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She never wanted to reach back to her father. The years he was a presence in her childhood still bring some headaches when she talks about it in therapy. And she knows her father doesn't want to reach out to any of them as well, if not he would have done it at some point. But she read about the books, ALL of them read about the books. Her mom was confused and resigned, saying she “should have seen it coming”, her younger sister was sort of intrigued over the schemes of her father and her former stepmother was staying to the side, not wanting to know more about it.
The four of them still shared one exact same thought: Daniel Molloy needed an intervention.
But her mother didn't want to speak to him and much less her stepmother, and her sister actually knew she would lose her mind and go off on the spot upon seeing him so, all the responsibilities fell once again on the eldest daughter.
Turns out finding his father wasn't very hard, the issue was that she could never contact him. She got his number from his lawyer, and has been trying to get in touch with him for the last five weeks because she feels like all of this has prolonged for longer than they thought. Has seen him in interviews when he came back from retirement with a vampire erotica that he fervently affirmed was real years ago, but sort of brushed it off as his way of dealing with ageism. But then, just a few months ago, he returns with a new vampire book that was somehow connected to the other one and that was made out from a real person? Yeah, they should have taken precautions the first time actually.
But the thing is he never talks with them about what goes on in his life (not like they really talk at all actually) to the point they found out he got Parkinson's because one time his doctor sent her sister an email directed to him by mistake. And when they confronted him, he replied like he has done dozens of times when he doesn't want to tell them anything:
“No one asked for your opinion.”
So, here she is now. The sun is setting and the house he lives in now in Manhattan is not the same as five years ago, but she shouldn't act surprised about this as well because he can't settle down even if his life depends on it -figuratively and literally-.
She gets down from the car and walks to the front door, ringing the bell. Twice.
“Hello?”
“Uhhh…”, she looks at the piece of paper where she scribbled down the address. “Is this 077 St. Patrick Street?”
“Yes.”
The man, young man that opened the door was the last type of person that she expected to answer at her supposedly father’s house. He’s tall, dark skinned, with a light English accent and, again, young.
“Sorry, it’s just that I was told this was Daniel Molloy’s house.”
At the mention of him, the man grips the side of the door harder and his soft look gets rougher. “Sorry but, who are you?”
The guts of this guy, she thinks to herself. After being told her entire life she was the female version of her father now this dude has the dare to ask who she is? She should be the one asking him instead!
“My name’s Kate. I’m one of Daniel Molloy’s daughters."
At that answer, the boy looks her up and down and she can see how the realization sets inside his mind, and then how his entire facial expression does a switch. “Oh! So sorry, I didn’t recognize you! I only knew you from photos. Come in, please!”
The man moves away from the entryway and waits for her to get inside. She does it sort of cautiously but as soon as the door closes he walks ahead of her to introduce himself. “My name's Armand, nice to meet you! Please make yourself comfortable and I’ll tell your father you’re here!”
The man looks like an actual nicer person now, so she politely smiles at him and walks towards the living room while he goes up to the other floor. But still, just for precaution, she sends her location to her sister in case the man is a serial killer that took his father’s house as a place of operations and she unfortunately fell as a new victim.
She hears footsteps over her head, an indistinguishable conversation and then people going down the stairs.
She sort of mentalized to find her father in any condition. Throwing away a work of decades built on serious journalism because of some horror stories? She knows about the worth of his work, after all he was a horrible husband and a deadbeat father because of it.
So, she turns around when the footsteps stop ready for anything. Anything, but this. Because there he was, standing in all his glory wearing a worn-out t-shirt, gray jogging and walking in only white socks. But the thing that most calls her attention is that he looks healthy, he is healthy.
“Kate! How are you doing?” He walks towards her, and hugs her. Meanwhile the younger man -Armand, she remembers- starts turning on the lights on the house.
Her father barely hugged her as a kid and in adulthood the physical touch was minimal; she wants to think it’s out of attachment given the shit family history he has, so imagine her surprise when he not only hugged her but did it by own choice and hugged her hard. Almost like he was actually happy to see her. “So happy to see you! How are you?”
“Dad, how are you? Haven’t you seen all my texts and messages? I've been trying to reach you for months. Your books…Are you okay?”, and she knows she’s sounding repetitive but can’t believe the change in his personality between the last time she saw him and when he started showing up on tv again. He looks like a new person, and… “What’s going on with your eyes?”
His father actually looks caught off guard upon that question, and when he seems to start panicking over what to answer she hears laughing. Child’s laughing.
“Benji, Sybelle, don’t run down the stairs!”. She doesn’t know at what moment he went upstairs again, also doesn’t know how didn’t notice it before but there, right in front of her, were two little kids with the most beautiful heads full of dark and shiny curls and the biggest pairs of green eyes. The babies stood next to each other while holding their hands and looking warily at the stranger in the room, said stranger being her. Behind them comes the young man running down the stairs and he quickly sweeps both kids onto his arms and makes them lay on each side of his hips, the kids hiding their chubby faces on the young man’s neck.
She stays sat on the couch petrified, all while Daniel gets up from his seat and walks towards them. One of the kids raises their head from their hiding spot and practically jumps towards the older man. Daniel catches them in his arms and then pats their back as rocks them back and forth.
She wants to believe this is not what she thinks it is because there’s no way, right?!. But in the few seconds she saw the children she could notice that one of them looked exactly like this foreign guy and the other one looked exactly like him .
“I truly didn’t want you to find out in this way, sweetie”, starts her father. Daniel and the younger man - Armand - exchange a silent conversation with their eyes before he continues. “But whatever, it is what it is. Kate, I want to introduce you to Armand, Benji and Sybelle. Armand is my husband and Benji and Sybelle are our fraternal twin children. Your step-brother and step-sister.”
She hoped she was getting crazy; that the years, life and work started to get ahead of her. But no, all of this is real. Real and fucked up. “Are you out of your GODDAMN MIND?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE CHILDREN!? And oh my God, YOU…”, and she points an accusing finger at Armand, who’s standing there now covering the ear of the child still hanging off him. The words come out as a little whisper when she says them, the rage in her throat clogging them. “How old are you?”
“27.”
And there all hell breaks loose.
She directs her stare towards Daniel again. “You’re the most depraved and disgusting man ever.” And with that starts walking to the door, not wanting to be anymore inside that house.
She makes it to her car and when’s about to open the door a hand stops her from it. The pointy white nails he has on look taken out from the makeup set of a cheap horror movie, and she sort of has the impulse of touching them, but then remembers she’s dealing with a horror movie in real life and just wants to run far away from it all.
“Please Kate, listen to me. You don’t-”
“No!”, and she turns around to talk face to face. The sky is dark already. “We’ll not do this again because I won’t hear more excuses from you. Since I was a kid, everything has been ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘You don’t understand’. ‘I’m sorry I wasn't there for your school concert’ ‘I’m sorry I never showed up to pick you up from soccer class’ ‘You don’t understand how important this interview is’ ‘You don’t understand what it means to be an adult’. Well, let me tell you one thing: I do understand what it means to be an adult now, and it doesn’t mean being a piece of shit with every person that surrounds you. You can manage life and work and not fall into the paranoia of perfection. Sometimes, the problem is maybe us. Maybe you.”
She doesn’t know how many years has been wanting to say this, but now is glad that was able to do it to her father still alive and not at his funeral where he would not be able to hear it. And also won’t lie about the fact that she’s waiting for some reaction from Daniel, some mean-spirited clapback about how she always was a crybaby or how she felt like the world owes her something. But nothing came out from the man’s mouth, just his hand moving away from the car’s door and standing in the street still barefoot and with a blank expression on his face. They stay there, in the empty street just looking at each other.
“You have the demeanor of your mother”, is how he decides to break the silence.
“How old are those kids?” she snaps back.
“They’ll turn 4 next week. You’re invited to their birthday party if you want to.”
She starts making quick math on her head and her face contorts in total disgust. “You had children with a guy forty-four years younger than you?! Wait, let me rephrase the question: You had children with a guy?!”. She knew his father had…preferences, but never knew he was ever going to come out of the closet, much less in this sick way.
“He’s very mature for his age! Knew all of my work, that’s how we met.”
Kate has so many questions about his new relationship because: Where did they meet? How long had we been seeing each other? How old was Armand when they met? Why children now?.
“Why children now?”, is the one that manages to slip from her mouth and the one to which Daniel actually looks delighted to answer.
“Because we could. And because I wanted to start a new family, one where I didn’t fuck it up like with you and your sister.”
“You think you'll redeem yourself at 71?”, she’s actually baffled at what comes out from his mouth.
“It’s never too late”, and Daniel smiles.
Kate stares at him in silence again. ”Why is your hand no longer shaking?”
“Oh, that?”, and her father looks down to both of them and wiggles his fingers. “I’m doing a new experimental treatment to help delay the symptoms. That’s why the color change in my eyes as well. It’s not the best, but it’s something.”
“And that’s why you’re now writing gay vampire fiction? To pay for your treatment? Look dad, if you needed money you could just-”
“No”, and he gets serious now. “Even if you also don’t believe me, my work keeps being as serious as always has been. It’s just that now it depends more on the vision of the reader.”
She hums. “Maybe the medication is making you crazy again. Try not to kill your new family in a fit of rage because of it, okay? I don’t want more troubles.” She opens the door and gets inside the car and starts the engine. Daniel taps on her window and she lowers it.
“You know, I actually saw all of your texts and calls. It’s just that I wanted to see if you ever showed up in person to see if I was alive. Any of you.”
Something’s off with her father, she can feel it. He always was cruel and sarcastic but now everything he says sounds- weird and off putting. “Move”, and takes off the breaks. “I’ll ever see you again”, and with that she drives off.
As is about to turn the corner she looks through the rearviewmirror and sees Daniel is still there, looking to get further away. And, for the first time in her life, she feels at peace with herself.
“You’re back. How did it go?” asks Armand as he cuts vegetables for a salad in the kitchen’s counter. Daniel plops down in one of the seats and first turns around to see how the kids paint while sitting on the floor and then directs his entire attention towards his husband.
“How I expected it to go, honestly. Kate always was very…volatile.”
“Did you tell her?”, the young man asks as he places the cut lettuce on the bowl and moves to check the meat in the oven.
“Impossible, she wouldn't have understood it. She called my books ‘gay vampire fiction’ ”
Armand laughs at that statement, and then walks to stand behind Daniel and start massaging his shoulders. The older man closes his eyes in relaxation and moves his head back to support on the other man’s chest. “There’s AB or O- tonight for you. You pick.”
“Oh? Can I pick today?”, he asks in a mocking tone. Armand stops his hand movements and playfully smacks him at the top of the head. Daniel turns around with an inhuman speed and takes his waist in between his hands. He caresses the hip bone with his thumbs and asks in a sultry voice: “And who are our so generous donors?”
Armand smiles at him in complicity and replies. “I don’t know, but they were very generous about it.”
Daniel decides to close the gap between them and kiss his beloved, impossible to resist those beautiful lips.
“Daddy and mommy are kissing again! K-I-S-uhh, what letter next?”, asks Benji to his sister.
“An S?”
“K-I-S-S-uhh...”
Daniel and Armand break apart with smiles on their faces, and the younger of the two of them walks to where the toddlers are while saying that someone has to wash their hands or else won’t have dessert. And while both siblings fight to see who reaches the bathroom first and his husband picks up their colors and doodled papers Daniel thinks he took off the biggest weight out of his shoulders and now can simply lay back and enjoy his immortal life alongside the people he loves.