She was bored. She was tired. But she couldn’t sleep, at least not right now. So she wandered throughout the house looking for something intriguing.

She eventually found herself in the attic breathing in and out through another panic attack. The walls were closing in, her lungs were getting smaller, everything was spinning, her heart was beating a million miles an hour. How could she stop it?

She looked around and took in the contents of the small room. There were boxes everywhere with random trinkets, clothes, and pictures overflowing out of each one. The wooden floor was creaky and covered in dust, the two sides of the ceiling were angled and came together the way the roof did, and the small circular window was covered in dirt.

She started rummaging through the boxes of useless junk to see if she could find something to calm her down. And what was this? In an old picture box, she found a picture of her mom on a honeymoon cruise being kissed on the cheek by an old, tall figure, who had a fiery glint in his eyes, just like her’s. She sat there stunned, unable to move, unable to think. Could this be the man her mother had always tried to hide from her? Could this be her dad? She wasn’t sure so she just scampered back to her room, on her tiptoes, with the picture in hand.

She could bearly sleep that night when all she could think of was that picture. When she looked in the mirror the next morning she looked awful. She felt like she had just woken up, but no energy was restored in her body.

“Laci, we are going to be late, let's go,” her mom called to her. She heard the groggy croak in her mom’s voice. Everyone said her mom and Laci looked just alike. They had the same dark brown stick straight hair, were nothing but skin and bone, never grew past five foot five inches, and had long stretched out faces.

In a hurry, she grabbed the picture without even thinking, she figured she could show her best friend, Rachel. Once they got to school she almost leaped out of the passenger seat with enthusiasm about the picture in her hand.

“I haven’t seen you this happy since I told you Aunt Karen wasn’t going to be coming for Thanksgiving,” Laci’s mom stated with a hint of concern in her voice.

“It’s nothing, we just have a pep rally at the end of school,” Laci lied,  “Gotta go, bye!” She started to hear the shouts of confused middle school kids once she got out of the car.

Laci went to an old, damaged school that was an orphanage they converted for a middle school. It had long, twisty hallways, rusty lockers lining the walls, everything smelled like chlorine from the retired pool in the basement, and it probably had lead running through all of the pipes. But she liked it there anyway.

Laci bounded toward Rachel’s locker, clutching the picture and tripping over her ankles. Rachel had thick brown curly hair, the most gorgeous face ever, and us a little curvy. But none of that mattered anyway, she is her best friend and will always be her best friend. She found Rachel gazing out into space at her locker like she was trying to remember something she had forgotten.

“Look what I found,” Laci informed her shoving the picture into Rachel’s hands. Rachel’s eyes immediately went wide, she understood how much Laci’s father meant to her, she knew this was big.

“Woah,” she breathed.

“Yeah, this could lead me to him, this could lead me to my dad!” Laci exclaimed.

“Where did you find this?” Rachel questioned.

“Last night during another panic moment when I was looking for something to calm me down. So I started rummaging through an old picture box and found this.”

RIIINNNGG

“See you in Spanish,” Rachel handed back the picture.

“Okay, bye,” Laci went to her first hour thinking about nothing but that picture.

------------------

“Did you have a good day at school?” Mom interrogated.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s school,” Laci explained. Laci was sitting at their old, donated kitchen table and her mom was chopping carrots at the peninsula in the cramped kitchen. There whole house was tight and small the way the kitchen was with little, random objects taking up as much space as possible. There was wood floor running through the whole house and shingles were falling off the roof. But it will always be home-sweet home.

She debated whether or not she should bring up the picture. When her mom turned around to get something out of the dark brown, worn out cabinets, Laci pulled out the picture and stared at it for a few seconds. She got the courage to say, “So the other day I found this,” Laci nudged the picture toward her.

Her mom just stared, then blinked.

“I was wondering if you could tell me about it and, maybe… who my dad was… ” she didn’t even notice her mom was crying until she started sniffling.

“Where did you find this?” she asked while blotting her eyes, but Laci didn’t give an answer.

“Where did you find this?” she commanded a second time blowing her nose.

“In the attic.”

“And what in God’s name were you doing up there,” her mom was mad, Laci didn’t think this was going to go this bad.

“Huh?” her mom challenged.

“I couldn’t sleep, but that’s besides the point. Maybe you could just tell me a little bit about this picture--”

“You’ve got something you aren’t telling me, Laci Theodosia Prince, so what is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean--”

“You know DAMN WELL WHAT I MEAN!”

Laci’s brain started to go into hyperdrive. Her throat was closing up, everything was numb. She is falling, falling so fast out of reality and into a place of deep fear and pressure. The tears streaming down her face were icicles cutting deep into her skin reminding her of everything wrong with her. She could feel a deep, stabbing twinge in head, everything was getting dark. Sitting up in her chair was no longer an instinctive motion, she could feel herself slump back. Everything was shutting down.

“HELLO?! Are you even paying attention?”

“I’m not okay,” she croaked out, “I’m so depressed I can barely get out of bed in the morning, and every night I have these panic attacks that I wish I could stop. Everyday life and living stresses me out! AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE!” she shouted.
Laci took her backpack, the bag of chips on the kitchen table, and stomped upstairs. She was going to go back to the attic, find out who her dad is, and then find him. She was determined.

Once she got up to the attic, she started rummaging. She dug up any picture, object, or even old letters. She found a few other pictures of her mom and her potential dad, but nothing she could use to figure out who this man was. She was like an adventurer digging for buried treasure, on a very small island, with thousands of possibilities.

“This is hopeless,” she murmured to herself. She heard a shift in the floor boards. Her mom was coming in. Her mom’s gaze was burning a hole through the small of her back.

“You can’t stop me,” she muttered.

“I know I can’t, but I can help you,” her mom had a sparkle of sorrow in her eye.

“What?”

“I never told you because I knew it would break your heart, and I guess you’re old enough now to know. Your father was truly a great man, but with secrets he didn’t care to share until after our marriage.”

“I thought you too were never married?” Laci gasped.

“Yes we were, until I told him I was pregnant and he ran off,” Laci was still in shock that her mom was telling her anything at all.
“Did you two get a divorce?” she questioned.

“Well, no, he left so fast we never got a chance to. But, we were truly in love when we decided to get married. We were on our honeymoon in that picture,” she said pointing to the picture of them on the cruise, “Your father was a coward and never bothered to tell me that he didn’t want kids until after I said, ‘I do.’ When we got back from the trip he kept his bags packed and wandered off, I haven’t seen him since.”

“Have you tried calling him?” Laci pondered.

“Well, no, I guess I haven’t,” her mom almost seemed scared to call him. So she just turned around and walked out.

Laci could feel the pressure coming back to her chest to push her down and make her sink so low. But she shoved that feeling away. She pushed that feeling back down to where it came from and for once in her life anxiety, fear, and sadness was not going to stop her from finding him. Finding her dad. And tell him that he should be ashamed of himself for leaving such a wonderful woman, and an astonishing kid. The tears dripping down her face were no longer icicles leaving scars, but were strength permeating throughout her reminding her that she could do anything. She could overcome this anxiety. She could live. She will thrive.

A yellow stained piece of paper in the picture bin caught her eye. She pulled it out, it was a letter. She opened it up and what she found blew her away. It was a phone number and nothing else. So, she instinctively dialed it. It rang, and rang, and rang, but went to voicemail. She froze. What should she say? This could potentially be her dad, she couldn’t just blow off the voicemail.

With no time to think she blurted, “6281 Greenwood Drive,” then hung up.

She needed to get down from this adrenaline rush, something soothing, something calming. She ran down to the basement and into the small closet in the corner focusing on the pound of her footsteps on the wooden stairs. She had to brush off the dust and junk from the top of the piano she had resorted to, but it was good enough for what she wanted to do. She let her fingertips hover over the smooth, ivory keys, then started to play. She stumbled over them for a moment, then it all started to flow out of her making a trail of sadness and despair slowly turn into light and hope. It was full of mourning and sorrow with a gentle touch of softness, the loud and booming notes started to overpower this light touch of hope. The music consumed her, she was drowning in the noise, counting the beats of the deep and sensual sounds. The happiness was in there, slowly weaving itself out of the cry of the deep notes, soon it was ear splitting and high in such a way that would make anyone collapse with alleviation. And eventually after pressing down on the old and cracked keys, she got up and left the music to sing for itself on one last gentle touch.

That always made her feel better.

She stood, breathed in the stale air. She was finally in a place of total peace with her body and mind. She was finally happy.

Maybe she wasn’t going to ever get to meet her dad? Maybe it would just be her and her mom forever? She just stood there pondering these questions eventually coming to the conclusion that everything was going to be fine no matter what.

------------------

“I’ll get it,” Laci told her mom assuming it was the pizza guy who rang the doorbell, but what she found was so much more.

“Hi, is Miranda Prince here,” those dark eyes were staring straight into her soul. The olive skin, tall, dark messy hair, eyes filled with secrets he seemed to have no intent of sharing. This was him.

This was the man in the picture.

This is her dad.

“Who are you? What’s your name?” Laci growled.

“I am only a figure in the mist, just a name in the wind. I am nobody I ever wished of becoming. I was young and sick in mind on that cruise ship. My dear girl, my dear Laci,” he breathed, “you deserve so much better.”

“How do you know my na--”

He bent down and brushed a light kiss in her cheek, only a whisper of thanks and to show his great love for her.

And with that single touch she woke up. She was laying on the couch being held tightly by her mom, who was also asleep, and she was holding the picture. They must have fallen asleep because the Food Network was still on the television.

Laci got up being careful not to wake her mom as she untangled herself from her arms. She reached her room eventually and sat down on her small twin sized bed and stared at her wall covered in so many posters that you wouldn’t even know the wall was actually blue.

Why had that dream seemed so real? She questioned quietly in her mind. She layed down on her bed, closed her eyes, and while she was just on the edge of unconsciousness, she heard a knock on the door. This time it wasn’t a dream she knew she heard it and it was not in her dream, especially because she heard her mom open it. Laci ran downstairs like her life depended on it.

It was the police standing on the doorstep talking to her mom.
“Are you legally the spouse of Jack Arthur Thomson?” the police had a sobern look on his fat face.

“Um, yes,” her mom stuttered.

“Are you aware of his whereabouts?”

“No,” her mom answered.

“Well, he was recently put in jail for theft. He managed to escape. We found his body in an abandoned house off the side of Glenn Road yesterday, we believe he died of drug overdosage at 8:21 a.m.”

Laci felt a scream escape her lips.