My Father Left Us to Die,Now I'm Here to Collect

I never met my father growing up.

My mother said he'd gone far away. The kind of far away you don't come back from.

Later, when she got sick and ended up in the hospital, I dropped out of school to take care of her. I wanted to dip into our savings to pay for her treatment.

She threatened to kill herself over it. She forbade me from touching that money, she said. It was the dowry she'd set aside for me.

So I agreed to her face and went around her behind her back. I quietly tracked down her attending physician and told him the family had money, that I wanted the best drugs, the best surgeon money could buy.

"This kind of medical bill won't be small."

The doctor let out a long sigh.

"Your mother was my classmate in college. She married the golden boy of our class, even poured her entire fortune into funding his startup. By now he should be rich. Why don't you go find him?"

I let that sink in, but I said nothing to my mother about it.

I went back home and withdrew our hundred and fifty thousand in savings, then handed it over to the hospital account.

The doctor said it would keep her going for three months.

When my mother found out, she cried. "You foolish child. Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

While I cared for her, I started gathering everything I could find about the years my father and mother had built that company together.

When my father held the gala for his company's twentieth anniversary, I walked in with my evidence and my lawyer.

"I'm here to see my father. To get him to sign the divorce papers with my mother."

——

"Whose little girl is this?"

The words were barely out of my mouth when the hotel manager, hovering in a corner, called out loudly.

When no one answered, he pressed again. "If she doesn't belong to anyone here, I'll be calling security."

"You need to do something about the service in this hotel. Look at who's sitting here. How could any of us be connected to this girl?"

"Have security throw her out, now. This is the James Group's twentieth anniversary gala!"

The guests buzzed among themselves, most of them skeptical, contemptuous.

The hotel manager came toward me, sweat soaking through his shirt, still shouting for security. "Someone, get over here. Now!"

"Theo James! Twenty years ago you abandoned your wife and your daughter. In all these twenty years, hasn't your conscience hurt even once?"

These people said I didn't belong, said my clothes were rags. I didn't care.

I came here today to win justice for my mother, and to take back what was rightfully hers!

The room went dead silent. Theo James rose from the head table and started toward me.

But faster than him came his current son, Adam James.

Adam practically ran up to me, his fury on full display. "Which company sent you? You think I won't have you locked up right now?"

"Oh, I believe you. After all, only you James people could pull something this filthy and shameless!" I gave it right back to him, tooth for tooth.

Adam's hand flew up to slap me. Beside me, my lawyer friend, Bryan Finch, my college classmate, flipped on his phone camera.

"Everyone, come look. The eldest James heir is hitting people!"

The slap froze in midair. Bryan turned to him with a smile and explained.

"We came today with solid evidence. Call it a courtesy, a chance for the James Group. If Mr. James, or rather Chairman James, doesn't want to handle this, then we can go through the proper channels!"

"We're here to fulfill our duty to notify you. If Mr. James has the authority to speak for his father, then we'll turn around and leave."

Adam glared at us, like he wanted to eat us both alive.

"Funny. I don't recall ever gaining a wife. Or, for that matter, a daughter."

Theo James's steady voice cut through the room, and only then did Adam step aside.

Under the full weight of Theo James's pressure, Bryan turned to look at me.