She's My Sleeping Pill

Monique looked back to Simon and looked him in the eyes saying, “You are not happy to see me. I’m not taking it against you. Mommy was never happy to have me either. Only Nana cares about me.”

“Wait.” Simon reached out his hand but he didn’t dare make skin contact with her. He was worried that he’d make her hate him even more. “I’m just really shock to see someone who’s almost identical to me. I thought you’d take your looks after your mother. Please give me a little bit of time to process all this. I didn’t really know that I have a child with someone.”

“That’s expected. I never heard my mother mention my father before. She never even told me if he’s alive or dead. I don’t know why I’m meeting you all of a sudden now.”

“Just give me a moment.” Simon turned to Stefan and sighed deeply. He looked troubled and worried at the same time. And he has thousands of reasons to feel these mixed emotions. “I have no doubt that she is my child. At the same time, you must have done some test to make solid proof.”

“Sir Travis did.” Elena answered the question this time and took out the documents which contain the DNA result. “We showed this to her guardian as well. You must have some ideas of why you are meeting the child for the first time in years today.”

Simon nodded his head and accepted the documents. He glanced at it, saw the result and felt frustrated upon seeing it. He sighed once again. He couldn’t remember the times he sighed ever since coming to the café. As time went by, he felt like he was suffocating. Never in his wildest dream did he ever think of meeting his child after so many years. He couldn’t even remember the time he had sex with Denise. ‘There’s no point of recalling it. The child has been born and it’s mine. Authentic and almost a duplicate.’

.....

“What are you thinking?” Vincent questioned but not really waiting for his response. “If you want, we’ll give you some space to talk. We’ll stay on a different table.” He stood up first and Elena followed him right after.

When Stefan stood up as well, Monique grabbed the hem of his suit to stop him from leaving. “You want me to stay?” He asked and she nodded her head as a form of acknowledgment. “I think it’s better to give you some privacy. This is your family matter. I’ll be on another table if you need something.” Monique didn’t utter a single word and she didn’t let go of him either. It was obvious that she was becoming dependent on him. “Alright. I’ll be staying here.”

Simon felt a little jealous while watching his own daughter depend on someone else other than him. She should be depending on him, clinging to him, smiling at him and talking to him. But the five years of being separated put a huge gap between them.

“This sounds a little strange but let me introduce myself. I’m Simon Summer. I don’t know how things happened but I’m your biological father. They also tested us and it came out positive. This is our first meeting but I hope you’ll give me time to process everything.”

“My name is Monique Amir. I hope I’m not making things difficult for you.”

“No, not at all. I’m happy that you agree to meet me. I haven’t heard anything from your mom for a long time now. It’s really a surprise to me that I’m meeting my child after five years but I am not regretting anything about it. I’m only regretting the time that I can’t be with you.”

“You can’t be with me? You have another family?”

Simon took a deep breath and leaned closer to his daughter, just ignoring Stefan’s presence which puts a little pressure on him. “Something bad happened to my family and for some reason, I cannot appear to the public yet. You are still very young and I don’t want to expose you to negative environment so, I’ll explain these things when you’re a little bit bigger.”

“Then, can you spend time with me even if we’re not in public? You can come to our house. Not many people visit us. It’s not really a public place.”

Her statement made Simon smile. It appeared to him that she didn’t hate him for being absent in the last five years of her life. However, her next statement broke his heart.

“You know, mom left me to Nana when I was very small. I’ve seen her a few times but she never really spent time with me. She’s always busy and she doesn’t stay at home either. I speak to her every once in a while through phone call but, my classmates, they said that their mother stays at home. If a mother doesn’t stay at home it must be because she didn’t love her family. I didn’t want to believe them because Nana said my mother loves me the most. So, why doesn’t she stay with me? She didn’t even tell me about you.”

Stefan shifted his gaze and looked outside the glass window, thinking of Cayenne and the things she could be doing at the moment. He didn’t want to hear Monique’s words anymore. He didn’t want to remember his own childhood when Cayenne’s not with him. He needed her.

Monique looked calm as she speaks but the tip of her nose was already red and the same goes with her eyes. She was about to cry but she held her tears back, not wanting to breakdown in front of them.

How can someone explain a parent’s love? A parent has many responsibilities to uphold and many parents sacrifice their happiness for their children. Some parents chose to stay with their family despite being poor. Some chose to leave and work their bones in order to provide their children’s needs. You cannot measure your parent’s love with the idea of staying and leaving home. You have no idea of how much they sacrifice for you to live your life.

With so many things in his mind, Simon held his daughter’s hand, the very first skin contact he made after seeing her. He knew she can feel his trembling hands from being nervous of this meeting. “If your Nana says your mommy loves you then, that must be true. There’s no reason for her to lie. I haven’t spoken to your mother for several years but, I hear from some friends of mine that she’s working hard. She’s doing her best to provide your basic needs. As for why she didn’t tell you about me, it must be because I am not a good person. She probably felt the need to protect you from having a bad father.”

“I don’t get the part of you being a bad father when you didn’t even have a chance to become one in the last five years.” Monique retorted which left Simon speechless. He didn’t expect to hear this response coming from her.

At the hospital, Jillyanna watched the father-daughter pair and listened to their conversation through video call with Jackie. Although, she couldn’t hear some of the words clearly, she could read the movement of their lips. There seemed to be no tension around the adult and the child but she could feel Monique’s heartache.

“Seeing this child, it made me realize something. To some children, the absence of a parent in one’s life could mature a kid’s heart and mind. They were supposed to be children, to live according to their age, to be playful and to explore many things. But because they didn’t have their parents around them, they forced themselves to mature and live.”

“Just like you. Just like me and Riley, like Shein and like Jade. Like the other kids out there. When we lack parental support, we tend to do our best and support ourselves.” Jackie responded in whisper as she wiped her tears that escaped from her eyes. She felt so sad for Monique. She felt so broken because she’s someone who lost her parents as well.