Oh, Dakota

12- For The Love Of A Daughter

To: anniewatkinsartstudio@gmail.com

Subject: Hello

Hello Annie,

So, this is going to be weird and really uncomfortable, but I think you know who I am if you noticed my email address. Anyway, my name is Dakota Peters. Surely, you knew that this day would eventually arrive, when I’d try to find you or something. It was a lot of work, but I finally found you, obviously, or I wouldn’t have been able to get this to you.

Anyway, I’m not really sure what to say. I mean, what do you say to your long lost mother? I have no clue. I’ve actually been slaving over my laptop for a while now trying to get something down on this email, but nothing ever sounds right. I just know that I have to send something.

Okay, well I’ll start with telling you about my life, even though I’m sure you don’t care. Obviously, if you cared, you would be the one emailing me, right? I won’t get into that though, I’ll just tell you some stuff. I’ll start by saying that I’m on the dance team at school. I’m the captain, actually, and we’re trying to go to nationals this year. I don’t have a boyfriend or anything, but there is this guy. His name is Todd and he’s supposedly asking me out in a week and a half- it’s a long story. He’s a really good guy and he’s one of Owen’s friends. Speaking of Owen, he’s the captain of the baseball team and we’re seniors now, in high school. Our dad is still coaching baseball (he did that when you were here, correct?) and Derek moved kinda far away to live with his wife. He has three kids now. Man, he’d kill me if he found out that I was sending this to you. Owen wouldn’t be too happy either, come to think of it. But they don’t understand the bond a daughter needs with her mother, you know? It’s kinda really important. Not like you care, but it is.

Now, I’ve told you about me, I think I’ll ask a few questions about you- in hopes that you do read this, you are the right Annie Watkins, and you feel like actually answering me, then maybe you can answer this stuff because it’d be really cool to know stuff about you. I’m not going to ask you the obvious one- why you left. I won’t ask you that because, if by some miracle, you do read this and respond, I’m sure you’d tell me that it’s adult stuff that I don’t understand or maybe it’s complicated. Although, I don’t see what’s so complicated about leaving two little babies to grow up without a mother, but I won’t waste your time with questions that you probably won’t answer. I want to know how your art is going? From the website, it looks like you’re actually kind of successful over there. How has your life been? What’s your favorite food? Just tell me something about yourself. I want to know everything about you.

Anyway, you are probably really busy so I’ll stop typing now because I think I’m going to have a panic attack soon or something, I’m so nervous. Right, well I hope you respond to this or at least read it or something. So yeah, goodbye, I guess.

Your daughter,
Dakota Peters

I stared at my laptop screen for a good hour, re-reading every word again and again and making sure that it didn’t sound stupid or uneducated or anything. I checked the grammar and the spelling and I ran it through spell check five times. It had to be perfect before I pressed send. If it wasn’t perfect then she probably wouldn’t even bother herself with reading it and that’d be super bad.

I read it once more and then moved the cursor to hover over the “send” button, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. My fingers twinkled over the mouse, trying to get myself to click. Just one click and the email would send all the way to Europe. I held my breath and was about to push down to send the email, but was rudely interrupted when there was a harsh knock on my door.