Someone’s father showed up one day, in jeans and soiled leather boots. He walked into Billie’s house like he’d always belonged, legs stretched out, cigarette dangling from his fingers. He’d brought three Marathon candy bars with him. Marathon bars were long chocolate and caramel braids advertised on TV to go “on and on,” and I wanted one of those endless bars of candy more than anything. I lay on my belly and stared at the man as he visited with his woman’s children. I was not above making my eyes pitiful as he unwrapped the chocolate. In fact, I made them as pitiful as possible and directed them at the man whose hands were so red-brown they looked as though they’d been dipped in cherry varnish.
Fathers were a mystery to me—as arbitrarily assigned as the candy that was in front of my face. Who had one and who did not seemed little more than luck, so I told myself I hardly cared that I had no father to speak of. Still, I wanted that chocolate caramel braid and found myself wondering about the touch of those cherry-brown hands.