4. Stephen
4
STEPHEN
The door to my office closed and I breathed a sigh of relief. The first bit of peace and quiet I’d had since I walked in there that morning. Apparently, the issues with the fall semester had already begun and we were at least a month out still.
A text had come through on my phone over an hour ago. I didn’t have a chance to check it when three more people needed my help. As I reached for the phone, I wondered if I was about to send my day into another tailspin. I groaned when I opened the message.
Serilda: Dinner at 7 TTYL
Serilda never met a proper sentence or grammar that she actually liked. Thankfully, Gisela convinced her to hire a personal assistant years ago. It wasn’t that my daughter hadn’t had the best education, she just didn’t seem to care if she used that education or not. I set my phone back on the desk. I knew she didn’t expect an answer. If I showed I showed. If not, she’d have dinner and do something else with the rest of her night.
I could only guess the reason I heard from her was she felt she needed to get her obligatory parental dinner out of the way before she partied for the weekend. Her assistant told me she’d be in the States for a week before heading back to Europe. I figured Gisela convinced her to have dinner with me every time she came, otherwise, I doubted I’d know Serilda was in town.
I had to give it to Gisela, considering how things began and ended with us, she encouraged Serilda to spend time with me. Although, I had a feeling part of Serilda’s attitude toward me was a direct reflection of what she saw growing up.
Gisela and I met when I’d gone to Europe to study abroad for a semester. With only about four hundred years of American history, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be in places rich with thousands and thousands of years of history. One night, I’d gone out to the local tavern, exciting for a twenty-year-old who wasn’t allowed near a bar at home.
Across from the bar sat a woman with long, blond hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. My attraction to her was instantaneous. I’d dated both men and women, but never had one set me on fire the way Gisela did. We spent the night talking and drinking. Next thing I knew, she handed me her number and promised we’d meet up the next night.
On and on it went like that for two months. I kept up with my work, then spent every free moment I had with her. All the years I thought I would end up with a man in my future were tossed to the wind the moment Gisela smiled at me the first time. I loved her smile. Until the day I walked into her apartment, her face streaked with tears and her smile gone, only to be replaced by a heartbreaking frown.
That was the night I found out I was going to be a father at the age of twenty. I didn’t know what to do or say. We spent the night trying to find a solution. I held her while she cried.
Gisela had been born into a wealthy family. It was how she afforded a prime apartment in the city. However, along with that, her family was very religious. The only way Gisela could keep living the lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to would be for us to get married. Something neither of us were ready for.
While I wanted Gisela like no person before her, I thought I’d have years to finish my degrees and start a family. Before arriving at Gisela’s that night, I’d looked into transferring permanently. Once we decided to marry, Gisela made it clear she wanted to live in America and raise our child there. I had a feeling it was easier for her to mourn the life she’d given up when she was in unfamiliar surroundings.
We held a brief ceremony a few weeks before the end of the semester. While I finished my final papers, Gisela and her parents had taken the time to find and purchase a place for us to live as a family near school. Gisela never smiled much once we arrived home to the condo her parents had chosen. I did my best to make her happy, but how could I? Everything she had ever wanted had been snatched away in one night of passion.
Serilda came along and Gisela found a new passion. Doting on our daughter, who was the spitting image of her. She went shopping constantly, while I did my best to focus on finishing my degree. By the time I’d finished my master’s, Gisela had convinced her parents to hire a nanny to give her more time to focus on her other passions.
I worked my way through being a teaching assistant while trying to publish my first academic papers, all while coming home to take care of Serilda. It wasn’t ideal, but we were making it work. Somehow, during all of it, I managed to get my doctorate degree. Gisela argued with her parents that we needed more room for Serilda as she got older. Eventually, they purchased a house on the beach. A place we lived in as a family until Serilda was fifteen.
My desire for Gisela may have overridden my common sense when I first met her, but living with her as husband and wife cleared that up quickly. Gisela might have liked the idea of raising our daughter in America, but the idea rapidly lost its shine. Over time, Gisela became more and more withdrawn from me.
We were strangers passing each other, only coming together when it was time to share a bed at night. There was no doubt in my mind that Serilda felt the distance between us. There was never outright fighting, only a lack of interest in the other’s life. We were growing apart and as sad as it was, I didn’t feel like doing anything to save our relationship. The relationship I cared about was with my daughter. Even if, in the end, that couldn’t be saved.
When Gisela announced she was moving back to Europe and I could keep the house here, Serilda was quick to say she wanted to leave with her mother. I thought it had been the connection between a mother and a daughter. As time passed and distance made the past clearer, it was easy to see how our lack of interest in each other would have led to a complete lack of interest in me.
I believed Serilda loved me, but there was always a part of me that questioned it.
At six, I shut down my computer and left the office. This time of year, getting home would take a bit longer. The sheer number of tourists crowded the streets in every direction. If I hadn’t known Serilda would be at least thirty minutes late, I might have worried about the time. There would be plenty of time to go home and change before getting to the restaurant.
I arrived at seven thirty on the spot, and there was no sign of Serilda. It shouldn’t have surprised me. The bar had a few open seats. I sat down and ordered a scotch on the rocks. It wasn’t often that I drank, but I knew dinner would be tense, like it always was. The only time it hadn’t been was when she’d dated Jansen. Something about his personality made him easy to talk to. Serilda would join the conversation occasionally, the same as she did when it was the two of us.
Around fifteen minutes later, I heard the murmurs begin and I knew she’d arrived. Beautiful, like her mother, she couldn’t go many places without being noticed. She loved the attention. Every moment of it.
I picked up my glass and slid off the stool, turning in the direction of the door. She walked toward me, ignoring everyone around her.
The young host came up to her.
“The upstairs is already booked,” Serilda snapped and my stomach clenched.
While I loved my daughter and would do anything for her, there were times I didn’t like the way she behaved. Especially the way she treated people she felt were beneath her.
She stopped in front of me. “Serilda, good to see you.”
Leaning forward, she did the two-cheek kiss thing and spun on her heel. Not a word left her lips while I followed her from the main room. The poor host she chastised earlier raced ahead to open the door to the stairway.
He swung the door opened and gestured for her to step through. Of course, Serilda blew by him without even a “thank you” or any other type of acknowledgement. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying anything in front of the poor guy. Her behavior reeked of a toddler who had yet to learn their manners. Gisela and I did not skip that lesson. This all had to do with her thinking she was superior to the man whose job it was to show her to the table.
The moment the door closed behind him, I turned to her. “Serilda, there is no reason to be rude to the restaurant staff.”
Her gaze snapped up from her phone, brows drawn together. “You’ve been on my case since I broke up with Jansen. When will you accept that he wasn’t the guy for me?” Serilda blew out a breath as she dropped down into her seat.
My gut clenched when she mentioned Jansen. I’d enjoyed my time with him the other night. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her my disappointment in her behavior had nothing to do with Jansen, but rather her treatment of people she didn’t deem her equals.
There were two options. I could push her on her terrible attitude toward the host, or I could change the subject and try to enjoy a meal with my daughter since I didn’t see her that often. The latter seemed like the best choice. No need to rock the boat. It only led to fighting and months before I might see her again.
I pulled out my chair and took a seat. “How was your latest shoot?”
Her demeanor instantly changed. “Shooting on the beach has to be my favorite type.”
Her favorite type of shoot was always the last one she was on, but I sat quietly and listened while she gave me every detail of her last job, from the most minute detail to more important parts of her trip. It made me sad to see her selfishness on display when I saw her, while at the same time it filled me with joy to witness her happiness.
Always a weird place to be in. Which left me sitting there through dinner, listening to Serilda talk about herself and never once ask a question about my life. More often than not, I hoped one day things would change. That she’d turn to me and ask about my day, or my life. It had yet to happen, but I wasn’t giving up hope.
Until then, I’d listen to my daughter talk about her job, otherwise we never had anything else to discuss and she’d play on her phone.
As I sat there with my dinner, I reminded myself when your children were happy, you should be happy you did things right.
Sometimes I wondered if that was really the case.