Daddy's New Daughters

"I can't believe she asked me to quit school." Angel said as she sat at the counter.

"Why would she want you to do that?"

"I don't know. Something stupid about campus not being safe. Like she thinks someone is going to rape me or something."

"There have been stories in the news about ..."

"Ugh, and my dad, ... not you, my mom's ex husband. He thinks he can tell me what to do because he put some money in a trust for me. Why would he even care if I went to college or not? Screw him. I'm going. My mom already spent all the money anyway."

"Well, regardless of what they think I'm happy you're going to school. In this world you need an education and no matter how much is in that trust, if it's not enough for the rest of your life then it's not enough to say you shouldn't go to school."

"Father , dad. I really appreciate what you've done for me."

"Thank you."

"I know I gave you a hard time about it at first but; well, if it pisses my mom off this much then college is the best thing I've done in years."

"And I do love you. If you go to college or not I do love you. No matter what. I just want you to have all the choices that everyone else gets in life and that means going to college."

"I know. I love you, too. ... Dad."

Angel's phone rang.

"Don't answer it." I said. "She didn't even give you ten minutes. Relax. Peace."

Angel grabbed her phone and rejected the call. Then the phone rang again immediately.

"How do I put this thing on silent?"

"I don't know." I answered. "I don't use an iphone."

"Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you, how do I install Word?"

"You mean Microsoft Word, as in Microsoft Office?"

"Yeah. My friend has a Mac and it runs on her computer."

"Are you trying to install it on a Mac?"

"No, on the computer you bought me."

Angel's phone rang again and she had to reject the call again.

"Are you trying to install the Mac version or the Windows version?"

"The Mac version. Cause like, this isn't Windows right."

"No, it's not but you if want to use Word then you have to install the Windows version. I mean, I can get the Mac version to run if that's what you really want but ... ."

"That's what my teacher wants us to use."

"Well, your teacher doesn't know what he's talking about. You've got office software on your computer that's already far better than MS Office."

"Where?"

I told her to show me her computer. She went to her school bag, got it out and I started to show her how to get things done the Linux way. It's so much more efficient. I had kicked myself over all the years I'd wasted fighting the computer when I used Windows or Solaris. Now with Linux I could make almost anything work. I had no more limits.

I showed Angel how to start making a document with textboxes, slanted images, 3d lettering and the like. She loved it. That's a good girl. She was going to make me so proud.

Then her phone rang again. This time she answered it but she was quiet and just listened for a bit. Then she asked, "Why?"

I left her to the call. I went to the window and saw the first drops start to come down. It started light but then a big gust of wind blew past shaking the tries. The rain really started coming down hard. I hoped Francesca would be ok.

"Did you open my present?" I heard Angel ask. Now even I was starting to get curious as to what it was.

I guess Angel's mom gave her the wrong answer and Angel hung up the phone. Her phone rang again but she didn't reject the call this time. Instead she just turned her phone all the way off.

"Father." Angel called to me.

"Yeah."

"If I needed to sort of only rely on you, could I?"

"What did they say?"

"My mom wants me to call her ex husband and apologize to him. If I don't then they're going to cut me off."

"Hmm. That's sounds harsh."

"They're just being assholes, like always."

"I'm sure you're mother loves you."

"She doesn't act like it."

"Maybe it seems that way but ..."

"Father, stop sticking up for her. What she did was wrong."

"I know but ..."

"But nothing. If she had her way I would have never been allowed to find you."

"You know, I hope that with time, maybe like ten years from now, we'll all be friends and laugh about all this."

"You're so lucky you never actually got together with my mom. You're way too positive for her."

I was about to say something when we heard a scream from outside. Francesca was back and she was running through the rain to the door.

What the hell was this girl trying to do to me? We got her and the four or five bags of groceries she had with her into the house. She stood there drenched with rain. Her breasts were starting to show right through her shirt. I wanted her ... to go right away to either change or take a shower and change or cover up or something. Her phone rang and she just answered it right away.

"Hi, grandma. ... Angel's right ..." Francesca saw Angel giving her the signal not to say she was there "Um ... I don't know where she is. ... I'm at a friend's house. ... You don't know her. ... Consuela. Cool name, right. ... Can I call you back. I just came in from the rain and I'm soaked. ... Ok but I have to go. ... Ok, I'll tell her but I have to go. ... Fine, now I have to go. ... But ... I know but ... See ..."

Francesca put the phone down and the call was still going on. She gestured to her sister asking what was happening. Angel just rolled her eyes and so Francesca ran upstairs to the bag she'd put in whichever room she'd wanted to be hers.

As soon as Francesca was out of sight Angel picked up the phone and switched it off as well.

Angel and I got the food into the kitchen and into the proper place. Then Francesca came back downstairs wearing only a big tshirt and nothing else. I wasn't sure she was even wearing panties or not and I sure wasn't going to try and check. Or ask about it. Or hint about it.

The girls started getting ready to cook. They worked well together despite their very different personalities. I went to my study and looked at the updated code I was sent. This version looked ok. I was going to see if I could run it but I was starting to worry about the rain. It was coming down really hard.

Before I knew it dinner was served and we ate to the sound of thunder above us. It was very good. I'd never had this sort of thing before. I asked them if they were sure they wouldn't be happier in culinary school. At one point during dinner Francesca said I had some food on my face. I wiped my mouth but she said I hadn't gotten it. She came over to me, moved in close, and grabbed the handkerchief I was using. I thought she was going to wipe my face for me but then she brought her lips to my cheek near the corner of my mouth. I felt her tongue wiggle a bit. Then she pulled back and smiled as she looked at me in the eyes.

Was she deliberately trying to give me a hard on?

After dinner Angel was getting something done on her computer when she got an email from her mom. The message sounded urgent and Angel's mom said she was really worried about her. Angel emailed her back saying she was fine but her mother really wanted Angel to come home. Angel told her that would be crazy in this weather so her mother asked her to at least call.

That sounded like an acceptable compromise but when the phones were turned back on we discovered that the cell tower was down, probably due to the weather.

I told the girls I could set them up with video chat in my office. Francesca and Angel sat in front of my camera and we got it all working. I made sure to stay out of view but I was there just in case there were any hiccups with the computers.

"Hi, grandma." Francesca said.

"Hi sweety." Clara said.

"I'm here, too." Angel announced.

"Are you ok? Where are you?"

"I told you. I'm at a friend's house. We're going to ride out the storm here."

"It's not that bad. Why can't you come home?"

"You may be suicidal, mom, but I'm not."

"Ok. Well, it's good that you two are together. I've decided to tell you girls about something I really wanted to do this face to face but ..."

"Get to the point, mom."

"Fine. I'll tell you. You two girls have the same father."

There was a moment of silence and then Angel began acting with fake shock.

"No, really? That's amazing. Do we have the same mother, too?"

"I'm telling you the truth."

"I know. Cause like, we already know."

"You may think you want to know about your father but I'm telling you, you're wrong. You can imagine he's all these things if you want but the truth is, he was a criminal. I never wanted you to think that there was anything wrong with you Angel. I even named you after something that is only good because I always wanted you to believe that you were good."

"So we have the same dad. Is that all? How about a name. Can you give us that?"

"I can but before I do I want to tell you what happened and then maybe you won't want the name."

"Do you even know his name, or did you forget?"

"Of course I know his name."

"Then ..."

"Angel, he raped me."

As soon as I heard that my heart sank. I was unconsciously shaking my head. No. that was not what happened. Instantly, I felt like I wanted to cry and throw up at the same time.

I was going to leave the room since I really didn't want to hear any more of this. I wasn't going to defend myself. I was just going to get out of sight so the girls wouldn't feel like I was holding them there. If they wanted to leave and have nothing more to do with me, I wouldn't be happy about it but there was seemingly nothing I could do about it.

"You're a fucking liar mom." Angel yelled.

"You weren't there. You don't know what he was like. Women have to stand together and believe one another. Imagine what you'd feel like if you'd been raped but no one believed you."

"You weren't raped. You're ..."

"That isn't to say there's anything wrong with you."

"Of course not, because you weren't raped."

"Your father is in prison right now for rape."

"What? Then give me the name. I'll look him up."

I was still sitting there feeling dirty for what I'd been accused of when I heard Clara actually give my name. She was naming me with my name as a rapist. I remembered that Sunday at her house when she'd cornered me in the hall and wouldn't let me get away. I remember how she had started to touch me even though I hadn't wanted her to. And now she was accusing me of rape.

Clara continued speaking. She gave details of when I was allegedly convicted of rape, which prison I was housed in, and what my release date was. Well, obviously I wasn't in jail. What was she talking about?

The two girls were silent as they listened to Clara but my fingers went to a keyboard to type out what she'd said. I knew a guy who'd helped the state department of corrections create a website to search through the public database of inmates.

"And that's the truth." Clara said. "Even if you don't believe me, it doesn't change what happened. And I will never stop trying to protect you. No matter how you came into this world, you are my daughter. And that college you're going to is not a safe place. There are Mexicans there who are trying to abduct women."

"What? That's bullshit."

"It's all over the news. These men look for young women with Latin features like you and they claim to be related by being either a brother or someone's real father. They try to earn your trust and then they kidnap you and rape you."

I got the initial information up and there was indeed a young man with my same name who was incarcerated for rape. I can't say I was happy about that fact but I had a pretty common name. All of us with this name probably numbered in the millions, and if not the millions then at least the hundreds of thousands.

If the girls were to try and verify what Clara had said and they stopped there it would seem like she had told the truth. I dug for a bit more info from the database and then I was able to see that the inmate's middle name did not match mine and he was a lot younger than me. He would have only been ten years old when Angel was born. Added to that, he wasn't even in this country at the time.

I sent the information to the printer. After it printed I wrote 'Look at the age. Child molester much?' on it and slipped it to the girls as they continued to listen to Clara insist that she was right and that they needed to do what she said.

Angel looked down at the sheet and then she started laughing.

"Mom, you're a pedophile."

"Watch your mouth, young lady."

Angel held up the document for the camera. "You molested a little kid."

"No, that's not what happened."

"Then how did a nine year old get you pregnant?"

"He wasn't a nine year old. He was a vicious gang member. He ..."

Angel was summoning me with a hand gesture but I wanted to stay out of it. Francesca was still listening when Angel got up and then grabbed me and brought me with her. She pushed me down to the chair and then she sat on my lap.

"Mom, this is our father, right here."

"Hello." I said.

Clara looked stunned. She didn't say anything.

"So, you're a fucking liar, mom. We know all about what you did. We know ..."

Clara ended the video call at her end. Angel was so happy. She jumped off of me and then bounced around the room with joy.

"Yes, yes, yes. I got her. I finally got her. Did you see her face?"

Then Angel ran back to the computer.

"Call her back. Hurry before she runs away. Call her back."

I got the call started and then I got out of there. I actually didn't expect her to answer but she did.

Clara was crying on her end and she asked how her daughter could do something like this to her. She was going super victim on them and she even chastised Francesca for going along with Angel on this.

Then she shifted tactic and started asking if I had done anything to them. Both girls said very clearly that I had not but at that moment I was remembering all of Francesca's little stunts.

Then the gauntlet was thrown down. Clara gave the girls an ultimatum. They had to choose between either her or me.

"Don't think you can come back here and expect anything from me if you have anything to do with that illegal alien."

I was actually not an illegal alien. I had never been an illegal alien and for that matter I had had US citizenship since before I even met her.

"You're going to cut me off? Good. I choose him. Never call me again."

"And does that go for you too, Francesca? You're going to abandon your grandmother for a stranger?"

"He's not a stranger. He's my daddy."

"Him or me." Clara said.

Francesca looked over at me and then a funny sort of smile came to her face. "I choose him."

"You don't know what you're saying. Has he drugged you?"

"No, grandma. I choose him. Even if you say I can never see you again, I choose him."

"You're on something. He slipped you something. Tell me where you are and I'll get the police to come get you."

"Dammit, mom. The cops have enough to worry about with the storm. Don't go making false accusations against people. You want to cut us off, then fine. It's over. I never want to see you again and the same goes for Francesca."

"You two ungrateful little brats. I raised you. I raised both of you."

"My mom raised me." Francesca said.

"Your mother wouldn't have been able to do a thing without me."

"My mom is the one who supported you, grandma."

"Oh, is that what she says?"

"That's what I know."

"And what do you think your mother would say if I told her where you were and more importantly, who you were with?"

"I don't care. I found my dad. He's my dad. I'm an adult. I can choose who I want in my life and I want him."

"Well, fine. You two girls can go follow him back to Mexico, be prostitutes on drugs, and be penniless for the rest of your lives. Don't come crawling back to me. Never. You can both go to hell."

Clara cut off the video again.

Angel took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and then let out her air. She was so satisfied.

Francesca sat there contemplating and in doing so she brought her foot up to the seat of the chair and I was treated to a view ... I turned my head. I wasn't going to look. No looking. No.

Ok, I took a peek. Those were really skimpy underwear. Ok, back to not looking. No more looking. What the fuck was wrong with me? And why was I thinking of Consuela just then? Fuck me.

Eventually we all went to the living room to talk about all that had happened. The phones still weren't working and Francesca's mom was probably very busy at the hospital anyway so best not to bother her.

I told the girls that no matter what I'd be there for them. If they needed me to pay for school or weddings or whatever; I'd be there. If they wanted me to walk them down the aisle I'd be there. And if they wanted to pull away from me, I wasn't forcing them to stay. They could have as little or as much of me as they wanted. And I didn't say 'within reason'.

We rode out the storm in the living room. Angel was messing around on her computer. She was enjoying it a lot now that she knew how to use it. Francesca and I were playing chess. I wouldn't say I let her win since I made her earn the victory but I did pass up a few moves that could have shifted the momentum of the game.

It was getting to be something like eleven at night. We were all just watching a movie when I got a call. I was surprised. I guess the phones were working again. I answered it and my mother wanted to know if I was ok. She was worried my house would have slid into the lake.

Francesca tried her phone and it looked like the cell tower but back in operation so she called her mom. Clara gone to see Stephanie at the hospital and was raving all this crazy stuff about me stalking her and stealing the girls. Francesca set her mother right and then very clearly told her mother that she was going to have her father and if Stephanie didn't like it then it was goodbye. Francesca's mother wasn't nearly so stubborn as Clara. It sounded like she accepted the new situation.

Before getting off the phone Francesca passed it to me. I was hesitant to take it but this had to happen eventually.

"Hello."

"Robert?"

"Hi. It's me."

"Long time no see."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"How have you been?"

"Pretty good."

"Are you still living in the same place?"

I mentioned the neighborhood I lived in where all the homes start at around $2 million. She was very surprised.

"How can you afford to live there?"

"Simple. I have a job and I'm not lazy." Plus I was a very skilled, highly educated computer programmer who commanded a certain level of respect in the community.

"I didn't say that. I didn't mean it like that."

"You know I have a wikipedia page. Look me up."

"Anyway. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. And you, becoming a doctor. Very nice."

"I mean, I'm sorry about not telling you."

"Yeah well, you really should have."

"I know. I can't really say I have an excuse. It started out that I couldn't tell you because of my father and then it was because of my mother, and then life got in the way."

"Francesca is 18. So for 18 years life got in the way?"

"You're right. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"Even if I do that would not make things right between us."

"I understand. Maybe it'll take time."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"Honestly, I just wasn't thinking about it."

"Wow."

"I know. I sound terrible. I'm a really terrible person."

"You want me to forgive you that bad you'll self deprecate?"

"I wanted to tell you right away. When I found out ..."

"Say, how about we talk about this another time. Maybe in person would be better."

"You're right. It was good talking to you again."