Thirty One

Thirty-One

Ana

I don’t know this man. He says he’s my father, but I barely remember that man. I was five years old when he left Mama and I, and she never kept any photos of him, she wanted him wiped from our lives. But he has photos of me, and Mama. He has photos of us all together, looking for all the world to see like a normal, happy family. And maybe we were, for a time, but something happened to change that.

“You only have your mama’s side of the story, Ana. Remember that.”

It’s weird, being back in this house. Everything is just as it was when I was last here. All of Mama’s things, all the furniture, it’s my home. Except, it isn’t. Not anymore.

“Ana? Will you look at me. Please.”

I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want any of this. It’s cruel, bringing me back here. “What do you want?”

I hear him sigh. I’m not acting the way he assumed I would, and that’s frustrating him.

“I want you to listen to me. I want you to hear my side of the story.”

I look at him now. I’m tired of his voice, tired of this situation, I want out of here, even though I spent so long wanting to come back to this house. I thought doing that would make me feel better, feel closer to Mama, but it isn’t doing that. It’s doing the opposite, because it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Everything about the house is just the way it was the last time I was here, but the people inhabiting it now, they’re making it feel like a strange and alien place. The once light, bright atmosphere is now dark, it’s wrong. All of this is wrong.

“I don’t need to hear your side of the story. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that you left my mama with a string of debt: shit she didn’t need to deal with.”

“I had no choice.”

“Really?”

He stares at me, but I feel nothing. “You’re my daughter, Ana. And I care about you.”

“Too late.”

“I couldn’t come home. Believe me, if I had been able to do that…” He bows his head, rubs the back of his neck with one hand, the other in his pocket as he paces the living room floor. “There were things going on, things I couldn’t tell your mama about, it would have been too dangerous.”

“Excuses, that’s all they are. You left us, you just walked out, leaving my mama alone with a small child and a life that had changed beyond all recognition. And she kept me shielded from it all, do you know that? She kept it all hidden from me. She made sure I had a normal childhood, a good life, and yet, all the while she was constantly trying to keep our heads above water. And the first I knew about that was just a few months ago. Just before she died.”

His eyes lock on mine, and there’s a darkness in there that I’m all too familiar with now. A look I’ve seen in the eyes of the men I’ve been forced to live with, because of him. “She would still be alive if she hadn’t gotten involved with that club.”

“She had no fucking choice! What you did, you drove her to that decision.”

He drops his gaze again, his shoulders sagging. “I just need you to listen to me, Ana. Please.”

He’s almost pleading with me, but it’s making no difference.

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I just want you to listen.” He raises his gaze, his eyes once more locking on mine. “Please, Ana. I know it might seem like it’s too late, and maybe it is, maybe I could have done more…”

“Could have?” I know I’m pushing him, but if what he’s saying is true he won’t hurt me. So why should I make it easy for him?

“Ana, it’s hard for you to understand, I get that, but I’m not lying to you. I’m here for you, because it’s time you knew the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

He walks over to the window, raking a hand back through his hair. And I watch him closely, his body language, he’s on edge. I’ve seen it all before, I recognize the signs, now.

“I couldn’t come back any sooner, Ana. I really couldn’t.”

I shake my head, because I don’t believe him. I don’t believe anything he tells me, he’s a liar. I believe he’s my father, the photographs of him and me and Mama together prove that, but I don’t believe his story. “Couldn’t you?”

“No, I couldn’t.” He sighs again. Drops his head, again, he’s exasperated, but did he really think he could just walk back in here and everything would be okay? “Look, Ana, I really need you to listen to me.” He turns to look at me, but I’m still feeling nothing. “I need you to understand. Please.”

I sit back, glancing around me, at the photographs on the mantlepiece, of me and Mama; of Lars and Lea and me on a vacation to London and I feel tears prick my eyes as I remember that time. How happy we’d been. How excited.

“Ana?”

I look at him, and I nod. I’m tired. He can say his piece, it doesn’t mean I have to believe anything he tells me.

“Okay.” He starts pacing the floor again before going over to the window. “You don’t remember me, do you? At all?”

“No.”

“Did your mama ever talk about me?”

“I thought you were going to tell me your side of the story?”

He leans back against the window ledge. “I owed a lot of very dangerous people a lot of money, and that was my fault. I made mistakes–”

“What kind of mistakes?”

He takes a breath: swallows hard. “Gambling. A business deal that went wrong. Combine those two things and you have one very deep pit of trouble. I had no idea what I was getting into, I’d let people talk me into things I should’ve put a lot more thought into.”

“You make yourself sound weak. Nobody forced you to gamble, that was your choice, surely.”

“Yes, it was. That was all on me, but the business deal… I let myself be swayed, and that’s when the trouble started. I never told your mama what was really going on, because I’d hoped I could turn it all around, but it got out of control.”

I raise an eyebrow, and he lets out another sigh.

“Please, Ana, you have to believe me. These people, they were dangerous. They are dangerous. I had to leave, to protect you and Sofia.”

“You had to?”

“They threatened to hurt you. To hurt your mama. And they might have been bluffing, I don’t know, I wasn’t willing to take that chance. They told me if I came to work for them they would leave you both alone, but they still wanted their money. And the money your mama was paying off, she knew it was to do with my gambling debts, and she was left under no illusion that it needed paying back, but the rest of it… the business deal that went sideways, that was all on my shoulders…”

“ All of it should have been on your shoulders!” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “All of it. Mama shouldn’t have been left with anything.”

“I know. Ana, I know all of that, but it really was complicated.”

That word again. Complicated. A word people use to just wave away having to give a real reason as to why shit happened. It certainly seems that way, in this world.

“Why did my mama have to take responsibility for your debts?”

He sighs and turns away from me, and I don’t care how exasperated he is, he doesn’t get to do this and not tell me why he did what he did.

“I couldn’t do it all, Ana. I couldn’t. And I didn’t want to leave Sofia with anything, I really didn’t…” He turns back to face me, but his eyes are still cold. There’s no emotion there. And there should be something, surely? “I loved your mama.” Still no emotion. “I loved you , so much, and it kills me to think of what your mama had to go through…” He takes a breath, drops his head briefly, but I think it’s all for effect. He’s trying to make me believe he actually cares about any of this, but I don’t think he does. “The options they gave me, I had no choice. No choice at all. I had to do as they asked.”

“Who are they ?”

His cold eyes appear even colder as he looks right at me, and I feel a shiver race up my spine. I don’t want to be here, but I still don’t think he’d hurt me. And that’s the only thing I believe.

“It’s best you know as little as possible, Ana.”

Yeah. Of course he’s going to say that. “Would they have hurt Mama, if she hadn’t been able to pay?”

“I don’t know. They’d promised to leave you both alone, they didn’t say if there were conditions attached.”

“And you were okay with that?”

He doesn’t answer, and I turn my head away because I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe what my mama had to go through, and she kept it to herself. All of that stress, she went through it all alone.

“On top of all of that she also had the bills to pay. She was a single mother, you’d left her with a mortgage and a car and…” I stop talking. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. “Why are you here?” I ask. “What do you want ?” Because he hasn’t answered that question yet.

“I want to start again, Ana. With you. With my daughter. I want to be a family.”

I shake my head, blinking back tears he is not going to see. I’m not looking weak in front of this man, that isn’t happening. “You’re a stranger to me,” I whisper, but I keep my eyes locked on his. I don’t break that gaze. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he does break the stare. He turns away, and by the set of his jaw I can tell he’s frustrated. And I’m beginning to wonder just how easy he thought this was going to be.

“When Mama died,” I start, “she hadn’t paid everything off, to my knowledge. That’s why she’d started working for the Vikings, because she still had debts to pay. Does that mean they’re going to come for me ?”

“No.” He doesn’t miss a beat. “No, Ana, they aren’t coming for you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Trust me.”

“That’s the last thing I can do.”

“You are safe from those people, Ana. You have no need to worry about that. Everything your mama owed–”

“ She didn’t really owe anything. You did.”

“It’s over.”

“Is it?”

He holds my gaze, but neither of us speak.

“So, that’s why you’ve come to Denmark? To reunite with me? Suddenly you want to play daddy?” I might be pushing him too hard now, but I don’t care. “And buying Mama’s house? That’s sick.”

“I thought it was something you’d appreciate. Somewhere you’d feel safe. I did it for you.”

I don’t believe that, either. “I don’t feel safe anywhere since Mama died.”

“What about the men who proclaim to be protecting you? Don’t they make you feel safe?”

I don’t want to talk to him anymore. I want to leave. And I’m not about to answer his question, I’m done.

“I want to go now.”

“Ana, please, I want you to understand–”

“I’m done listening.” I shrug, getting up from the couch Mama and I would sit on most nights to watch TV or read books or talk about our day. And just remembering that causes a wave of sadness to wash over me because what Mama told me, about her day, was any of it true? She lied to me, but she did it because she really, truly wanted to protect me. What this man has told me, I don’t understand or believe and I want to go. Now. “I’m done.”

“Ana!” His voice carries a harshness I’ve become familiar with, but learnt to push back against. I don’t take it from those men anymore, and I’m not taking it from this one. I spin around and face him.

“I’m done. Dad.”

And I walk away, out of the house I’d so badly wanted to go back to, in the beginning. But now, I have a new home. One I’m forcing myself to get used to, because I can’t go back. I can’t bring Mama back, I can’t change what happened. I can only move forward, and I’m trying to do that. I’m walking away from that house, and a man who claims he’s changed but I don’t believe him. And there were a hundred more questions I wanted to ask him, but now wasn’t the time. I need to talk to Joel: I want to talk to Joel, not that man in there. He isn’t a part of my life, he never was. But Joel, maybe he is. Maybe…