And He Agreed

By no means unexpected, they 
are not a new discovery, but 
each time she sees them she is
surprised and surprisingly repulsed.
There she is, a baby, a child, an
infant and up to age four, there he is.
Daddy, her father, and something deep
within her spits: I have no father!
That vehemence no longer troubles her.
It simply is what it is. 'It' angers her
when her friends complain of their
fathers' interference in their social lives.
They return from school daily knowing
their interfering fathers will soon appear,
and sometimes, she knows, they are
glad. Her father will never show up;
he never has. She is his daughter
and it matters little to him. Little? 
Now there's an understatement,
galling, bitter - she knows those words.
Why does she turn over the dry
leaves of that 'family' photo album?
She hardly knows. To wallow in
bitterness, she guesses. Her grandmother -
not the one she doesn't know - has told
her an agreement was reached back then;
her father could avoid child-support
in exchange for surrendering her
completely to her mother.