By Chance...

NiaJean is lying in bed unable to sleep as she reviews the events of the day.  Though all these men fill her life with excitement she still feels like something is missing. 

She pulls out a photo album that she recently got from her mother for a family tree project she’s helping Sage with for class.  She opens it.  She instantly realizes she picked up the wrong photo album from her mother’s house as she shuffles through the unfamiliar old pictures. 

She sees a picture of this man standing next to her mother hugging her while her mother holds her in her arms.  This man standing next to her mother is not her stepfather William but another man.  She’s never met this man before but she remembers seeing his face a few times in her life.  She starts thinking back and realizes she’s seen this face pretty recently.

She continues shuffling through the photo album and sees more and more pictures of this man. 

After all these years she hasn’t had a real conversation with her mother about her “real” father.  There was never a question as to who was her father since William was always there for her since she was three and adopted her and her brother as his own.

She analyzes the picture closer and realizes this is the same man that sat next to her on the bus a couple of months ago.  The only reason why she remembers that is because she paid close attention to his demeanor and the fact that he sat next to her out of all the open seats that were available on the bus that day.  Now she starts questioning whether that was a coincidence or not.  She starts wondering if he’s been following her for a while and she just never noticed. 

This is concerning because this is a man she’s never known and he could be watching her entire life and she wouldn’t even know.  Anger starts to set in as she thinks about this creep who made a conscious decision not to be a part of her life and he may decide to just show up one day.  People do it all the time for whatever reason.  Most times it’s for selfish reason so that they can get over the guilt they’ve been carrying for years and really she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him if that ever happens. 

She hasn’t seen this man anywhere else lately but this encounter now makes her curious.  This is worth another trip to her parents’ house for a major discussion with her mother, she thinks as she continues turning pages.  She finds herself getting really irritated and tense as she thinks about what could happen if she encountered this stranger who calls himself her father.

NiaJean starts overanalyzing the situation then realizes she’s thinking about something that may or may not ever happen so she snaps out of it as she yawns and closes the photo album. 

She thinks to herself, “Is this really worth a conversation with mom?  Am I sure I really want to know about him?   I don’t know…”