“Rose, this is the third time I am leaving you a message, call me back.” He said.
“Already thirty years old, playing this game.” He said with a grimace; Rose clamed up sometimes when she was a teenager, and her silence used to drive him up the wall.
“She had to take care of the restaurant wait staff, must be under some pressure. She will call us; she texted us every day that she is well.” I said, didn’t want him to be too hard on Rose or himself. It’s been one week after all the restaurants and bars closed in NYC because of Corona Virus. My university had been teaching on-line, and Antonio had worked from home. His sales would definitely be affected; he couldn’t make his customer visits to take orders overseas. He was under pressure himself with the stock market plunge, our next eggs.
*
“It’s a girl, congratulations!” Dr. Deming announced. I could sense his mixed feelings of relief, disappointment and happiness next to me; holding my hands; in sweat. He had wanted a boy, I understood that; being the only son of his parents, he and his parents had wanted a boy to carry on the family name. I was not keen on having children. I had my research and teaching, my writing. I would like to be married but no children. We had that conversation before we got married; but after the wedding, the family pressure seeped in; we finally agreed to have one child. And he wished for a boy. His own burden had bled into raising Rose, our only daughter. His demands for her accomplishment condensed his frustration of not having a son.
Rose tried hard to please Antonio, she took Spanish, went to Latin America for her study abroad, she majored in business, after his footsteps, she went to NYU for her MBA, to be his alum. Started managing a five-star restaurant in NYC after graduation; lived in a penthouse apartment; stock options; six-digit income; all the glamour of the financial success to prove her worthiness of a daughter of her father.
*
Now her world was on the verge of collapse, and her father, her north star, leaving her messages after messages. Years of nurturing and discipline from this man whom she wanted only to delight, nothing else.
His cell phone rung with Carlos Santana’s guitar, his daughter’s call. I left the room.
“Hola Rosa, como estas?” He said, standing up. He couldn’t conceal his excitement in his raised tone.
Rose talked.
He sat down on the armchair and listened.
“Mi amor, listen, listen, it’s no fault of yours. It’s the virus, the whole nation is at war. It’s not your fault that you have to carry on.” He said, almost shouting.
They talked for half an hour.
“She furloughed everyone Friday, now she is going to hold tele-conference weekly till they could reopen. She trained these people, and she wanted to keep them.” Antonio said, with pride, joy and protection of a father, who was proud of his brilliant young daughter.
Catherine C. Con grew up in Taiwan. She earned a BA in English Literature from Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taipei and an MS in Information System from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She is a Computer Science instructor at University of South Carolina, Upstate. She has been published in Emrys Journal, Tint Journal, The Bare Life Review, The Petigru Review, and HerStry. She was nominated for 2020 PEN American Literary Awards and selected for the “2020 Local Authors” by Greenville County Library, South Carolina.