TinderElla:

by Eddie Cleveland

  Jackson

  “I don’t know how familiar you are with the development phases of children,” Doreen talks to me over her shoulder as she leads me through the hallways to meet my daughter for the first time. My stomach hasn’t been tied this tight in knots since I was getting ready to parachute into my first mission with the SEALs. Somehow, this feels more frightening.

  “Uh, I’m not,” I answer her. I don’t know what age kids are when they can feed themselves, or use the bathroom on their own. I don’t know if Chloe will talk clearly or if she’s going to use the garbled language of toddlers. Basically, I don’t know the first thing about any of this.

  What have I done?

  A layer of cold fear coats my stomach as self-doubt creeps up inside me, like it’s trying to claw a path up my throat and out my mouth. No matter how much I try to swallow it down, it’s still just past the edge of my tongue, urging me to let it free.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll learn as you go. In the meantime, there’s a lot of good reading in the brochures I gave you. The only reason I bring it up is so you know that Chloe isn’t going to have a firm understanding of her mother’s death. At three, she can’t grasp that this is a permanent change in her life and that Janet isn’t coming back. It’s completely normal for her to be cheerful one second and sad the next. She’s only going to understand in pieces that things aren’t going to go back to the way they were.”

  “Okay.” I nod grimly and stuff my hands in my pockets. “I should probably get her a counsellor, right?” I tilt my head as I realize that, while I’m looking, I should find one for me too.

  “That would be a great idea. And I can give you a list of therapists that we recommend, if you’d like.”

  “That would be helpful.” I stop next to her and wonder if she’s trying to size me up.

  Doreen stares up into my face and puts a warm hand on my shoulder. “Take a deep breath, Jackson. Are you ready to meet your daughter?”

  I swallow hard to steady my nerves. I can’t believe how much my hands are shaking. Keeping them hidden from sight, stuffed in my pockets, is the only way I can hide the telltale tremors traveling through them. “I think so,” I answer unconvincingly.

  “Here we go.” She opens the door and leads me through into what looks like a large daycare. There are children of all ages playing and doing crafts around the space. I scan the room as Doreen tries to point out Chloe to me, but I don’t need her help. I spot her right away. With fluffy hair the color of a bonfire and pale skin that looks like the sun has never touched it, I can see the child I made with Janet right away.

  “Do-wene,” Chloe cries out as she spots the child welfare director at my side. She clumsily runs over to us and wraps her arms around Dorene’s leg, giving her a big hug.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” Dorene pats her on the head. “There’s somebody I want you to meet, Chloe.”

  My heart stops in my chest as the little girl, as my little girl, shyly smiles up at me.

  “Hi,” she whispers and crinkles her fingers on her chunky hand into a timid wave.

  “Hey, Chloe.” My voice catches in my throat as the waves of emotions crash over me. I bend down on one knee and look into her perfect face. “I’m Jackson.” I hold out my hand, which I’m sure is stupid because no kid shakes hands. However, she circles her hand around my fingers and squeezes them.

  I’m not sure how I’m going to do any of this. My house is barren. My life is a mess. I don’t know the first thing about being a dad, and I sure as shit didn’t learn anything from the deadbeat who got my own mother pregnant. I could fuck this all up, and, if I think back to where I was only this morning, it seems inevitable that I will.

  Yet, as Chloe holds my finger and regards me with those big, blue saucers for eyes, as I take in her innocent face and think about how much this child has already lost, how much she’s already suffered, I just know I’ll make it work. I might not know how, I might make mistakes along the way, but somehow I’m going to give this kid the life she deserves.

  Thank you, God. I say the words silently as my heart fills with a love so pure and so overwhelming, I just know this is the answer to my prayers.

  1

  Ella

  Present Day

  I plunge the wet rag into the soapy pail of water and squeeze it out between the canary yellow gloves covering my hands. Moving back across the huge master bathroom on my hands and knees, I scrub Sylvia and Raymond’s floor. The marble radiates a chill through me, keeping me cool as I rock my body back and forth, pushing all my weight onto the rag, washing each square inch clean enough to eat off of. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Not when Raymond has such a disgusting habit of pissing at the foot of the toilet and then leaving it there in dark, gross puddles of yellow.

  I push the thought from my mind. The last thing I want to think about is Raymond’s piss, or anything else that comes out of him for that matter. I prefer to think of him like a Ken doll. All abs and no… package. Even though he’s gone out of his way to grind up against me like a Chihuahua in heat a couple of times, refusing to let me indulge in the idea that he’s only half a man.

  Dragging the heavy bucket of hot water back toward me, I continue cleaning the floor exactly how Sylvia wants it done. She’s very particular about how I clean, how I cook, what I buy, how I talk. It’s endless really, and at times it’s exhausting. However, I know that without her I would be dead.

  Literally.

  An unwelcome mosaic of thoughts overwhelms me. They kick down the door I try to keep them behind and intrude on my mind just like the men who broke down my family’s door that night. I freeze as the memory grips me tight in its grasp, forcing me to watch, yet again, as the men my father screwed over in Colombia stormed our house.

  I hid underneath my big brother’s bed, scurrying behind his huge duffel bag full of old, smelly gym clothes. I cowered in the corner, hidden from the men who took turns raping my mother above me. I cried silent tears as she struggled, and felt the weight of the mattress as it pressed down over me while they violently fucked her. Two other men waited for their turn, holding my brothers nearby, making them watch.

  My older brother, Alejandro, screamed at them and tried to fling himself free. He wanted to protect her, but the men just beat him down until he was on his hands and knees, bleeding onto the floor. Miguel, my younger brother just cried. They slit his throat first. They beat Alejandro until he stopped moving and then cut his next. My mother screamed, she stopped fighting them once they killed her babies. She didn’t even try to defend herself when they opened her throat and let her bleed out into the mattress.

  They left, laughing and zipping themselves up, wiping the bloody edges of their knives against their pants. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. For hours I stayed curled up, my family slaughtered, completely frozen in terror. My mind played tricks on me, told me that maybe they knew I was there. Maybe they were just waiting for me to come out of hiding so I could meet the same fate as my mama. My body ached and my muscles tensed, but still I didn’t come out. I barely even breathed.

  Finally, the door fell open and I heard the loud, heavy footsteps that could only belong to a man enter the house. I shook uncontrollably as I tried not to move, waiting for the next man to find me. I was praying so hard, I didn’t fully understand the noises I heard at first. They sounded like the squeals of a pig, but then I saw his shoe. My father. He had come home and seen what his betrayal had cost him. What it had cost us. When I came out he was crying. I’d never seen him cry before. My tears had all dried up. I looked around at the bodies of the people I loved—my mother, my brothers—then my eyes locked on my father.

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  “Ella, I’m so sorry,” he pleaded. “I’ll get you to safety. I’ll make sure you’re okay,” he promised, but I didn’t believe him. We had always grown up knowing my father’s life of crime paid for our clothes and food. Just like every other family in Colombia, we knew that the Úsuga Clan ran the count
ry, and that to try to cheat them was certain death. Yet, my father only thought of himself and it took away everyone I ever loved.

  “Mmm-mmm, there’s nothing like seeing a girl down on her hands and knees. How about you flip that dress up over your waist and give Daddy a lil’ peek of that fat ass, Ella?”

  A long, spine-seizing shiver tenses up my back muscles and shakes me back into the present. I don’t need to glance over my shoulder to know the obnoxious man standing behind me is Raymond. At twenty-eight, he’s much closer to my age than to Sylvia’s. However, that’s the whole point of having him around, I suppose. He’s her little boy toy. Although most days she treats him more like a pet than a man.

  “You’re not my ‘daddy,’ Raymond. Please let me be. I need to get this done for Miss Sylvia.” I don’t take my eyes off the floor as I urge him to drop his swinging-dick swagger routine.

  “I might not be your daddy, but you can call me Daddy,” he muses. “Wouldn’t you like that? I know I would. One of these days I’m gonna have you bent over just like that and have you begging me for this cock.”

  I shake my head in disgust and glare at him over my shoulder as he tilts his head and contorts his voice to a higher pitch.

  “Ohhh, Daddy, fuck me harder,” he mocks me.

  Anger spreads like wildfire over my cheeks as heat burns up my back. This is how my father saved me. He had me smuggled over the United States border to a woman he only vaguely knew. She had a lot of experience bringing immigrant girls to America. It has only been her weak loyalty to my father that has kept her from selling me the same way she’s sold the other girls over the years. Although she reminds me almost every day that I can easily be taken off her hands, bought by strangers who would own me as a sex slave. Sylvia brought me into her house and into safety when I was only fifteen years old. Now, at twenty-one, I’ve been her unpaid servant for six years.

  I already dealt with her last boy-toy. Raymond is the second one I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. “Go away.” I shoo him off, but he doesn’t budge. His stupid smirk is pasted to his overly tanned face.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  I watch with satisfaction as Raymond jumps guiltily about a mile high. His shaggy blond hair falls across his forehead and he tries to push it back casually as Sylvia storms in across the bedroom toward him.

  “I was, uh, just coming in here to take a shit, but this one”—he points down at me—“is washing up.” He shrugs as the foul lies pour off his even fouler mouth.

  “Raymond! I don’t have time for this.” Sylvia swats him with the handful of paperwork she’s holding in one of her hands. “We’re meeting our new ‘human interest’ liaison in San Diego and I don’t have a single thing to wear. Especially since this fucking idiot picked up my dress in the wrong size.” She holds up the exact Dolce and Gabbana dress she ordered me to get for her and flings it around angrily before tossing it at me. It lands over my head and Raymond bursts out laughing as I slowly tug it off.

  “Look, Ella, I know English isn’t your first fucking language, but I would expect you to understand me by now! You were supposed to get this dress in a size eight, not off the fucking rack. So, throw this in the back closet with the other crap you’ve messed up. You’re such a pain in the ass. I swear, I should just get whatever money I can for your pathetic ass. If I’d known you’d be this fucking stupid, I would’ve never helped your father out.” She rolls her eyes as her words deliver the slap to my face I know she wants to.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answer passively. I know she’s the one who messed up the size, but I will never say that out loud. She has an entire closet of shoes and clothes that she’s deluded herself into thinking she could fit into. And yet, she always manages to put that blame on me when they don’t fit.

  I stand up and gingerly pick up the dress, avoiding eye contact with her. I know better than to push her buttons. Sylvia really wouldn’t think twice about getting rid of me. She’s told me that for years. I bite my tongue and remind myself that my life could be worse. I know that. I’ve seen some of the girls who have stopped in here, children really. They spend a few nights only to disappear into the seedy underbelly of sex slavery.

  I step past them and make my way out of the room, keeping my eyes downcast onto the floor. I know my father sent me off so I wouldn’t be killed like the rest of my family, but there have been so many days, so many years now, that I can’t help but wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off dying with them.

  2

  Jackson

  “Chloe, we have to pack it up, sweetheart. It’s almost time for lunch and then my friend Ryan is coming to visit us, remember?” I look down into her sparkling blue eyes and see the big clouds of disappointment starting to move over them.

  “But, but, Daddy, it’s my special princess tea party.” She pouts and her crown slides sideways on her wispy, red curls.

  “I know, honey.” I can’t help but smile at the adorably frowny face she’s putting on. I remember what this place looked like only a year ago. Back then, I was using this entire room for storage. Mostly I had my old military gear in here, stuffed in around an old treadmill I never used and a bunch of tools I had collected over the years.

  I remember distinctly the gripping terror of bringing Chloe home for the first time. The realization that washed over me as I walked her into the house and realized I didn’t know the first thing about being a father. My house was about as far from child-proof as you could get. With a fridge full of beer and leftover takeout food, I didn’t even know what to feed her.

  I tilt my head and smile as I gaze over the small bed I put together for her covered in a My Little Pony blanket. Her toy box is overflowing with toys and her costume rack is almost buried in every kind of princess dress you can imagine. I remember changing the electrical sockets around the bottom half of the wall to the child-safe ones that are in there now. The learning curve was steep, but making this house a home for Chloe was worth it.

  She saved my life.

  “All right, how about this? I’ll have a tea party with you, but only for fifteen minutes, got it? Then it’s time to tidy up and get on with the rest of the day. Understand?”

  Chloe nods enthusiastically as she bounces around the room overjoyed that she doesn’t have to cut her princess party short.

  “Okay, okay! You can wear this crown.” She rushes across the floor and tugs a sparkly, pink plastic tiara from a pile and rushes back over to me.

  I sigh and lift it up, placing it delicately on my head. I’m glad Ryan isn’t going to be here for a few hours. This is an image I could live without him seeing.

  “Oh, Daddy! You look so bee-you-tiful.” Chloe claps her hands together as she grabs my hand and leads me to the foam mat on her floor.

  Spread out in front of me is a half circle of stuffed animals and her tea set has been carefully placed in the center of the action. “Do I sit here?”

  She sports a big, toothy grin as she leads me to my spot and nods. I ease down onto the floor and marvel at how effortlessly she flops down beside me.

  “You can be Princess Sophia,” she exclaims and shakily picks up the teapot from the floor. “Hold up your cup, Daddy. I am giving you some tea,” she explains.

  “I mean, can’t I even be a prince or something? How about Prince Jackson? I think that’s got a nice ring to it.” I hold up my tiny, flower encrusted mug.

  “No, you are Princess Sophia. I am Princess Belle.” She pouts as she helps me get this straight.

  “Okay, fine.” I sigh. “Princess Belle, can I have some tea, please?” I hold out my cup and watch as she pretends to pour me some of the imaginary liquid. The small tiara on my head stays in place as I sip at the air, slurping loudly while Chloe squeals happily.

  Honestly, when she laughs like that, I would gladly be a princess any day. Just hearing her giggle makes it all worth it.

  “Daddy, we forgot cheers.”

  “We forgot what?” I can see that I messed u
p the rules in her pretend world somehow as she scrunches up her nose.

  “Cheers. Do this.” She lifts up her tea cup gingerly. I follow her lead and she smashes her mug into mine with enough force that if there was real tea in there it would be all over the floor.

  “Cheers!” she squeals.

  “Okay, cheers, honey.” I shake my head and try not to laugh.

  Tap-tapitty-tap-tap.

  “Who’s that?” Chloe’s eyes go wide.

  Tap-tap.

  I’m not entirely sure, but I stand up to go find out. My daughter is hot on my heels as I walk down the stairs to the front door. As I circle my hand around the knob, I remember I’m still wearing a crown and I try to tug it free from my hair as I swing the door open. I didn’t realize when I put it on that it had a little prickly comb on the bottom, so the tiara digs into my hair and hangs off the side of my head as Ryan’s familiar face stares in disbelief.

  “Well, don’t you look pretty.” Ryan smiles smugly and I pull on the plastic until it’s freed from the tangled mess it made of my hair.

  “Thank you,” Chloe answers in a sing-song, not knowing that the ‘compliment’ was meant for me.

  “You’re early.” I lift up my daughter and step back, letting Ryan inside.

  “And I’m so glad I was. It would’ve been a real shame to miss that.” He laughs.

  “Nice ride.” I glance out at the gleaming Harley, shimmering like unbridled freedom itself in my driveway.

  “Thanks, man, I love it. It’s been nice to see the country on her.” He smiles wistfully at his hog.

  “I bet.” I remember when I drove my own bike out on the open roads a lifetime ago. That was before Chloe came into my life and I traded in my Honda Rebel for nursery furnishings. Sometimes I miss it, but as my daughter likes to say ‘no trade backs!’

  “Let’s stop talking, Daddy,” Chloe helpfully suggests like she always does when she’s bored with the conversation. She turns her attention to one of the men I consider a brother, my fellow SEAL Ryan. “I have a great idea.”