Dad
For 13 years there has always been Mama, her autistic toddler, Nation, and her teenage son Jordan. It used to be 4 of them if you add their dad. But he was incarcerated for robbing the drug store. Every since Dad was arrested Mama and her children have been living in poverty.
I know you’re like... how do they live in poverty if they are getting a check for the autistic daughter. The answer is that they don’t get a lot of money. Every month the check pays for food on the table and the dad worked as a shoe stocker for Shoe Carnival.
Four times a year he would steal shoes from the store from his children, himself, and his wife. He had only worked there for 3 years. He knew he couldn’t quit because that would be too risky. And once he got caught he was given a warning. But he would still take from the store, got caught, then was fired.
Once he got fired he started to steal from other stores. But it was only when his family got hungry. He noticed that he was being watched so he travel to different store to steal from.
He never told Mama that he was fired. And he never told her that he stole from Shoe Carnival or other store. His excuse would be “I buy these gift with the left over rent money I get from my check”. The Mama started to get suspicious.
She noticed that he would come home early. Sometimes he would come home late. In the morning he would even leave later than usual. She also started to walk him out the house and seen he would leave in different directions.
But one day he left and never came back. Mama thought that he had left her.
Dad didn’t want her to forget about him. He definitely didn’t want his son, Jordan, to forget about him. He have this planned for his life. He didn’t want to have everything provided for him in jail, but worried about his family not being provide for. He left money and some things without knowing that he would to leave it for them just incase something happened to him.
He didn’t want her to worry about anything. He also didn’t want her to struggle. He was preparing to be the man of the house as long as he was living. But know Mama has to take over.
He was planning on having a long life with his family not preparing to be separated from them. He wanted to tell David for when he send a letter to Mama. He wanted David to know where he .
He left money at David’s’ apartment. He wrote a letter to David. And it read:
“Hey Dave, I know I’ve been M.I.A. for 2 month’s now. I just wanted to get settled into a place that I will be staying for some time. Until father notice, I will be staying here. If you don’t know what here is read the address. I know you might be surprised but what you were paying me was enough for paying the bills but it wasn’t enough for providing clothes and other items. So, I started stealing. That ’s the only reason why I ended up in this place. But it wasn’t because of you. I started stealing a couple of months ago. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to send a letter to Mama and let her know what’s been going on. It might send her to you. And if it does I left money under your plant in the kitchen window. Take care and see you as soon as possible”.
As he was in the process of sending that letter off he started on writing a letter to Mama and Jordan too. He didn’t like where he ended up at so he wanted to update her on what has been going on.
He wanted to make sure that he was always on Jordan’s mind. Not as a distraction. But just so he won’t think anything bad of their situation. He wanted to let Jordan know that what he was doing was helping them. That it was all out of love. He didn’t want to end up in the place that he is in. But Dad felt like he didn’t have a choice.
He didn’t want Mama to think that he never had a job and had been having an affair for some years. But all of those thoughts were clears 2 months when he wrote a letter to Mama. And it was sent from....
