Late May, 1998
"And why can't she just tell me the truth! It makes me so mad! I'm going to be 18 tomorrow and deserve to know molre about him! I mean.." I started as I was talking to my friend Tara on the phone.
"Jessie!!" my mom shouted from downstairs.
"I'm just so tired of this," I said talking back into phone over my mom's yelling.
"Jessie, why don't you do something about this?" Tara said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"JESSIE!" my mom yelled again as she was getting more impatient with the second.
"I mean, you have his picture, and his name, and you know he lives in Orlando, so go there and find him!" Tara suggested.
My door burst open and my mom said, exasperated from walking up the stairs, "Jess...DINNER! Get off the phone with Tara and get downstairs." She turned around and walked back down the stairs.
"Fine, I'll be down in a minute," I said to her as I covered the phone with my hand. "Tara, I gotta go. I'll call you after dinner," I said back into the phone and hung up.
Maybe I should start from the beginning. I am Jessica Sight. I live with my mom and her newest husband, Tom. This is her 6th husband, she hasn't stayed with one for more than a year and a half.
What I was complaining to Tara about was that my real dad left when I was 2 months old, and my mom never told me why. She said she just married him and it was a mistake. She won't tell me anything else. I noticed I was different from everyone else, in that I didn't have a dad, when I was 7.
All my friends were going to the Father-Daughter dance. My mom said "You could go with Uncle Joe," she said. But that wasn't good enough. It's so hard growing up without a dad. You can't count any of my mom's boyfriends' and husbands' as a dad. They never cared about me.
For so long it had seemed like no one cared about me. I thought my dad left because he didn't love me, because I had never known the truth. I still don't.
That's why I can never let anyone into my heart, in fear that they'll leave like my dad. About a week ago, I was looking for something in my mom's room and came across a picture. On it, it said in smudged letters, "Mr. and Mrs. Paul Chastis--1980, Orlando."
After talking to Tara while I was walking down the stairs, I thought about how she was right. I have to take charge and go find him.
As I came into the kitchen and sat down, I guess I said out loud, accidently, "I have to find him."
"Who do you have to find?" my mom's newest husband, Tom, asked.
