I should probably go all the way back to the best time of my life, before all the events leading up to this took place.
I was such a daddy's girl.
I can remember us going on daily nature walks in the woods behind our old house. When I was really little, I would tire quickly and he would have to lift me up onto his shoulders and carry me along. But he didn't mind. Everytime I would say, "Daddy, let's go for a walk!" he would only smile and reply, "Go get my hiking boots."
After I was a little older, he saved up and bought me my very own pair of durable, brown hiking boots and I was able to truck along closely behind him, two of my strides matching just one of his as we wove our way through the dense foliage.
He taught me many things on those walks: the names of all the trees, what plants were safe to eat if I ever got lost, how to make a fire, how to find water, and one time he even taught me how to shoot a gun. He was big on outdoor survival.
Every evening, we would come home to one of Mom's delicious, home-cooked dinners. My sister Harper always proudly announced that she had helped tremendously with the cooking, although at the time, she was too little to reach the stove. She loved to hang around the kitchen with mom, and that was just fine with me because I got Dad all to myself.
A mother. A father. Two daughters who closely resembled their parents. We were the perfect, all-American family, right?
Wrong.
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