out of nowhere. He started lurking around, and I didn’t even know it was him. I called the police, and they told me it was him. He left Mom five years ago for somebody else, and it tore us all up. Especially my sister. She was only nine, and she worshiped Dad. She’s sorta been lost ever since, and now he’s back—almost like a ghost of somebody you thought was dead,” Darcy said.

“So what’s your Mom say? She gonna let him come back or what?” Tarah asked.

“I don’t know what she’s feeling. I told the police to tell him to stay away from us, and Mom seemed okay with that. He left a phone number in case we wanted to call him, but what would we say? I sure don’t know what I’d say. ” Darcy shook her head. “I mean, when he first left I cried about it, and then I was mad and I hated him, and then I didn’t feel anything. Maybe just an empty feeling, like there was some big hole inside me somewhere and it wouldn’t close up. ” Darcy could not believe how much of herself she was revealing to a girl she hardly knew. It was one thing gossiping about another girl’s father being a drunk, or somebody’s sister getting pregnant. But now Darcy was admitting that there was a large, dark secret in her own family, that Dad had ripped a hole so big and deep that maybe her own little sister was being pulled into its terrible darkness.

“So what are you gonna do?” Tarah asked.

“Nothing, I guess. I just wish it could all be the way it was before. My sister, Jamee, says she wishes Dad was dead. I guess that would make it easier. I mean, I might be able to forgive him if he was dead,” Darcy said, twisting the hem of her shirt.

“You wanna talk to him?” Tarah asked.

“I’d like to ask him why he did such a thing to us. I’d like to hear it from his own mouth. I guess I know what happened, but I’d like to hear him try to explain. Maybe I want to see him squirm and be ashamed and feel as rotten as I do, but still, it’d be so horrible to actually hear it—to know this guy I hate is someone I used to love so much. ”