Chapter 1

Richard “Rick” Mason sat in the diner in his small town. He was celebrating 10 years being retired from the Army. He was looking out the window partially at the snow, but also at his reflection in the mirror. He smirked and wondered how he got so old. “25 years in the Army will do that to you” he whispered to himself. He thought back to his first day in his unit and how it was such a culture shock. His thoughts moved on to when he was selected to attend the Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg. He remembered how proud his wife and young children were. His smile turned to a frown when he remembered when he came home from a year in Iraq to find his family and all their possessions gone. And then a week later when his commander called him in, and he was served divorce paperwork. His retirement ceremony, which was supposed to be a joyous occasion, was only celebrated with a bowl of Ramen noodles and a coke because that was all he could afford after his ex-wife finished with him.

A voice brought him out of his thoughts. He turned and looked to see Grace, his server, talking to him. “Sorry Grace, I tuned out for a minute.”

“Want a top off on the coffee?” She asked him.

“Please.” He said holding his cup up to her.

She filled the cup. “Let me know if you want some dessert.” She told him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Grace, what would Craig think if he found out you’re offering me yourself for dessert?” He said jokingly.

“Honey, if I was 10 years younger and single, I’d ride you like we were at the Kentucky derby. You’d never walk, much less RUN ever again.” She said with a wink.

They both laughed. “Tell Craig that I got the boards and that we’ll be over tomorrow to re-floor the deck for him.” he told her.

“We really appreciate it. Since he had his stroke, he can’t move all that well.” Grace told him.

“Happy to do it, honey.” He said as she walked off. He went back to being alone with his thoughts.

“Same old father. Always willing to help someone in need.” a voice said to him.

He turned and looked at the voice to see one of his twin daughters, Mischa, standing behind him. He rolled his eyes and turned back to his coffee. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“Not even a ‘Hi, how are you’ for your oldest child?” she asked.

“Hi, how are you ... why are you here?” He said in the same tone.

“I’d like to talk to my father.” She said to him sitting down.

“Your father lives in San Diego. I still have the adoption paperwork saying he was adopting you after I was forced to sign my parental rights away.” He said looking out the window.

“Forced? I doubt anyone forces you to do anything.” She said snidely.

“Then you have no idea what your mother and father are capable of.” He asked her still looking out the window.

“Ryan and mom got divorced when he found her cheating on him. She’s back living in Grey’s Harbor now working at the hospital as a float nurse.” She told him.

“The slut shows her true colors again. Wow ... What are the frikken odds?” He said sarcastically. “Maybe she can find another rich doctor and marry him...”

“She went through...” She said quietly.

He held his hand up to stop her from talking. “I couldn’t care any less about that slut. If you’re going to talk about all her problems, tell me so I can go someplace else ... Also, I’m still waiting to hear what you want.”

“Are you still holding on to what happened all those years ago? Dad, you gotta let it go, it’s not...” She was cut off before she could finish.

“Healthy? Is that what you were going to say?” He asked her. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off again. “This is the first time in 15 years I’ve spoken to you, why do you care about my health?”

She paused to regroup herself. When she was ready, she spoke again. “You’re a hard man to track down.” She said with a smirk.

He took a sip of his coffee. “Why are you looking? It’s not like we have anything to talk about.”

“You’re my birth father ... We have lots to talk about.” She told him.

“You didn’t look at your birth certificate then. Your mother’s sugar daddy had it changed to his as the father about a year after he married your whore of a mother.” He told her not even looking at her.

“Mom was never a...” Mischa started to say but was cut off.

He snapped his head around to look her in the eye with a glare. “What is a woman called when she is PAID. OR. GIVEN. THINGS. in return for sex?” Richard asked.

Ok, she did agree that her mother was a whore, so she paused to change the conversation to something more pleasant. She started to look through the pictures on her phone. “Would you like to see a picture of my fiancé?”

“No.” he said in a disinterested tone looking back out the diner window.

She was puzzled for a moment. This was not how she envisioned this happening. She knew she’d have to apologize for some of the things her mother, sister, and her had said and done. But he wasn’t even interested in talking to her.

“Daddy...” She started to say.

“Stop calling me daddy. Don’t call me dad, daddy, father, parent, or anything like that. I’m not your father. You, your sister, mother, and father made that clear to me on your 16^th birthday.” He told her in disgust.

“How could we have said anything to you, you weren’t even AT our 16^th birthday party.” She said with a smirk. Her mind told her that she was making progress with getting him to talk to her.

“That’s right, I wasn’t. Do you remember WHY I wasn’t at your 16^th birthday?” He asked.

She paused to think if she remembered why he wasn’t there but couldn’t. “I think you were still in the Army...” she said quietly.

He scoffed, smiled scornfully at her, and shook his head. “I was still in the army. At the exact time and day of yours and your sister’s birth, 9:12 and 9:22 PM on May 18^th, my unit had been fighting against a Taliban warlord for SIX DAYS.” He said raising his voice a little bit. “We were fighting to destroy his opium fields, warehouses, and processing center that turned his opium into heroin.” He took his Red Sox hat off and leaned forward into the light. “Incidentally, this is the same fight where I had a bullet give me THIS scar on my head.” He said tracing the bullet path in his hair. He leaned back and put his hat back on. “But your mother never told you where I was, did she?” She shook her head no. “If I had to guess, she told you, and I quote, If he really loved you, he’d have found a way to be there with you.”

She was shocked that he had been wounded and she never knew about it. “But...”

He held his hand up stopping her from talking. “But nothing. I’m so sorry my grade 3 concussion, my traumatic brain injury, and having my eyes covered for two months kept me from attending your birthday party. But a letter DID catch up to me when I was at Walter Reed recovering.” He took a faded envelope out, opened it, took the letter out, and handed it to her. “Read it...” He told her.

She opened the letter and her eyes started to fill with tears. They started to fall and got the letter wet.

Richard jerked the letter from her hands and folded it back up without taking his eyes off the woman in front of him. “You are a pathetic excuse for a father because you couldn’t take the time to be at our 16^th birthday party. You will always be a loser. We don’t ever want to talk to or see you again. Rot and die ... Mischa and Melissa, your ex-daughters. Remember now?”

The tears were falling, and she was speechless. She put her hands on her mouth and her shoulders started to shake as she sobbed.

“Why are you crying? These are yours and her words.” He asked Mischa.

“We didn’t mean it ... We...” She said between sobs.

“Oh please. How big of an idiot do you think I really am? You meant every syllable of that letter. When I tried to call you after I got that letter, I heard you in the background tell your mother to hang up the phone and that you didn’t want to talk to a loser like me.” She started to sob harder. “Lemme ask you something ... Did you know that your father had me served with a restraining order while I was at Walter Reed? Two days after they took the coverings off my eyes, and I got my sight back.” Her eyes widened in shock again. “Yeah, first thing I could read in two months was that order telling me I was causing you and Melissa mental anguish, and he even had a doctor to back up his claim.”

“I didn’t...” she started to say but he cut her off.