Cranes In The Sky ♔ o. diaz

1. he's gone

C R A N E S I N T H E S K Y

THE SUMMER SUN beamed down over the city of San Diego. It was hot, well over 90 degrees, perfect weather to spend on the beach, by the water.

Not for Dinah, though. She was gonna spend it resting after an 18-hour shift at the hospital. After having to deal with the traffic in her old black Toyota, which had no AC, she had no energy to do anything, but then there was her stomach.

It was making sounds that probably weren't known to man. As she trudged up the three stories to her tiny apartment, she only grew more tired and more hungry.

She looked in her fridge, and saw it was mostly bare except for orange juice and some three-day old spaghetti. She couldn't be picky, it was either that or a ketchup sandwich and faucet water. As she dragged her feet around the small kitchen, her phone rang.

She looked at the screen that was pretty blurry through her sleepy, hooded eyes. She knew it wasn't somebody she wanted to talk to, the person wasn't even labeled in her phone. She was too tired to function anyways, so there was no way she could be polite enough to talk to someone who had the wrong number.

She let the phone ring until the notification popped up saying the person left a voicemail. She groaned as she unlocked her phone and let the message play. It started off with the soft sound of someone clearing their throat as she spread butter onto bread for her spaghetti sandwich. (yes, she was combining the last edible things in her kitchen to make the ultimate struggle meal and yes, it was gonna slap)

"Hey Dinah."

Ew.

She'd heard this voice before and she was hoping she'd never have to hear it again.

"It's your dad's wife, Joyce. You probably don't know me—bet you've barely ever heard of me."

Oh she'd heard of her, the white bitch who her bastard of a father left her and her mother for. She was only three, but that's the type of shit, anger really, that you carry with you. She remembered birthdays and Christmases that she'd be forced to spend the whole day with them, but those stopped when her half-sister, Melanie, was born.

"I know that you probably don't wanna hear from me."

Ya damn skippy.

"But it's about your father."

I don't give a shit about him.

She rambled over the phone for whole two minutes before it seemed like it was coming to an end, in which Dinah managed to heat up her spaghetti, pour her juice into a cup, and grab a knife so she could cut her sandwich in half.

"Look Dinah, there's no right way to say this, but your father has been fighting cancer for the last year and there was just no more that could be done after a certain point. He died last night."

And with that, her lack of concern transformed into a sort of sadness.

"His funeral is next Saturday and I would love if you and Diane could come and say goodbye. Simply as a way to gain closure and maybe even forgiv–"

She turned he message off, she wouldn't hear anymore.

Nope. No way in hell.

It was one thing to call and ask her to come to the funeral, but it was completely different to expect her to forgive the guy who abandoned her just because he was dead.

Dinah may have been a little sad, but she wasn't stupid. This lady wasn't about to use this sadness of sympathy to worm her way into Dinah's good graces. It was gonna take a whole lot more than just her dad dying and a few "I'm sorry"'s for her to even think about turning a blind eye to the snake like way either of them lived their lives.

Most people would say it was better to just forgive and forget, but she couldn't—wouldn't. Never.