There is a stale scent in the air accented by rust and mildew. The scuffed cement floor is still glossy from being mopped, and there’s a prisoner dressed in a blue jumpsuit whispering with a visitor a few tables over. I’m nervous and can’t stop tapping the heel of my ankle boot. 

A few more prisoners shuffle into the room, their plastic sandals squeaking against the cement floor as they disperse in the direction of their loved ones. I spot my dad, and a smile spreads across my face as I stand, but then it dissolves at the site of his bruised eye. 

“What happened?” I gasp.

“It’s nothing.” He moves his head when I try to touch his cheek, and when I stretch my arms to hug him, he sits down, leaving me hanging. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You haven’t answered my letters.” I sink into the seat across from him.

“I told you not to look back—to move forward.”

“I am moving forward, but I needed to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because even though it’s been three months, and I’m feeling normal again, there are unanswered questions.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to figure out a way to live without the answers.”

“Dad, please.” I reach across the table, but he retracts his hands and sets them on his lap.

“I’m not your dad, Valerie. You need to move forward.”

“Why are you being like this?” When he doesn’t answer, I slap my palm against the table. “Look at me!”

“Because it’s not normal to call me your dad!” he barks. “I kidnapped you. I took you away from your real family and lied to you. Jesus, Val! What else do you need to move on?”

“I need you to give me the answers you promised three months ago, and I won’t be whole until I have them. So, if you want me to move on and no longer think of you as my dad, then you have to explain!” I drag my palm across my cheek, stopping a tear from trickling down, and release a breath.

“What do you want to know.” He folds his arms, but I’m not buying this hardened shell he’s developed towards me. 

“Tell me about when you took me, and I want details. No lies. Only truth.”

“Fine,” he says, his voice a deep rasp, so he clears his throat and rests his elbows on the table. “But I need to give you context first.”

“Go for it. I have plenty of time.” I glance at my watch.

“Elaine and I had a daughter. Her name was Valerie, but she passed away when she was four. It was rare cancer, and the chemotreatments and radiation were too much for her tiny body to handle. After she passed away, Elaine fell into a deep depression, and I couldn’t get her out of bed. So, one day I got this wild idea to scatter Valerie’s ashes in Yosemite, and to my surprise, Elaine liked the idea of Valerie's resting place being in such a beautiful setting. So, we made the trip and rented a cabin in Curry Village. The next day, we drove through the valley looking for a spot to sprinkle Valerie’s ashes, and we found a meadow near Mirror Lake. The sun was shining across the water, and the meadow had these yellow, purple, and orange wildflowers, where deer nipped at the grass. It was perfect and peaceful, and I felt some of Elaine’s grief scatter with the ashes. There was a lightness to her as we held hands while driving back to Curry Village. She even smiled at me for the first time in weeks. We grabbed pizza for lunch, took a dip in the pool, and later made love. Even though we started the morning saying goodbye to Valerie, the rest of the day ended well. So, when we woke up the next morning, I felt everything would be ok. We would move forward. Maybe try for another child. But then we saw you.”

“And you saw me as your chance to start anew?” I swallow the lump in my throat.

“No.” 

“No?”

“We were heading home that morning, but when we stepped inside the gift shop, it was like time stopped, and the air left our lungs. Looking at you was like seeing our daughter in the flesh. You looked so much like Valerie with long curls, big round eyes, and the same bubbly giggle. We couldn’t take our eyes off you.”

“And that’s when you decided to take me?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “We followed your family to Yosemite Falls and watched you from a distance. The more we watched, the more it felt like we were seeing our Valerie. When I tell you that you looked like her, I don’t mean a few similarities. The resemblance between you was so uncanny that our family didn't even know you weren’t the real Valerie.”

“What do you mean?” I edge forward, my brows crooked.

“After I got out of prison for stealing from Elaine’s parents, we packed our bags and skipped town with Valerie. We fell off the face of the map and cut out everyone from our lives. So, no one knew that Valerie had gotten sick or passed away, and a year after we took you, we returned to San Francisco to visit Elaine’s parents because she missed them.”

“Wait, but you once told me that I’d never met my grandparents before. That they died before I had the chance to.”

“Yeah, well… that was a lie too. You met them when you were five, and they thought you were Valerie. They even had pictures of our Valerie on their fridge, and you looked exactly like her, so no one had a reason to question anything. But the visit made Elain paranoid, and we never visited again.”

“Ok,” I blow out a breath and take a moment to compose myself. “So, back to you guys taking me.”

“After Yosemite Falls, we followed your family back to Curry Village and watched you eat ice cream. At first, you were upset because they didn’t have Chocolate Chip, but once you started licking that plain, vanilla cone, you didn’t care anymore. You made a mess too. The ice cream dripped all over your shirt and onto your hands,” he laughs, his eyes bright with the memory. 

“So, you spent the day following my family and watching me?” 

“When you say it like that, it sounds creepy, but for us, it was like seeing our Valerie again.” He leans forward, but his shoulders droop as he stares at the scuffed metal table between us, and a tear rolls down his cheek. “You don't know what it's like to lose a child, and I hope you never do, but it wrecks you. It makes you do things you never imagined yourself doing, and I know it makes me a hypocrite, considering we took you from your family, but it was never the plan. I need you to know that.”

“Then what was the plan?” I ask softly, and he looks up at me.

“It wasn't to take you. Later that evening, your parents tucked you and your sister away in the cabin, and we couldn’t watch you anymore. That was it, and the sobriety of our situation rammed us like a wrecking ball. Valerie was gone, and we had to return home and face life without her, which saddened me, but watching you throughout the day gave me a sense of closure. I knew life without Valerie would never be the same, but I felt we would be ok.”

“So then what changed? What made you decide to take me?”

“Since it was too late to drive home, and we didn’t have another night reserved for a cabin, we went to our car to sleep. Except, Elaine had other plans. In the middle of the night, I woke up, and she was gone. I figured she probably had to pee and was squatting by a tree somewhere, so I grabbed a flashlight and went to look for her. The bears like to wander through camp at night looking for food, so I got worried. Then I saw something moving through the trees, and when I flashed the light, it was Elaine. She had dirt all over her face, almost like she wanted it to look like camouflage, and you were in her arms.”

“She took me?” I inhale sharply.

“Yes.” He nods and wipes the tears from his eyes. “She yelled at me to turn off the light and said we had to leave, but I started freaking out. I told her we needed to take you back, but she said we couldn’t do that. So we argued until we heard your parents calling out for you, and it was at that moment that I knew Elaine was right. If we took you back, people would ask questions, and we’d get arrested, so we drove away from the park as fast as we could.”

“And that’s how my life of lies began.” 

“I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but Elaine wasn’t in her right mind when she took you, and once it was done, there was no going back. We tried making the best of it, but we were always looking over our shoulders. It’s why we moved so much, but it started taking its toll on Elaine.”

“Which is why she killed herself.”

“Yes,” he says, his voice raspy as he wipes his eyes.

“Did you set our house on fire?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You were starting to ask questions about your childhood, why we kept moving, and about why our family never visited. So I thought if I burned everything, it would wipe the slate. Then I could blame the lost memories on the fire.”

“But not everything burned. You placed our furniture and photo albums in a storage shed.”

“I didn’t have the heart to let go of those things. They held too many memories. But I had to put them somewhere, so the storage shed was the answer.”

“I see.” Silence falls between us for a few beats, but we don’t have much time left, so I blow out a breath and continue. “If you could go back, would you still take me?” 

“Yes,” he says without hesitation, and I wrinkle my brow.

“You would?” 

“What we did was wrong, but if someone told me they had a time machine and could send me back to redo that day, I wouldn’t go. For twenty years, I got to have a daughter—a daughter I grew to love with every beat of my heart, with every breath in my lungs…” he pauses to fight back tears, his hand to his chest. “I know I've lied about so many things, but I’ve never lied to you about that. You became my entire world and reason for living. I’m not a bad man, but I am far from redeemable, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me—”

“I do forgive you,” I cut him off, and his tear-soaked eyes flash to mine. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Why. You should hate me. I kidnapped you. I lied to you.”

“Well, I don’t. Despite everything, I still think of you as my dad.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“No one will ever understand why, and I don’t think I even understand why, but there is this part of me…” I motion with my hands, struggling to form the words as I fight back the tears. “You are part of me, and I am part of you. When I look back, all I have are good memories. You were a good dad, and I always felt loved. So, how can I be expected to cut off this entire part of my life that has shaped and molded me into who I am? I can’t. You once said that all of my good traits are organic to me and didn’t come from you, but you’re wrong. I am who I am because of you, and I would never change it.”

My father looks away, and he blows out a breath, but he can’t stop his body from reacting as his shoulders tremble with the cry he lets out. He covers his face with his hands to muffle the sound, and I watch as his body shudders. One of the guards shouts that everyone has to wrap up their visits, so I reach across the table and brush his arm with my fingertips.

“Sounds like I have to go.”

“Right.” He wipes his face clean. 

“I’ll come to see you again.”

“Don’t,” he says. “As much as I would love that, you must move forward. You can’t do that by hanging onto me.”

“But dad—”

“Valerie, you have to. One day you’ll understand it’s for the best.” Before I can argue, he stands up, rounds the table, and kisses the top of my head. “Bye, baby girl. Go live your life.”

"Dad, wait!" I spring from the table and grab his arm, prompting him to look at me. "I love you."

"I'll always love you." He kisses my forehead and leaves the visitor's room.

When I make my way outside the prison, Moses and Julian await me as the gate rolls open. They don’t ask questions or say a word when they see me. Instead, they wrap their arms around me, and as we head across the parking lot to the car, it’s the start of a new life.

It’s a life where I choose to keep a small space in my heart for Angelo, but the rest of it will belong to Moses, Julian, my new family, and everything good that is bound to head my way.

Because I am Valentina Moreno. The daughter of Javier and Amelia Moreno.

I am also Valeri Rossi. The former daughter of Angelo and Elaine Rossi.

But most importantly, I am Val, and I’m no longer lost.

~The End~ 

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What to read next? Check out my Open Novella Contest winning story, CARMELA + AMOS on my profile ❤️