She took a deep breath to get rid of the edginess. “I’m sorry for snapping…but I would appreciate it if you told me the truth now. Why did you keep me away from my mother?”
He sighed heavily and still seemed reluctant to tell what really happened. It took a few minutes before he spoke. “Twenty years ago, I was working at a small hotel in Georgia. I was just an assistant manager then. It must’ve been about ten o’ clock at night when a woman came in. She was soaking wet from therain and she looked like she’d taken a beating—black eye and a bloody nose. She wanted a place to stay for the night. We were fully booked so I couldn’t help her. She burst into tears, told me she was five months pregnant and her boyfriend just found out about the baby. He smacked her around a few times and then kicked her out. She had nowhere else to go, so I told her she could stay with me for the night.” He ran a hand down his face and the reminiscent look in his eyes showed that he remembered it like it was yesterday. “One night led to another and before I knew it we were…living together. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fall for her. Your mother…was an extraordinary woman. I see so much of her in you. She’s resilient and strong, always positive, and she also has a sense of humor that very few people understand, but…she’s easily blind-sided, especially by material things. Before she fell pregnant, she used a lot of men for money.”
Jasmin’s eyes widened. “She was a prostitute?”
The term made him cringe. “No, not a prostitute. More like…a gold-digger. She and your father were con-artists. They manipulated and stole from rich men. She did…a lot of things to get what she wanted.”
Jasmin could see that he knew the details of those things, but he still wanted her to preserve a decent image of her mother. It started to make sense why he never wanted to talk about her.
“Your father got what he wanted with hardly any effort. She did all the dirty work, so he never complained. You ruined all their plans when you came along. She was confused and torn at first, but as the months went by…she changed. She told me she was done with that life, she wanted us to be a family and I believed her.” His voice cracked with the hurt and disappointment he clearly still felt. “I went to every doctor’s appointment. I set up a nursery. I loved you like my own before you were even born. I loved her…and I thought she loved meback. But your mother is obsessed with financial security. She goes where the money is and, unfortunately, at that time I didn’t have much. After you were born, I went to the hospital to pick her up. I was going to bring home my baby girl and I was…I was going to ask her to marry me. I couldn’t give her the best, but I was ready to do whatever it took to make her happy…give the two of you a good home. When I got there, she was gone. She left you there and disappeared. I found out a few months later that she went back to your father, so…I guess I was just a free meal ticket until she had you, no different from any of the other men she used.” He shrugged. “I didn’t even have a chance to be heartbroken, because as soon as the nurse placed you in my arms, I just…I realized there was someone more important than me. Nothing else mattered. I didn’t know the first thing about raising a child, but I bought every book, I spoke to every mother I knew and—”
“You didn’t have to take me in. You could’ve gone to social services and told them you weren’t my real father, or you could’ve put me up for adoption. You never asked for me, so why did you take on the burden of raising a child that wasn’t yours?”
His jaw tightened, irritation showing plainly on his face. “I told you that you were never a burden to me. I had a lot of options. I could’ve done any of those things. Even when I found out where your mother was, I didn’t confront her. I could’ve taken you back and forced her to take responsibility, but I didn’twantto.”
Jasmin tried not to get antsy for more information. “She did try to take responsibility. She said she tried to contact me and you didn’t allow it. You blackmailed her.”
“She’s so manipulative,” he said with a groan. “Bhajia, I always knew you were special. You were solving equations at the age of two, but I still wanted you to have a normal life. As you got older, everyone told me that you were too advanced forplayschool. I enrolled you anyway. It was your first week and one of the teachers called a reporter to tell him about this math genius she had in her class. By the time I got to the school to pick you up, it was a fiasco. Reporters and cameras—all of them shouting questions at you. It scared the hell out of you. You were screaming and crying because you didn’t understand, but that didn’t bother them. They wanted a story. You made the seven o’ clock news that night. Needless to say, it was enough bait to draw your mother out. She just saw the dollar signs. TV shows, exclusive interviews, magazine articles about her daughter, the child prodigy. That was the only reason she wanted you. It was four years later and she comes back demanding full custody. I wasn’t going to allow her to waltz back into your life and then leave again as soon as the fifteen minutes of fame were over.” He sneered and shook his head with disgust. “I knew she didn’t have enough money for a decent lawyer. It was an idle threat. I had just bought my first hotel and things were starting to look up for us, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want the media hounding us and I didn’t want her anywhere near you. I sorted out the paperwork and we moved far away from all the drama.”
The pieces were starting to fall into place and it was dawning on her that everything he had done was to protect her. “Is that why you didn’t send me to a normal school?”
He nodded. “Your tutors told me that it wouldn’t have benefited you anyway. And maybe I shielded you too much, but I didn’t want you to ever go through that again.”
“I still don’t understand why you blackmailed her,” Jasmin said. “She wanted to make it right, have a relationship with me and now she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me because you threatened to expose her past. People make mistakes and you used her mistakes against her. You didn’t even give her a chance to see if she had changed.”
He was silent for a long time, rubbing his jaw pensively. “You have such a big heart, my child,” he said softly. “Always ready to forgive. You see the good in others…and sometimes there is none. I may have been wrong, but I don’t think I was. In the last nineteen years, your mother has only contacted me three times. The day you were on the news. The day my picture appeared on the cover ofBusiness Weeklywith an article of how I became a self-made millionaire. And maybe it was just a happy coincidence that the third time was this year…the day you were on that talk show. She has the perfect life now. Married to a rich man. Great job. Big house and fancy cars. Having a daughter whose innovative ideas are going to shape the future…it makes for a perfect picture to the public, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, finally seeing the truth. Accepting the malice actions of her mother came quite easily when Jasmin had seen firsthand how callous she could be.
“It was just another grasp at fame. I couldn’t stop her from seeing you. You’re an adult now. But I knew she would end up manipulating the situation. She would have told you and her husband that I had custody because I had the means to take care of you. She wouldn’t have told either of you about your real father…or how she just left you at the hospital for me to find. She would’ve spun the perfect lie and you wanted a relationship with her so badly, you would’ve fallen for it. I should’ve told you…but I was selfish. You’remine.” His voice became thick and raspy. “You have always beenmydaughter. She didn’t change one diaper. She didn’t read one bedtime story. She wasn’t there when you took your first step, or when you started figuring out fractions. She wasn’t there for anything and then she wants to come back after nineteen years and take you away from me…I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I stooped to her level. I threatened to tell her husband everything and she backed off…I’m sorry, Bhajia.”
Leaning forward, he lowered his head into his hands and she watched him fall apart in front of her. He wasn’t like her. He never tried to hide his emotions and he openly showed his remorse. All the animosity that she’d held against him for weeks, months, years, it melted away at that instant. She slowly stood up, crossed the small space and knelt down on the floor in front of him.
He cupped her face with both hands and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and the worst one was not being around when you needed me. Somewhere along the way I got my priorities messed up. I got sucked into my work and I always just assumed you were okay. As you got older, I thought you were pulling away because that’s what teenagers do. They stop thinking their dads are cool. You were with your cousins a lot and you were becoming your own person. I didn’t want to hold you back when I kept you sheltered for so long. You were always happy and smiling…I didn’t know how much it affected you until that call.” His fingers tightened, curling behind her neck. “I’m so sorry. I tried to compensate for all the things I couldn’t give you and ended up taking away the only thing you truly needed. I haven’t been the best father…but I promise I’ll do better.”
She was crying by then, because this promise was one she actually believed.
He gently wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “The only family I can give you is me. It’s always been the two of us and that’s how it’s going to stay…I don’t know if that’s enough for you, but—”
“It’s enough,” she replied shakily.
He shifted onto the floor and pulled her into his arms, holding her in a vise grip against his chest. That was the moment she broke down. She’d cried before, but she’d always maintained enough strength to stop herself from crumbling completely. Thistime she didn’t care. He was her strength. She wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed herself to be swallowed by it. She let go of everything, all the hurt and rejection of the last few days. She’d been yearning for so much. A mom and siblings, nieces and nephews, a big family overflowing with love, but this was enough. The way he held her told her that he loved her more than life itself and that was more than enough. That was another lesson she had learned from Kevin. A person didn’t have to be blood to be family and he was all the family she needed.
“I love you, Dad,” she whispered.
“And I love you. Don’t ever doubt that again.”
Their relationship was going to take time to rebuild, but they could start doing that tomorrow. All she wanted today was for him to hold her and ease her troubled mind. The world was an unpredictable place, filled with all kinds of different people. Everyone had good and bad in them. She’d met people who made her smile and people who made her cry. What she had experienced in a short space of time was utterly overwhelming and it only highlighted the fact that she wasn’t a kid anymore. The time had come for her to find her own way and stand on her own two feet. She needed to grow up, but that was the great thing about dads. They love and shield and protect. It didn’t matter how old she got, in the arms of her father she could always be a little girl.
December, 13
Great Falls, Montana
Kevin walked down the sterile hallway of the hospital and stopped outside Momma B’s room. She was lying in a semi-upright position, staring out the window on the other side of room. She looked lost and irreparably damaged, so different from the strong, radiant woman he knew. He couldn’t bear to see her like that, frail and weak. It was the reason why he’d been procrastinating for the last few days, finding any excuse not to see her, but he couldn’t avoid her forever.
This was his storm and he had to face it alone, but Jasmin had taught him a few lessons during their time together.
Family was a gift and needed to be appreciated.
