Page 1 of Off Limits Daddies
1
MIA
The phone buzzes at 2:47 a.m. My mother's name glows in the darkness. Nobody calls this early unless someone is dying or dead. I stare at the screen for three rings. My heart hammers. I already know this is about to shatter something inside me. My hand trembles as I swipe to answer.
"Mila." My mother's voice cracks through the speaker. "It's your father. He's ... the doctors say it's terminal. Stage four pancreatic cancer. Six months, maybe less."
The words hit me like physical blows. Terminal. Six months. My father, whom I haven't seen in nine years, is dying.
I sit up in bed, the darkness pressing in. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. What do you say when the parent you've been running from is suddenly running out of time?
"Mila? Are you there?"
"I'm here." My voice sounds hollow, distant. "How long have you known?"
"Three weeks. He didn't want me to tell you." She pauses, and I hear her breath hitch. "But I can't watch him die knowing you never got the chance to say goodbye. Whatever happened between you two, he's still your father."
Whatever happened. As if she doesn't know exactly why I left at eighteen and never came back.
I close my eyes and see him as he was the last time. Strong. Solid. Standing in the doorway of his study. Reading case files. His reading glasses perched on his nose. He'd looked up when I passed by. He smiled at me the way he always did. Warm. Trusting. Completely unaware. I'd packed my bags that night. I left before dawn. No goodbye. No explanation. I slipped away with my secret intact.
Except I did look back. Every single day for nine years, I've looked back.
"Mila, please. I know it's hard. But he's dying, and I can't—" Her voice breaks completely. "I can't lose both of you."
The guilt crashes over me. My mother, caught in the middle for nine years. She's been secretly calling me every few months. Lying to my father about it. Keeping our fragile connection alive.
"I'll come home," I hear myself say. "I need a few days to arrange things, but I'll come."
"You will?" The hope in her voice nearly destroys me. "Oh, Mila. Thank you."
After we hang up, I sit in the darkness for a long time. I listen to the soft breathing from the bedroom down the hall. My twins sleep there. Rory and Corey, nine years old now, with their father's hazel eyes flecked with gold.
My father doesn't know they exist. Nobody in Riverside knows they exist except my mother. She's never met them. How do I go back there with two nine-year-old boys who look exactly like their father?
Maybe Jack doesn't live in Riverside anymore.
By morning, I've made a plan. It's not a good plan, but it's the only one I have.
I call Riverside Academy first thing, before I can talk myself out of it. The elite private school where I interviewed last month on a whim. It had seemed like fate when I saw the job posting. English teacher position. Immediate start available.
The principal's secretary sounds surprised but pleased when I tell her I'm ready to start immediately.
"We're thrilled to have you, Miss Wilson. When can you begin?"
"Two weeks," I say, watching Rory and Corey eat cereal at our tiny kitchen table. "I need to relocate from out of state."
"That's perfect. We'll have your classroom ready."
The logistics consume the next ten days. I pack our lives into boxes. I terminate our lease. I make arrangements with my best friend Sarah to keep the twins while I find us an apartment in Riverside.
"Are you sure about this?" Sarah asks when I call her. "You've spent nine years building a life away from there."
"My father is dying," I say, and my voice cracks. "I don't have a choice."
"You always have a choice."
"Not this time."
