Ava
My mother had a saying.
The world is an unpredictable place.
It was a generic saying. One I knew that she was not the first to say but one she repeated often enough for me to align the saying with her name.
However, it isn’t until this very moment that I understand why she said it so often.
I spot him before he sees me. He’s seated in one of the seats at the far end of the cafe which was partially covered by one of the dim lights of the cafe and a red brick wall that shielded more than half of his body from the window opposite from him.
The world was indeed an unpredictable place, I realized for the second time in the last ten minutes.
One minute, I’m prancing between classes, wondering what’s the difference between Renaissance and Baroque art, and the next, I’m inches away from the man, who’d been my only parental figure for more than half of my life.
The seat he’d chosen was tucked away within the shadows of the restaurant and despite the movements of the staff, one still had a clear view of the entrance. This cafe was the only place located just outside the city’s busiest district, far enough from prying eyes yet still open enough to avoid suspicion. And while we were still within my husband’s territory, we were in a blind spot that not many knew about, which made me know instantly that he was aware that my husband was after him.
I take a slow steadying breath, calming my nerves before deciding that standing by the entrance would only delay the inevitable for longer than necessary.
He doesn’t look up at first when I approach, tapping his fingers lightly against the table in a slow yet furious rhythm.
When he finally notices my shadow hovering over him, he slowly drags his gaze up towards my face. His lips part when he realizes it’s me and his eyes flash with an emotion I’ve become rather familiar with in the last few days.
Surprise.
He hadn’t expected me to come.
“Ava,” he says, my name rolling off his tongue as if he has any right to say it. He sounds relieved for some reason and that pisses me off. He had no right to sound relieved, least of all for a daughter he hadn’t had the decency to talk to before he disappeared.
I press my lips together and slip casually into the seat opposite him, clasping my hands together on the table.
“You said you wanted to talk. I’m here, so talk.” My expression remains unreadable as the words I’d rehearsed before leaving the cab that brought me here leave my mouth in the most mundane manner.
I didn’t expect much when I decided to come here, least of all from him.
Any expectations I had from the man I once trusted with my very life died the moment he sent me down the aisle to a man he knew would make the rest of my life a living hell simply to save his skin.
It was why my plan for today’s meeting was simple. Get answers and leave. Any thoughts I had of this meeting potentially leading up to a warm reunion were dead and buried, and I had a long heart-wrenching funeral during the ride here.
But yet, even at that, I had to admit, It felt strange meeting him again.
He looked different. Somehow, in the course of only two months, my father had managed to age two decades. My gaze dips along the seam of the torn upper sleeve of his right hand which he tries to cover up with his jacket. His hair had grown longer, too, and grey strands now danced along the once-brown edges of his temples.
He looked the same and yet completely different.
How did he live these last few months? Where had he lived?
He clears his throat, shifting under my gaze. “You look well.”
Well? He thought that I looked well? Two months and that was the first thing he had to say to me. I almost laugh at the irony. Instead, I arch a brow. “Can’t say the same about you.”
The corner of his mouth twitches but the humor doesn’t reach his eyes. “The last couple of months have been… rough on your old man”
I scoff, “Yeah? I bet.”
For a moment neither of us speak. He stares at me, shoulders rising and falling with each breath he takes in and releases and I stare back at him, wondering where exactly our relationship started to fall.
When exactly did I become dispensable to this man?
At what point had he become a total stranger to me?
When was the moment I looked at him and felt…
“Can I take your order?” The voice of a waitress coming to take our order interrupts my train of thought.
Her sudden presence is jarring, shattering the tension that had thickened between us like a fog.
I glance up at the red-streaked waitress, taking in her polite yet uninterested expression. She holds a notepad in one hand, a pen poised over the blank page, her gaze flickering between the two of us as if sensing the unspoken weight in the air.
If she’s curious about what’s going on, she doesn’t let it show.
“Just coffee,” I reply, my voice level. I have no appetite, and even if I did, there was no way I could stomach anything right now, not with him here.
The waitress nods, scribbles it down, and then looks expectantly at my father. He hesitates, rubbing a hand over his face before sighing. “Same. Black.”
As soon as she walks away, the tension creeps back in, thick and suffocating.
My father lets out another exhale, gaze flickering behind me to the entrance as if expecting someone to come and save him.
Too bad he doesn’t have another daughter to sell.
“I never meant for any of this to happen.” He rushes out, twisting his thumbs, “I thought that I was doing what was best for you. I see now how wrong I was”
I fold my arms over my chest, leaning back slightly, “Why is it whenever someone does something wrong, that is always their first response. I didn’t mean it. Not I’m sorry, not an apology but rather I never meant for any of this to happen. It was always the same carefully curated bullshit designed to avoid responsibility. But just because you didn’t mean it doesn’t mean that your actions had no effect. It did. And just because you might not have to live with them doesn’t mean there wasn’t an effect.”
His face tightens, the lines around his mouth deepening as he absorbs my words. For a moment, he looks like he wants to argue, to defend himself, but then something in his expression shifts.
He rubs a hand over his face again, his fingers trembling slightly before he clasps them together in front of him on the table. “I know,” he admits, voice rough. “I know, Ava.”
A bitter smile overtakes my lips and I straighten a bit, “Good. I’m glad that you are at least a bit self-aware. Now can we skip to the part where you tell me what the hell you want.”
He looks surprised as I continue, “You don’t really expect me to believe that the reason you called me here was because you wanted some father-daughter bonding time, did you?”
“What if that is what I want?”
I can’t lie; a flicker of hope sparks in my chest, but it quickly dwindles, crushed by the overwhelming sense of uncertainty that wraps up our warped relationship.
“You’ve been gone for two months.” I remind him, “If you wanted some father-daughter bonding time, you would’ve never left in the first place.”
“I left because I had to”
“No, you left because you wanted to and because you’re a coward.”
I see a flicker of anger in his eyes, the brief flare of something close to indignation, but it’s gone just as quickly as it appears. A muscle ticks in his jaw, and yet he remains mute, the lines working their way around the curve of his lips are my only clue that my words indeed affected him.
Coward.
“I should’ve expected this” He sighs, “I knew you wouldn’t want to forgive me so easily, but I still came here anyway, hoping to earn your forgiveness. I’m ready to earn your forgiveness. Whatever it takes. You’re my daughter and I want you to be in your life. I may have done somethings to make you think that I don’t care about you, and for that, I am sorry that I have made you think that you are any less special than you are to me. I would never, ever do anything to hurt you.”
I don’t recall exactly when but there was a point where everything clicked.
He was lying.
It isn’t the words themselves that tip me off-it’s the way he says them. Like some kind of rehearsed speech he’d done in front of a mirror a few times before deciding that he was just going to wing it.
I let his words settle in, watching him as he tries to appear sincere, as if he truly believed that saying the right things will somehow erase the lifetime of hurt his actions caused me.
“Never do anything to hurt me?” I repeat slowly, my voice dangerously soft. “You care about me?” I scoff.
“You do realize that you haven’t, not once since our entire conversation began asked me how I was doing. How I’ve managed being sold off to an unknown man by my own father. How my life has changed. If my life has changed.” I lean forward, voice dropping into a harsh tone, “Do you know why you haven’t asked me any of these things?”
His mouth presses into a thin line, his shoulders rising and falling with a deep inhale. He doesn’t respond.
“It’s because you don’t care.”
You never have.
I wait for him to tell me I’m wrong. Wait for him to tell me something, anything that will soothe the burning hole in my chest.
He doesn’t.
I lean back against my seat. The waitress who’d taken our order, reappears, placing our drinks in front of us.
Neither of us spare her a glance as she leaves and when I’m sure she’s out of earshot I ask again, this time my tone holding none of the softness it previously held
“Why am I really here Dad? The truth this time”
God knows my heart can’t take any more of his lies.
He hesitates for a second too long. His fingers twitch against the table. Then, finally, he speaks.
“I need money.”