Soldier of Fortune

Soldier of Fortune

Money buys everything. I learned that early in life when I found out my biological parents sold me to a rich sterile couple for twenty thousand dollars. They wanted an heir they could mold in their image to sustain the association of wealth with their family. But they failed. I left them when I was fifteen.

I lean against the parapet at the bridge, waiting for Michelle to show up. Temperatures have dropped far below the freezing point. I rub my hands in order to get a little warm, but that just wipes the snow off my gloves. Puffs of vapor accompany every breath I take.

I amble along the bridge; maybe that will make my blood reach my feet. With each step on the snow I feel like I am going to slip on the asphalt. As I pass the lamppost, I spot Michelle approaching. She looks like a teddy-bear with her beige coat, especially with the hood covering her black hair.

"Daddy!" she shouts and rushes at me like a bull running amok.

I put my arms around her waist and lift her off the ground. She giggles and hugs me back.

"Where are we going?" she asks me.

"To a very nice restaurant. Daddy's little girl doesn't turn fourteen every day."

We walk to the restaurant holding hands. As we walk she tells me about her friends at school. I look back and take a glance at the bridge. Poor kid. When we finish eating, I'll cross the bridge and go back to my real family and she will keep thinking I am her father.

This charade started a long time ago. The mother, a rich woman I knew from working as a bartender, came to me and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She offered me seven thousand dollars a month for pretending to be Michelle's father every second weekend. She said her husband, the real father, had committed suicide and she didn't want Michelle to grow up without a father. At the time, I could barely afford the rent, so I agreed. I didn’t care where the money came from. Later I found out that the father abused Michelle when she was a baby, and during a violent argument with the mother she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Such a tragedy.

I open the door of the restaurant and Michelle steps in like a lady. The hostess shows us to our table, not before Michelle takes her coat off and deposits it in the cloakroom. I put my snow covered beret on the table.

"What do you say, Michelle, chicken or pasta?" I ask her. While she is thinking, I contemplate the notion of telling her the truth about me – money bought my parenthood and my love to her.

"Pasta. With tomato sauce. And I'll have Fettuccine Alfredo."

"You know me better than I know myself."

As we wait for our orders, I take a look outside. The snow is piling up. Michelle turns her head as well and sighs.

"Do you love me, Daddy?" she asks me out of the blue.

"Of course I do sweetheart," I reply, and even though I try to sound sincere, it sounds forced. I guess telling her can wait a while.

"Then why don't you and Mommy get back together?"

"Do I really need to tell you again? Sometimes people don't get along as they expected once," I repeat a part of the worn out cover story, which says that Michelle's mother and I got divorced when she was a baby and we can never get back because we don't love each other anymore.

"But Mommy told me that now that I am fourteen, I am old enough to understand what really happened between you two."

"What do you mean?" I ask puzzled.

"Mommy told me that because her husband discovered that I was your baby and not his, he used to hit me so hard I went unconscious. She then decided that the only way for me to stay alive was to kill him. So she killed him."

Words do not assemble in my mouth. All I can do is to stare at Michelle and think whether I had sex with her mother or not. Considering who I was back then, that is completely plausible.

"After that," Michelle continues, "she managed to keep you in my life by paying you. But that's okay, I still love you. And no one pays me to do so."


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Word count: 753