The father

Anna.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that man. As I served the tables, I wondered what role he had played in my past. I had lost the memory of my past after an accident and didn’t remember anything before that.

There was only one thing I still had from my past. The baby I had been carrying in my womb when the car crashed. I didn’t know her real father but Robert my boyfriend had taken responsibility for her ever since she was born. He was now her father and treated her like one.

Why did this unknown man seem to hate me? I avoided the table he occupied with his friends and some women like plague. Although I was curious, I controlled myself. Robert had convinced me he was probably some random rich guy I had met and forgotten about. But why did he call me Anna when my name was Rina?

Was my name Rina?

I rolled my eyes, telling myself not to go crazy over the words of some possibly drunk guy. Throughout the evening, I felt like I was being watched but every time I looked around, I couldn’t see anyone watching me.

When my shift ended, I wished my workmates goodnight and went out to join Robert. It was a cold night with wind blowing fast. I hugged myself as I walked towards Roberts’s car. From the corner of my eye, I saw a man rushing to a black Range Rover nearby.

I shrugged and opened the door. It reeked of an unfamiliar perfume.

“Who was here?” I asked.

“Oh, it was Granger.” Robert said. Granger was one of his closest friends. The scent was quite feminine but I didn’t think much of it. “Let’s go.”

Robert drove off. A car left the parking lot at the same time as us. Home was a few blocks away. When Robert stopped the car, I noticed a Range Rover pulling to the stop.

“That’s the same car,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw it at the club. It followed us and probably belongs to that man. What does he want from us?”

“I’m going to ask them,” Robert said, putting his phone in his pocket.

“No, I’ll go. They probably want me.” I figured those where the people who had been watching me all night.

“You can’t go,” Robert insisted. “What if they do something to you?”

“They’ve followed us to my house. My daughter is in there. If we go into the house right now, they might follow us in there. I’ll ask them what they want.”

Before he could say anything, I was out of the car. I could not put Emmy’s life at risk by opening the door while these men were still around.

“Hey,” I yelled, standing in front of the car. “What do you want from us? Why are you following us?”

There was no reply. Suddenly, one of the doors opened and I jumped back in shock. I relaxed when I felt Robert standing behind me. He took my hand and I felt safer immediately.

A tall man stepped out of the car. He wore a black suit and a cape which he removed. “We want to speak to you, Anna.”

There was that name again. Could it be that I resembled someone called Anna? Or I had a lost twin. When I had the accident, I had my documents with me, and Robert said we knew each other before the accident. The lost twin probability seemed more possible. I mean, what if we had both been placed in different orphanages?

“We are here on behalf of your real family,” he continued.

“My real family?”

Robert stepped forward and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go in Rina. These people are trying to play with your mind.”

“What if they’re saying the truth?” I asked. Robert had no idea how much I cried in the shower some nights because I ached to remember even a small bit of my past. I hated having a big grey cloud in my brain.

“You have no known family, Anna. You lived in an orphanage before we met. That rich guy at the club probably sent these men to screw with you. “

“If you’re talking about Reid Bennett, he didn’t send us here. He just led us to you and we’re mighty glad he did.” The tall man reached into his pocket and removed a card. “Here. Call us whenever you want to hear the truth.”

Robert let go of me, stepped forward and grabbed the card, then tore into pieces and returned to grab my hand. “I’ve had enough of this drama. Let’s go back inside.”

I wanted to resist but I didn’t want to raise Roberts’s anger. He was quite ill tempered. In order not to ruin the night, I followed him. At the door, I took one last glance at the man before Robert shoved me inside.

“We could have just listened to them,” I said, placing my purse on the table. Those men’s words had made me even more curious than before.

“Oh I see. Now you want to listen to all men except me. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you looked at that rich guy in the club. It’s like you were dying to be in his arms.”

“That’s not true at all. I have no interest in that man. I don’t even know him.”

“Yes you do. Nowadays you’ve been lusting over men in that club.”

“How dare you speak to me like that? You know I hate working in that club and I only do it because it’s one of the best paying jobs. I need to save up money for Emmy’s surgery.”

My daughter Emmy had a congenital heart disease. It was being managed as the doctors waited for an appropriate age to do an open heart surgery. We also needed to save up money because the cost was extremely high. I needed to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars in one year. She was three years and the doctors wanted to do the surgery after she turned 4. I only had a year to get all the money needed.

“Everything is about Emmy. Emmy this, Emmy that. I’m fvcking tired of this mess.”

“My daughter is very sick. How can you be jealous that I worry about her all the time?”

“Because you never think about me despite everything I’ve done for you. I saved you from that accident. Where were all these men? Where was that fvcking family that claims to want to speak to you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Robert and his family were the only people who had been there for me since the accident. No one had ever come forward to look for me. Maybe he was right. I was just an orphan that didn’t matter to everyone except him. Even the father of my child had never bothered to look for us. I sighed. “I’m really sorry for talking back to you. Thank you for always taking care of us. “

“Good. From today onwards, you’ll not work at that club. I’ll get you another job, a better one.”

“It’s okay,” I accepted. I had never enjoyed that environment so I really didn’t mind. If I could find another well-paying job, I would be more than happy.

“Mommy?”

The voice came out of nowhere. I turned and went to my daughter who had just walked out of the hallway in her pajamas.

“Emmy?” I said, hugging and lifting her. “How are you feeling?”

“Are you and Daddy having a fight?”

“No,” Robert said from behind me. “Everything is okay, baby. Let’s go back to bed.”

I smiled. Robert was such a good father to Emmy. He had always been there for us and I knew he’d always be there.

But as we headed to the bedroom, I couldn’t help but wonder if we would ever find her real father.