Daddy's Girl

Why on earth should I apologize? I’m not the one who’s wrong, he is! For once a parent must admit his error. I have suffered enough. I’m done tolerating this. I won’t be treated unfairly anymore. From now on, I’m no more daddy’s girl. We’ll see who the tough one is.

She is inadvertently, frowning. Alone in her Victorian-inspired room, she sits on her four-poster, queen-size, mahogany bed, looking intently at the gadget portion of the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. She is not seeing the page brandished before her that a while ago, she was in deep confabulation with. For the moment, she does not know that a newer version of her cellphone has just been released and is worth 1250 US dollars. She is mumbling to herself.
Just 2 minutes ago, she received a severe tongue-lashing from her foe. That was for the grave accusations she had delivered to him through text out of extreme vexation and self-pity. She had planned for everything. She had read Suntzu’s Art of War and loved it. She knew how important anticipation and planning are, so even before sending her message, she knew she would be confronted for it and she had prepared to answer back.
But during the scene, her grand maneuver seemed to have had cowered by itself, taking Suntzu with it and left her defenseless within enemy’s reach. Desperate to mask her apprehension, the woman had feigned immunity from her enemy’s invectives and had been able to conjure a straight face while suppressing the tears she hadn’t even known were moistening her eyes.
She must never be seen or heard of crying. Whatever it takes. She had been subconsciously living this motto since she was 11. During the confrontation, the woman hadn’t been aware of her suppression. “Hurt” might as well had only been a combination of four letters; it had been unrecognized.
As angst fills every iota of her, she ransacks her drawer and assumes every sheet of paper she can find. She gets her bag and hurls every object in it until she boons upon her Cross fountain pen, which her “enemy” gave her last year for her 21st birthday. She has to record everything. She regards herself as one who doesn’t forget. With all the curlicues, the woman wrote:

Unfair. That’s how he’d been to me since I can remember. Everything I told him was true and it’s time for him to realize that.
No, it’s not ok! It’s never ok to be taken for granted. It’s never ok to be always given less. My younger brother always gets what he wants! Just last week, he was given the old computer downstairs for his own damn amusement. Why is it that if it’s me, it’s always a big NO!? Does he think I’m going to ask him for something that I know he could not give me anyway?? And let me recount all promises broken. Hmmm… 1, 2, 3…a billion, more or less! It’s too many to list here but trust that I remember all of it. He’s been betraying me even as a child. How does he expect me to trust him ever again? And him, of all betrayers!!!
My PDA, I told him to buy me three years ago and yes he did but guess what, it was 4 months late! Where’s the new component I’m asking? I’ve been enduring the bulk of my present since high school. And why did he force me into switching to a prepaid connection? I was actually doing fine with my line, thank you very much. Where’s the car I’m asking now? He knows I don’t like being driven for and fetched by the driver everyday! And he gave ‘ate’* her own car. What’s worse is, he promised to buy me one 5 years ago after he gave ate hers. Oh! Where’s the shopping spree that I was asking 2 weeks ago? Promises, promises, promises. And yesterday, he had the nerve to borrow money from me! Good thing I’m generous and foolish to be one at that. I lend him some of my savings—with the assurance that the money will be given back today of course. Where’s my money now? All he gave me was a “sorry-I-can’t-pay-today-but-I-promise-I-will-give-you-back-your-savings-as-soon-as-I-can” text message. The nerve! How can he be so shameless? I’m the daughter, not his provider. If I know, he really has no intention of paying me back. Maybe it was his own way of having me pay back what he invested in me. That’s what I am huh? A mere investment…



Mr. Larkin left his daughter’s room depressed, stripped of the composure he had always managed to have amidst all tension, thinking about the confrontation. Every second in the room was a weight that usurped the spirit still left in him, and his daughter’s expression—it was like… a stab. How the daughter managed to be silent and look at him like that bore a hole in him. It was a mystery. He would not want mysteries now, not from the only person he could converse seriously about deeper ideas. That had been what was keeping him whole for the past 4 years. Talks like such were invigorating. Somehow, it reminded him that there’s more to life than working and collecting objects. Her daughter, whether or not he had really lost her, he couldn’t comprehend. It appeared so. The day had been stressful for him just like everyday for the past 4 years, the word stressful could have been spelled o-r-d-i-n-a-r-y.

Today, no deal had been closed. Type of Deals he ignored before were what sustains them today. And it’s not even enough. Today, two employees filed their resignation. Apologized for their decisions. Said remarks that should have been comforting. Said they have families to take care of. Today, the bank called, reminding him of four checks that will have to be filled in the next day. Debts were piling up and he can’t even pay the interest. Today, he received a subpoena asking him to report to the local court. A friend filed a case against him for his 75000-dollar debt. Today, a relative called for financial help. He said he can’t. He had gained another enemy. Relatives think he’s their provider. Today, wife called. Accused him of cheating. He had spent the last nights at the office, browsing papers, thinking.

It was easier when he was a child. He might have had experienced having the need to work but he never felt as alone as he is feeling now. He glanced at the black glass bottle on his altar. It was given to him by his great aunt, an advocate of animism who influenced him with altars. His great aunt gave it to him as a reminder of his freedom to choose—to go on with his superficial self or take his higher form, free from the constraints of any form of physicality. He had kept the bottle until now but he never thought of using it, or the green liquid it contains. “…under any circumstance, when you feel the shallowness of physical existence, this is your permanent refuge,” he remembered her aunt saying.
Today, he had lost his daughter. The twig he was holding on to for his life has finally given up. He’s falling. He had lost everything. Except the bottle. He has the need for it after all.


I will never apologize. No one, nothing can make me.

Thus ends her journal.

The woman thought relieved. She felt heavy. Her lips curled upwards as if given a tangible proof of her inherent strength. She did not know her eyes did not move, one might think eyes and lips belong to two individuals.
In her usual fetal position, she forced herself to sleep, tightly hugging the first teddy bear she ever owned.

Sallying forth to her dreams, her last thoughts were: I am tough and tomorrow, I have to prove it.

*ate: elder sister