Where Is My Daughter?

The One That Got Away

Dorian was a simple, straightforward kind of man. He believed that most questions had relatively sensible answers, and mysteries could always be solved. He wasn't prone to believing in fairytales and ghost stories or being quickly roped into religions and cults. He went to church on Christmas but mostly steered away from spiritual things because Dorian ultimately didn't really believe in those either. He was skeptical unless he could touch, feel, and see a thing. Suspicious enough to keep him out of church.

He was the clear-cut, non-emotional, no-nonsense person the CCS looked for when searching for assessment agents. This is why he happily left his job as a social worker to work for the CCS to get a pay raise. It was an excellent job - one he had been doing happily for over 5 years before he met me. He was sure of himself, trusted his own instincts. He knew if someone should be a parent or not, and he didn't believe he was ever wrong.

So when Dorian came to me with something that sounded more like a conspiracy than a reality, I wondered who this man was, spinning stories I didn't have time to hear. For the first time since I'd known him, he wasn't sure of himself. It seemed that he was expecting me to say shut down his theory. As it were, I wasn't sure if I believed him. But I listened anyway because Dorian was not a gullible type

Nevertheless, his theory was not easy to understand. It made my world flip upside down. It asked more questions than it answered, which was disappointing. After so many years of having no answers, it was frustrating to get a solution that only succeeded in further muddying the waters of curiosity. But Dorian pressed on because what else could he do? Somebody had to know what he had found, and I was the only person who might be willing to entertain his theories. Anybody else would write him off as a raving lunatic. As it was, I believed him. And his fairytale made sense.

To start with, he needed to know more about Paisley's father. Information I didn't have. His name, where he was from, where he went, how he fit into my life. I was no help in this respect.

I had a fuzzy memory of his appearance, but even that was tainted by my copious alcohol consumption. I wasn't even sure of his name. We took to referring to him just as "John Doe" or JD, for short. There was little else to know about him. I couldn't remember his address or where his apartment was - he drove me there. All I could vaguely recall was the cold fall breeze as I made my way back to the bar where we had met to pick up my car. So it wasn't too far away from the center of the city - the places I always went to blow off steam. There was a handful of options, but I couldn't remember which one. It had been so many years ago.

Frustrated with his questions, I demanded Dorian explain why he was suddenly intrigued by this aspect of my life when it had never mattered before. First, the CCS claimed not to discriminate against single parents, even accidental single parents. On the contrary, they had concluded, through their numerous studies, that single parents could be just as effective at raising children as those with partners. In some cases, they did an even better parenting since they could not model toxic relationship behaviors to their children.

For this reason, we never looked far when discussing Paisley's father. Even during the appeals process, he was rarely brought up. Instead, there was always a brief explanation of how he came into my life and that he was no longer involved during the assessment. But something had changed. Suddenly Dorian was sure that this was the one thing we had been missing all these years. I wasn't so sure, but I was desperate for information that could help me enact my own plan of restitution. Perhaps he had information that I did not.

As it turned out, he did.

Dorian had spent some part of the day yesterday going over yet another denial. He mindlessly flipped through the carefully curated packet filled with reasons why I would be the perfect parent. He couldn't see it - whatever it was that was making the CCS deny me, but he knew it had to be there. Somewhere.