Chapter 7 Struggles

    “I love you, Daddy. Please take care.”

  The moment the little girl’s soft voice landed in his ears, Vincent felt his breath disappear. A warm torrent rose from inside his chest. It dried his throat and wetted his eyes. He wanted to hug the little angel back, but his hands were covered with blood. He would only taint her. Thus, he cleared his throat and said in an almost contorted, dry voice, “Thank you, dear. Now go back.”

  Angela removed her hands and took a step back reluctantly.

  Vincent persuaded her again, “Go back, sweetie. Come on. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Angela then lowered her head and slowly turned around. She kept turning her head back while walking away from him as if anticipating something.

  When she walked out of the shadow behind the fountain and into the dim, orange light, she turned her head back again and stopped there.

  At that moment, Vincent suddenly realized something.

  He said, “Daddy loves you too” before he could help it. The little girl then curled her lips into a very big, teeth-showing smile, and then said, “I know! Thank you, Daddy! Have a good night!”

  She giggled, and then waved her little hand to him and ran off.

  Vincent laughed again, brokenly, silently, sitting in the shadows behind the fountain. He thought he must have been crazy.

  First, he couldn’t have his mate satisfied but got attracted to a strange woman he had never met before. And then, he became another girl’s daddy while he couldn’t get his own son to speak to him.

  He let out a string of hoarse, broken laughter from his throat like a crazy person. Hot tears rolled down from his gaunt cheeks, reminding him what a complete loser he was.

  After a while, he dried the tears with the back of his hand and took out his cell phone. There were a dozen missed phone calls from Samuel. Vincent took a deep breath and then dialed the number back.

  The call was picked up very quickly.

  “Where are you, Vince? Is everything alright?! I’ve heard Talia hurt you!!” Samuel’s breath was heavy on the other side of the phone. Vincent knew his younger brother must have been searching for him around the parking lot.

  He took another deep breath to keep his voice normal and then said, “I am at the fountain in front of the auditorium, Sam. No need to worry.”

  Samuel then started to run at the other side of the phone. Mrs. Mead had told him Talia hit Vincent’s head. The injuries were heavy. And he sensed by blood that his brother’s life was in danger.

  The parking lot wasn’t far from the auditorium. While they were still on the phone, Vincent had already seen Samuel running towards him from the dark passage in between the lawns. He tried to stand up to greet his brother, but felt dizzy. The sky started to spin in front of his eyes and his chest was heavy.

  He reached out his arm to his younger brother, trying his best to stand up. But the sky wouldn’t stop spinning, and he just couldn’t keep his body in balance. The next moment, he heard a huge splash around his ears and felt biting coldness soaked into his skin. He heard his younger brother screaming his name “Vincent!!” and saw that lovely little girl running towards him with a huge smile on her cute little face.

  She said, “Daddy! I love you!!”

  And then there was another pair of sad, deep green eyes flashing across his tired, lifeless brown ones…

  …

  …

  …

  At the same time, inside the auditorium, Lena suddenly felt a surge of sharp pain piercing through her heart.

  The opening speech had already started. She and Angela were sitting at a round table at the back with other guests, listening to Gary.

  The pain was so unexpected and intense. She couldn’t help but fall on the table and grabbed the white tablecloth with her thin hand.

  Angela was the first one who noticed Lena’s discomfort. She jumped off the big chair and grabbed Lena’s clothes with her little hands.

  “Are you alright, Mommy?” she asked worriedly.

  Lena nodded her head. The pain came abruptly, but it went fast too. After the moment of the initial sharp attack, she now felt nothing unusual. Only the terror of having a sudden heart attack soaked her dress with sweat.

  “I am alright. Mommy's alright. Don’t worry,” She took a deep breath to calm herself down and then cupped Angela’s cheek with her cold hand.

  Angela opened her little arms, asking for a hug. Lena then put Angela on her lap and enclosed the little girl in between her arms.

  Tomorrow, she had to make an appointment with a cardiologist. Though the result of her last physical examination was fine, she had to be extraordinarily careful for Angela. If there was something wrong with her heart, then she had to make proper arrangements for the little girl.

  She kissed the little girl’s head and felt a trace of despair and horror.

  She didn’t know why bad things kept happening to her, but she would never let any of them affect her daughter.

  After the opening speech was over, she gave her speech as she had promised and stuck through the whole dinner, acting like a perfectly normal person.

  When the party was over, Gary offered to drive them back home.

  Lena put Angela in the backseat and sat there beside the little girl. On their way home, the little girl kept looking at Lena with sparkles in her cute green eyes. But whenever Lena looked back at her, the little girl quickly turned her head away, pretending that nothing had just happened.

  Lena couldn’t help but smile. She knew it meant that the little girl had just had a secret and she was deciding whether to tell her mom about it or not.

  Lena was curious about Angela’s secret, but she didn’t ask. As long as she pretended to be uninterested, the little girl eventually would tell her. Angela was really bad at holding secrets.

  About half an hour later, Gary dropped them at the front gate of their apartment. Lena said thanks to Gary and then held Angela’s little hand and went back to their new home.

  It was already 10 p.m. Lena helped Angela brush her teeth and put her in bed. After Lena said “Good Night” to her little angel, the little girl finally decided to speak out her secret.

  “Mommy,” she reached out her little hand from under the blanket and pulled Lena’s clothes, asking her to stay.

  Lena smiled. She sat back at the edge of Angela’s bed.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asked softly, “Anything you want to share with Mommy?”

  The little girl averted her eyes to think first, and then looked back at Lena.

  “Are you still angry with Daddy?” she asked.

  Lena pressed her lips. That was an unexpected question. She never lied to Angela about Vincent. Lying wasn’t the right thing to do to raise a child. Besides, Angela sort of had a special gift. She always knew it whenever someone told a lie. Thus, Lena told Angela the truth when the little girl asked about her father for the first time, but of course, only half of the truth.

  “Daddy left before you were born and he never came back. Mommy doesn’t know the reason,” she told Angela about one year ago.

  She tried to smile while saying it. Still, a drop of painful tears couldn’t help but run down her cheek. The little girl swept the tear away for her using her soft little hand and had never asked about her father again until today.

  Lena didn’t know why suddenly the mention and she didn’t know how Angela could tell she was mad at Vincent. She had tried so hard to protect the little girl and had never said anything bad about her father.

  She thought she was doing well at being a good mom. But it turned out she failed the little girl by letting her know that her mom hated her dad.

  A torrent of hot tears rushed to the edge of Lena’s eyes. At that moment, she felt like being such a failure. But she couldn’t cry in front of her daughter. She could never let the little girl know what a jerk her father actually was, so she took a deep breath and blinked her tears away, and then replied to the little girl softly, “Mommy doesn’t know, sweetie. It has been so long. Mommy doesn’t know how I should feel.”

  It was a “Yes”. Angela knew it. She had this special gift of perceiving people’s true feelings.

  She felt that her father wasn’t a bad person. That was why she hugged him. And for the same reason, she asked Lena again, “If Daddy apologized, will you forgive him?”

  It was such a cruel question. Lena couldn’t even hold her tears back. She shook her head and said “No”, regardless of what an impression would be left on her little angel.

  Angela then bit her bottom lip. She wanted her mom and dad to be back together. But it wouldn’t work if her mom didn’t want to.

  Lena had already dried her tears. She swept everything away with the back of her hand and then tucked Angela’s bed.

  “Now go to sleep,” she said with a broken smile around her pale lips, “If you want to know more about your dad, we can talk about it later. But now it’s your sleeping time.”

  Angela nodded her head and whispered “Good Night” to her mommy. After Lena turned off the light and went out, Angela didn’t go to sleep but got off her bed.

  She ran towards the door barefoot and then pressed her ear on the thin plank.

  She heard her mommy go into the bathroom and close the door, and then a string of suppressed, painful cries came from behind it…