Time to play, time to play, time to play is the phrase that keeps repeating in Lucy's head. It's been a month that he has been away and she has not heard those words but today those words are in her head.
Lucy seats on her window watching the kids in the neighborhood play, for a teenager she should be out with her
friends or on dates but she knows nothing about typical teenage life, even if she wanted he wouldn't allow her.
A loaded truck pulls up across the street and Lucy looks up, it must be the new neighbors she believes. A well dressed woman comes out of the van and besides her, a goofy looking girl stands next to her and they both look towards Lucy and wave but Lucy stares at them for a moment and looks away.
Lucy looks up at them again and that's when she's him, probably in his mid 40s but one can probably mistake him for mid 30s, he waves at Lucy and she waves back, the lady and girl look at Lucy surprised but that doesn't stop Lucy from smiling at him.
The lady says something to the man and he stops waving and starts having a conversation with her. Seeing this, Lucy gets annoyed and before she could stand up and say anything she hears footsteps behind her "Time to play Lucy.''
At only 16 yrs old Lucy had reached a point of ending it all, she couldn't take it anymore.
But that afternoon everything changed when she saw the new neighbor. Something within her clicked, even though he was old enough to be her father, that concept had no meaning to her.
What is a father? Who is a father? was the question spinning in her head before she heard a loud slap on the table to bring her back to reality.
"Are you thinking about our play time?"
"No dad," she replied
"Have told you more than once to call me daddy, Paul snapped, why do you have to make things difficult for yourself sweet sugar."
"Am sorry daddy," Lucy replied
"We have got new neighbors," Lucy spoke fast in order to avoid the daddy conversation, Paul always emphasized on putting "Y" on dad when being addressed. sometimes it would lead to play time or spanking if he was not called correctly.
"The neighbors are none of your business" Paul replied to his daughter.
"But they have a daughter my age, I would really love to be friends with her. She and her mom waved at me yesterday."
"I said they are none of your business, go eat your food, your classes will begin in an hour."
Lucy knew that agitating Paul always led to bad consequences, so she dropped it.
She went downstairs, ate her food and went to her room annoyed and plotting ways to kill Paul.
She always dreamt of ways of killing Paul Everytime he denied her something, in fact she had tried killing him three times and all three times she had failed. Knife to his neck, poison and fire are ways that she had tried to kill her father, but failed on all attempts, It was like he had nine lives.
Attempting to kill Paul was what led to her being homeschooled in the first place. Paul felt that her attending public school gave her time and opportunity to plot his death.
Before she could start preparing for her class the doorbell rang, which was very unusual for the Parker House, she rushed down stairs to get it but Paul had already beaten her to it.
"Good morning, a deep voice greeted, "am Nick and we are your new neighbors and this is Lea my wife and Nancy our daughter."
"Nice to meet you, Am Paul and this is my daughter Lucy, She was just telling me about the new neighbors."
"Lucy dear come greet the new neighbors."
Lucy saw this as an opportunity to meet the mystery man, she took her Time to take him all in and did not mind that both his daughter and wife were there. He was tall, well proportioned, perfect set of eyes and had a well kept beard, the definition of a handsome man according to her.
she stretched out her hand to meet him, "hello am Lucy parker, nice to meet you Nick......
Paul noticed the long hand shake and how his daughter was smiling, he had never seen his daughter smile like that before or even seen her smile at all.
He got infuriated and spoke up fast, "it was nice meeting you guys but Lucy has to start class now."
"Ooooh you mean Lucy is home schooled," Lea asked.
"Yes she was very behind so I decided to home school her myself, It was nice meeting you guys."
Paul pushed Lucy inside and closed the door on his neighbors.
