You ***ing Forced Me to Say Goodbye

The morning came and Jana was already irritated by her daughter’s crying for breakfast. The little girl whined as she tugged at Jana’s shirt. Jana rolled onto her side on the small sofa and squinted her eyes a little. She was surprised to see the room was dark.

Austin had allowed her to sleep in his living room with the baby. He’d fed the little girl a frozen dinner of macaroni and cheese with milk. Jana had declined the invitation to have food. Now her daughter was again crying that she was hungry and wanted something to eat.

“Get away!” Jana screamed and shoved the girl.

“Hungry, mama!”

“I don’t care, Stephanie! I don’t have anything to feed you! If I did I’d give it to you so you could leave me the hell alone!”

“Hungry!” Stephanie started wailing with tears streaming down her baby face.

“Shut the hell up! What the fuck do you want me to give you?!” Jana screamed and smacked her daughter’s face.

“Hey, hey,” came a voice from across the room. Jana looked up and she sighed. Austin was standing in the room in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. “Don’t hit the kid in my house.”

“I warned her.”

“How old is she?”

“Two…not quite two,” Jana explained. He raised his eyebrows.

“So, you smacked her for what reason?”

“She wouldn’t leave me alone. I told the little shit I didn’t have anything for her,” Jana explained. Austin looked at her with shock and confusion. He couldn’t understand the way she was thinking. Though he had no children, he knew if he did he wouldn’t ever be able to discipline the way she did. He looked at her and sighed. She claimed to be his daughter, but how could be believe something so strange.

“I have food, you can feed her,” he said.

“Look, just take her! I don’t want her. I’ve hated the little shit since the fucking stick turned blue.”

“Why didn’t you give her up or something?”

“When I found out I was pregnant, I took what little money I had and could get from my mom’s purse and I came to California. No money for an abortion. I was in a group home when she was born that wouldn’t allow me to give her up for adoption.”

“You can always put kids up for adoption…”

“What the fuck difference does it make?!” she shouted defensively. Austin sighed.

“Look, if you want me to help you, you’re going to have to calm down. I’m not going to go through all of your bullshit.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“You must if you came looking for me.”

“You are supposedly my father. You are supposed to help me by free will.”

“There is no proof that I am your father.”

“Do you want a fucking blood sample?!”

“The first thing I want if you to stop screaming at me. If I am your father don’t you think you should respect me? Where if your mother?”

“Oklahoma,” Jana said. Stephanie tugged Jana’s shirt again and sniffed with tears on her face. Jana pushed the girl away and put her head into her pillows. Austin put one hand over his eyes in frustration and let out yet another sigh. He was getting ready to call the police and have Jana and her baby removed from the house. She was on his last nerve.

“Okay, rules!” he said in a firm voice. Jana popped up from the start and looked at him. He smiled and she groaned.

“Don’t you think I’m beyond rules?” she asked. “I’ve been raising a baby along for two years.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Austin asked with irritation. “This is my house.”

“I’m basically an adult. I have two jobs…sort of. I have an apartment, and a kid. I can drink like a man.”

“The last example does not make you an adult, it makes you stupid,” he said. “But that is beside the point. You could be 78 years old and CEO of the biggest company in the world and I would still be my house and my rules,” he smiled. “So, first things first, don’t push your kid around. What is her name?”

“Stephanie,” Jana said with irritation. Austin nodded.

“Don’t call her names, hit, belittle, or berate her. She is just a little girl she doesn’t understand. Second, respect me before I call the cops.”

“I have an apartment. I don’t need your house,” she snapped.

“Then why the hell did you come here?!”

“To get rid of the bratty little bitch that never, no matter how much I give, never have enough! I feed her, she’s hungry. I give her clothes, she grows four inches and nothing fits. She is always sick and she always cries.”

“If you didn’t want her you should have put her up for adoption. I don’t even know you; I am not just going to take your kid.”

“I should have known. Since you didn’t care about me why should you…?”

“Hold it! Let’s get one thing straight, I never even knew your mother was pregnant, therefore I was not given the right to care about you.”

“I don’t like being lied to.”

“I don’t like people that don’t get it when it’s the truth. Tell me what your mother has been telling you for all this time,” he said. She was quiet for a minute.

“She told me when she was seventeen she was in a happy relationship with you and she let go of everything she believed in so she could sleep with you because she loved you. She got pregnant because as a catholic girl she didn’t believe in birth control, and so you got married and then when I was born you couldn’t handle the responsibility and you walked out on us.”

“Wow…” Austin said and took a seat in a reclining chair. Jana nodded, feeling proud of herself for showing that she knew the truth behind his lies. “Yes, I slept with your mother. If it’s the same Heather James I think it is. She told me she was on the pill. So either she lied to me or you about her feelings on birth control. Look, do you have her number? She and I need to…”

“No!” she cut him off in a panic. “You can’t call her! You can’t tell her I’m here! You can’t!”

“Why?”

“She made me promise for years and years, over and over, she made me promise never to find you.”

“Well, your promise is already broken then…”

“You don’t understand! I don’t want her to know! Look…you can’t help me, I’m leaving. I have people to see anyways,” she said frantically and jumped up from her place on his sofa. He watched her with amusement as she quickly tried to straighten her hair with her fingers and put on boots at the same time.

“You still haven’t told me why you came here. I mean, if it was really just to get rid of your kid you wouldn’t have hung around…” he said. She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jana said after a minute.

“You know…you can tell me,” he said gently. She scratched at her arm nervously.

“What do you do? I mean, for a living?” she asked. He was quiet for a long time, debating whether or not to tell her.

“I’m a musician,” he finally said. “In a rock band.”

“Are you famous?” she asked with wide eyes. For a minute he regretted having told her the truth. It was something he was usually careful about, because it had a way of bringing strange people around. And he was never surprised to hear that someone had claimed to be a relative for personal gain.

“Not really,” he said.

“I’m not trying to get money. I’m not that fucked up. If you had cocaine…that might be different,” she said. His eyebrows went up at that.

“Cocaine?” he asked. She smiled and let out a laugh suddenly.

“I’m kidding!” she said. He looked at her with suspicion. He had a feeling it wasn’t been a joke.

“Right…” he said. “I don’t have cocaine.”

“I didn’t think so. I have to go, we are not making progress.”

“Progress in what!? You showed up and now you are running away. There has to be something you came here for.”

“I wanted to know what you looked like! Okay! My entire life I was told about this guy that left a 17 year old alone with a baby! I never saw a picture of you or anything! I just wanted to see you!” She had tears in her eyes and she was visibly tense. She fought against herself as anger and hurt rushed through her, leaving a lump in her throat. She knew if she relaxed she’d burst into tears and sobbing.

“Mama! No cry!” Stephanie whined.

“Hush up,” Jana cried. Austin watched her shake as she tried to force away her emotions. She seemed very fragile and lost. He debated with himself over giving her a hug, or just letting her go. He stood up and put his hand on her shoulder. Her body was as tense as a brick and her eyes suddenly shot up to his as she looked at him with hurt. He looked at her face and for the first time he could see himself in her.

“Jana,” he sighed. “Give me Heather’s phone number. I won’t tell her you are here or about the baby. But I need to talk to her…” he said. Jana sniffed as she looked away from him.

“Fine,” she said. She pulled out from under his hand and wrote down a number she knew bye heart, but hadn’t dialed in two years. She took a deep breath as the numbers were in front of her eyes and she hoped that her mother was still at that number as much as she hoped she wasn’t.

“If I go make this call, will you still be here?”

“Maybe,” she said. He looked at her with his eyebrows furrowed. “Yes,” she said then and he nodded and left the room.

As the phone rang there was a certain king of nervousness in his stomach. He hadn’t spoken to Heather James in 16 years. When the line picked up it was like a step into the past. Her voice hadn’t changed at all, and for a minute he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Hello?” she asked again.

“Heather?” he finally asked. There was silence.

“Yes…who is this?” she asked. He was quiet for a few seconds, while the nervousness came back.

“Hey…this is Austin,” he said, thinking about how strange it was to tell her his name.

“Austin? Austin who?” she asked. He sighed with slight frustration. It was so odd to tell his ex girlfriend and apparent mother of his child who he was.

“Heather…it’s me, Austin,” he said, “Winkler.” There was a gasp and a crash on the other end of the line. Heather stood with her hands over her mouth as she stared at the phone that was lying on the counter top. She hadn’t heard his voice in 16 years, and a big part of her hadn’t wanted to ever hear it again. Tears filled her eyes as she continued to stare at the phone. Finally she picked it up and put it back to her ear with a deep breath to calm her nerves.

“How did you get this number?” she asked as coolly as she could manage. She had loved him, and a big part of her always would. After all, he had given her Jana, and though she had been sure that Jana was dead she had loved the girl.

“A girl named Jana showed up on my door step last night claiming to be my daughter,” he said. Heather felt as if her heart had been stopped.

“Jana?” she asked. “Her name was Jana?!”

“Yes…”

“Oh my god! She’s alive! My baby…”

“Heather…why didn’t you tell me?” he asked then. She was quiet. “You just told me not to call anymore. That it wasn’t working out.”

“That girl is a liar,” Heather said quickly.

“Or her mother is,” Austin snapped. “How would she have found me if not for you telling her I was her father? So tell me the truth Heather.”

“She’s your daughter,” Heather said then. “She ran away two years ago. Left a note saying she was sorry, but no explanation as to why. I thought she was dead. I’ve been looking everywhere for her.”

“She said she’s been in California. Spent everything she had on a bus ticked out here,” Austin said. Heather was silent for some time.

“I told her never to find you,” she said. She looked down at her kitchen counter and at the new engagement ring on her left hand. There was anger inside her. Not only was her daughter all of a sudden a concern again, but so was her father. This was not something Heather had ever wanted. When Jana had gone missing she had been heartbroken, and she had tried with all the will she had to find her. But after a while she had given up and accepted that her daughter must have been killed.

“Why? Tell me why, damn it!” he snapped.

“Because I knew you too well, Austin! You didn’t love me, you sure as hell wouldn’t have loved a baby. We were seventeen years old. And my parents already freaked out when I told them, I didn’t want you to have to tell your mom. That wouldn’t have been fair at all.”

“It was fair not to let me make that choice myself?! Maybe I didn’t love you, but I’d have been there for my daughter,” Austin said with vicious irritation lacing his voice.

“Austin, it doesn’t matter,” Heather said then. “She’s a lot more trouble than she is worth. When she was with me she was into a lot of bad stuff. Just call the police and and send her home.”

“I don’t think I will,” he said after a long pause. “I think I deserve a chance to know my daughter.”

“You have no reason to keep her, she’s just a problem. Look how much grief she’s caused me, by running away, bringing you into this mess.”

“All you’ve done is lie to that girl for sixteen years! I’d have run away too…” he snapped. “Maybe she just wanted to find out the truth.”

“She’s not your problem, Austin!”

“She’s my daughter! So fuck you if you think I’m just going to pretend this didn’t happen! You didn’t see that girl when she was standing on my door step. You didn’t see the girl that’s she’s become, and damn it I deserve the chance to have my daughter in my life since you took that right away from me for the last 16 fucking years.”

“I want her here with me.”

“I’m going to leave that up to her.”

“She isn’t capable of making decisions, Austin. She’s a stupid little brat.”

“Then why the hell do you want her?” he snapped and hung up. He took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair with frustration. What was he going to do? He didn’t know anything about being a father, especially not to a girl that was 16 years old. Jana was anything but an average girl, and it left his head spinning when he realized that in one night he’d gone from being a single guy with no kids and a lot of time in front of him to being a father and grandfather. The thought sent a chill up his spine and he shook it off violently.

As he walked into the living room, with his head still spinning and his mind racing, he was suddenly not surprised to see that Jana was gone.