10 Dollar Bill (Chapter 1, Story 1)

Kella's father once told her that the most important thing in life is honesty. "Kella," he said, "no matter what happens to you, be honest. Even if telling the truth hurts someone or makes your life more complicated, good things always come to the honest people in the end." Kella wondered, as she sat on the big, black leather couch in the psychologist's office, if her father was honest. She wondered if anything he ever told her was true. He told her he would never leave her, didn't he? And yet, here she was, avoiding the psychologist's beady eyed stare, all alone with her father nowhere to be found. He'd left her, her mother, and her other 6 siblings in an old broken down motor home with nothing to remember him by but a note that said, "I'm sorry" and 10 dollars. At this thought, Kella almost laughed. Really, Dad, 10 dollars? What's a single woman with no job and seven kids supposed to do with that? Kella had decided that the money would be of no use to her mother, so she took it. She told herself that she didn't want her mother to be hurt by her father's stinginess, but in reality, she just wanted--no, she needed--something to remember him. Tattered and ripped, the bill still resided under her bed in a small shoebox, and Kella took it out of the box, closed her eyes, and wished for her father to come home every night. Every morning, she awoke hoping he would be down at the kitchen table, joking with one of Kella's little sisters or kissing Kella's mother, but every night she was left with nothing but a steadily fading image of his face in her mind. Kella remembered the psychologist sitting in front of her and glanced up. What had he asked her? Oh yes, he wanted to know if she had ever been hurt by anyone close to her. "No," Kella said softly, "never."