A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,75

it hard for my husband to sleep so he has to take a drink to help him relax.

I’m sure things will settle down soon. I’d love to hear from you if you can find the time to write. You know where I am.

Your daughter,

K

There was a long gap between that letter and the next. Almost two years. Lizzie ripped it open with shaking fingers.

Dear Father,

It’s been so long since I heard from you that I suspect my letters aren’t welcome. Still, you are my father and you always will be. As a mother myself, I understand that.

Conroy has a brother who we named after his father. He looks so different from Conroy, his hair almost white blonde and blue eyes like sapphires. Unfortunately he’s been sick. He has a cough that won’t go away and the doctor charges so much that I could only take him the once.

The shrimp harvest was poor again, or so my husband tells me, I don’t understand these things too well. I got a job myself at the local store, but with a sick baby to take care of I just couldn’t keep regular hours. My husband didn’t like me working either, he thinks a man should provide for his family. I’m sure you’d agree.

I left everything behind when I got married, and I wonder if you kept my few trinkets, like the pearl necklace from Grandmother Adele and the gold locket with Mama’s picture in it? If you could forward those to me, I’d most appreciate it.

Your daughter,

K

Lizzie’s heart was sinking lower and lower. Was this how it always happened? One minute she’s seizing freedom and true love, and the next she’s wistfully remembering old garden arbors and wanting to fondle trinkets from her old life.

Who am I kidding? She wants those things so she can sell them for cash. Lizzie had a nasty taste in her mouth. She’d sold most of her trinkets already. The only one she couldn’t bring herself to part with was the Bulova watch she’d been given on her eighteenth birthday. Right now its reassuringly familiar face read three a.m.

She picked up the fifth envelope and slit it open. It was from almost a year later.

Dear Father,

You know I wouldn’t ask for help if I didn’t truly need it. The baby is very sick. He needs a course of antibiotics that costs more than we can possibly afford. Money has been especially tight this last year and I have not been able to work with the baby sick. I’ve prayed and prayed to the blessed virgin to grant us some relief, but the troubles just seem to pile up, with my husband drinking away what little we have.

I know you said I was making a terrible mistake in my marriage, and if it wasn’t for my two beautiful boys I’d have to say you were right. I was young and romantic, as you said, and didn’t understand the harsh realities of life.

Please Father, if you could find it in your heart to send $275, either in cash, or as a postal order, in care of the Dee General Store, I’d be eternally in your debt and I promise I won’t ask for more. Please don’t send it to the house, and put my name on the envelope, not my husband’s.

Your daughter,

K

Lizzie pressed her hand to her mouth. How could anyone write such a letter? She’s asking for money from her cold hearted bastard of a father who won’t even open her letters? The thought turned her stomach. This woman sounded painfully young. She also didn’t sound too bright. Thank God I’m nothing like her at all.

The ballpoint pen was a reminder that this happened only a couple of decades ago. It had a horribly timeless ring to it.

She’d never write a “Dear Father” letter. What would she call hers though? ‘Dad’? She’d never called him Dad. And Daddy just sounded silly once you were over, say twenty-one, and your father had betrayed your trust and bankrupted you and called you a fat little nobody.

She had a sudden urge to throw up, but a few deep breaths took care of it.

One more letter. She glanced back at Con and noticed with alarm that he’d rolled over and was now facing her. His frighteningly handsome features were still relaxed in deep sleep, one arm crooked under his head and the other sprawled over the white sheet.

He wouldn’t want to see these letters. Wouldn’t want to know they existed. He’d looked at