14: Concession

A detergent commercial that was too stingy to sleep through, woke Sophie up in the morning. If twelve o’clock counted as morning though. She washed herself and walked to her parent’s suite. Her perspective on things, especially her father and the stuff that he did, had shifted substantially after the night spent with her mother. She entered the bedroom and her mom was nowhere in sight. She found her father staring at the screen of his laptop. It took her a while to understand that he was in the middle of an online meeting and he had most likely disabled the camera as he was still in his pajamas. He had an earphone hanging from his ear. Sophie didn’t care. She walked up to him and hugged him tightly from behind. Mike froze mid-sentence and declared the conclusion of the meeting. All the faces on his screen vanished. He perplexedly put his hand on her head that rested on his shoulder. Sophie felt her father’s breathing getting shaky. It took him a moment but he understood that Sophie knew. He failed to hold back his tears. It had been years since the father and daughter had even talked nicely let alone share a sincere hug. Grace walked into the room shouting the options for breakfast.
“Are we gonna order eggs and bacon again or…Holy shit!”, she abruptly stopped and forgot the menu as soon as shoe caught the emotional father-daughter scene. She hadn’t expected such a development. She walked over and briefly hugged the father daughter duo and sat on the bed.
Minutes later they were having breakfast. They had ordered eggs and bacon again. It was not Mike’s fault. Grace had run out of ideas and decided to stay in her comfort zone. She had also ordered some fruits but they were being badly neglected at the table.
“So, what exactly is the job?”, Mike asked with his mouth full.
“It’s customer support but I am going to be above that so no receiving angry phone calls for me”, Sophie responded, her eyes fixed on the plate.
“What kind of customers?”
“Different kinds. They keep getting contracts from different clients that deal in different stuff. The same team that deals with calls related to extended car insurance, also deals with bad burger complaints from fast food chain customers, in a space of a week”, Sophie explained dutifully.
“Where are you going to stay?”, Mike asked. The family was scheduled to leave NYC on Sunday. The hotel was too far from work and Sophie would never have that.
“I have saved up some money. I’ll rent some place near the company”, Sophie answered. Mike almost winced. It pained him to imagine his daughter struggle to pay rent when her father was rich enough buy her a small city. He didn’t ask her the company’s offer. He knew it was gonna worry him even more.
“How about we buy an apartment?”, Mike almost pleaded. The response was in negative just as he had feared.
“Did grandpa buy you a house before you started your career?”, she asked her father. Mike knew what she meant. There was a long silence at the table.
“Maybe you can pay for it in installments”, he gave it another go.
“It would still be a bratty head start”, she said, shaking her head. Mike sighed.
“I know it’s useless to even offer but whenever you need anything, everything that I have is just a phone call away”, Mike offered and received a familiar response from his daughter. A challenging side smirk telling him that she can handle it.
“And dad please… No more guards watching me from the shadows”, Sophie added placing her fork beside the plate, staring right into his eyes. Mike knew that if he lied, she was gonna find out sooner or later. Afterall, it wasn’t Sophie the guards were hiding from.
“I don’t know how I am gonna sleep in the night knowing that my girl is struggling in the big city on her own”, Mike spoke, lost in thoughts.
“I won’t be all alone. You just threw Chloe in here with me, remember?”
“Oh! Yeah! It was a good one. Right?”, Mike said and chuckled. Sophie laughed back.
“It’s gonna take her a year to understand what had happened”, Sophie said. All three of them laughed. Then there was silence again. Mike was unable to hide his concern.
“Dad, quit worrying. I can handle myself”, she tried to comfort him. He nodded.
“Remember, always travel with someone. Don’t go out at night. Stay away from the alleyways. Always take Choe to your dates. Keep a bottle of pepper spray in your purse at all times”, Mike blurted out and was looking for more do’s and don’ts to add in the list. He bailed when he saw the look on the ladies’ faces.
“Okay! Okay! Become an adventurer and do unnecessary dangerous crap. Alright?”, he surrendered.
Sophie checked her Instagram. The news of Chloe going to NYC had spread like wildfire and of course the ecstatic motormouth was to blame. A ton of hashtags gave away every little detail with snap of Chloe with her tongue out.
“She is not making a secret of her new job”, said Sophie as she showed the pic to her parents. There went Mike’s hopes of using Chloe as an agent to keep an eye on his daughter. Mike rolled his eyes and Grace giggled.
“The place. Your employers. What do you think about them?”, Mike was all serious all of a sudden. Sophie was willing to answer a thousand questions if it comforted her father.
“I don’t know who I’m gonna report to but the guy who interviewed me was super nice though. So, I guess the others might not be too different”.
Mike spent a thoughtful moment of silence before ordering a pizza. The ladies didn’t mind.
“Carry a gun”, Mike blurted. Sophie smiled and was about to come up with a response. Mike could see that he was going to have to concede again.
“Oh, for god’s sake! At least carry a pepper spray!”, he added.
“I’m planning to”.
The father was speechless again. His head pounded with concerns. He blocked all the flashbacks and painful memories and tried to make the most of his time with his family. Sophie dove back into her phone screen.