A GHOST FROM HER PAST (Chapter 31)

It was report card day. Sophia sat in her homeroom, waiting for her second quarter report card. The first quarter had been fantastic, mostly B’s with even a couple of A’s, the first she had seen in some time. She hoped the second quarter would be even better—she thought she had done well.

Mrs. Curtis finished handing out the report cards, but Sophia still hadn’t gotten one. "That’s strange," Mrs. Curtis said. "I don’t know what happened to yours, Sophia. I’ll see if I can find out." Just then, the phone connected to the main office ran. "Yup. OK. I’ll send her right down." She hung up the phone. "Sophia, you’re wanted in the main office."

Sophia got up to go, her classmates hooting and hollering about "big trouble." Sophia herself didn’t know what to think. She didn’t remember doing anything that would get her into trouble.

"Hi, I’m Sophia Daniels. I was called down here." She said to the secretary.

"Yes, dear. Mr. Carvalho is waiting for you, go right in." Mr. Carvalho, the principal? This did not sound good at all. Why did the principal want to see her?

She opened his door. "Mr. Carvalho? I’m Sophia Daniels. You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Sophia, I did. Come right in. Have a seat." He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. She sat. "Sophia, I have something that I want to show you." He withdrew a piece of paper from his desk.

She recognized it—it was her report card from second quarter last year. It was mostly D’s with a couple of F’s thrown in for good measure. All the comments spoke about what a disruptive, unteachable student she was.

"I remember this, unfortunately. Why did you want to show me this, Mr. Carvalho?"

"So you would remember. I wanted to make sure you remembered."

"I can scarcely forget."

"Good. There’s a reason for this, Sophia. I’ve talked to your teachers, so I could make sure there was no monkey business going on. I’ve also talked to Mr. Doherty, and he talked to me about some of your work with the Peer Counseling group, and he gave me a bit of an idea of what was going on when you were getting these kinds of marks. I take it that things in your personal life are better this year?"

"Much," smiled Sophia, although she was a bit confused.

"Good. Now, I took this little pleasure away from Mrs. Curtis, because, as Principal, I tend to deal with mostly bad stuff, so I hoard the good stuff whenever I can." He smiled at Sophia, who smiled back, but still was confused. "Don’t worry, dear, I’m getting to the point." She laughed. "I wanted you to see this"—he pointed at the old report card—"this, from just one short year ago, so you could remember. Because I wanted you to truly appreciate the magnitude"—he withdrew another piece of paper—" of this."

He handed her the paper. It was this year’s report card. She looked at it

A……..A…………A……….A……….A…………A……….A………A

"Oh my God," she gasped. She had gotten straight A’s.

"Congratulations, Sophia. This is a turnaround the likes I have rarely seen in 25 years of teaching. You should be immensely proud of yourself."

"Oh my God," Sophia said. And then she started to cry. "I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it. Straight A’s? Me? Oh my God," she said, sniffling. Mr. Carvalho just laughed, and handed over a box of tissues, which Sophia gratefully accepted. She blew her nose, and sniffled, and wiped her eyes.

"You recovered?" Mr. Carvalho asked.

"Yeah," Sophia smiled at him. Then her smile got wider. "I can not wait to show this to my boyfriend!"

"Boyfriend?" Mr. Carvalho asked.

"Yeah. My boyfriend, Warren, is a genius studyaholic Preppie who’s ranked in the top ten in his class at St. Michael’s, no less."

"Really? Did he inspire you to this turnaround?"

"Yeah, he did, at least partially. He made me care just by caring himself."

"Then, I would say he’s going to be enormously proud of you, also."

"Yeah, he will be….but that’s not the only reason I can’t wait to show him this report card."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We’ve been going out for a year, now. He always, as you might imagine, gets astounding grades."

"If he’s ranked top ten at St. Mike’s, of course."

"Right. They got their second quarter report cards last week. Warren got his typical, all A’s.…but there was one A minus," Sophia grinned.

Mr. Carvalho smiled. "Oh, you mean……."

"I got better grades than my genius preppy boyfriend!" Sophia burst out exitedly. "We’ve been going out for a year, and I’ve never even gotten close!"

Mr. Carvalho cracked up laughing. "And he’ll never live it down, right?"

"Oh, not really—I know well enough that if I was taking the courses he is, I wouldn’t be looking at all A’s. No offense to the school you run, Mr. Carvalho, but St Mike’s is St Mike’s. And he’s in all of the top honors classes you can take over there." She smiled. "But he is my boyfriend, and he does love me, and he will let me get away with gloating, at least for a little while."

Mr Carvalho laughed again. "Good for him. Enjoy this, Sophia. You deserve it. Congratulations, again. And keep it up!"

"I plan to," she said, leaving the office beaming.

Sophia walked up to her house, still grinning from ear to ear. She looked up, and saw Warren sitting on her porch, waiting for her.

"WARREN!!" She screamed, running up the street and practically tackling him with a bear hug. "Warren, you’ll never believe it!"

Warren giggled. "Boy are you in a good mood today!"

"Uh-huh." She reached into the backpack and withdrew the card. "Look at this!" she exclaimed proudly.

Warren looked. "Wha……Straight A’s? Sophie, you got straight A’s?"

She nodded her head, beaming.

"Sophie, this is FANTASTIC!" He wrapped her in a bear hug of his own. "I am so proud of you!"

She giggled. "I hope you noted the absence of any A-minuses," she said with an evil grin.

"Yes, I did," Warren said with a smile of his own. "You, Sophia Daniels, officially got better grades than your preppie boyfriend." She giggled again. "Enjoy it. You deserve it."

"Oh, Warren, you are the best. C’mon, I wanna show this to my Mom."

They ran into the house, still giggling, and saw Ellen Kovach standing in the kitchen.

"MOM! MOM! You gotta look at this!"

"Alright, Sophia, what’s the big excitement? Hi, Warren." She took the report card from Sophia’s hand. "Sophia, these are all A’s!"

"Uh-huh."

Ellen looked like she was going to cry. She enveloped her daughter in a hug. "Sophia, I am so proud of you I can’t put it into words. This is one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen."

"Thanks, Mom."

Ellen took a deep breath, and the smile disappeared from her face. "Come on in the kitchen. There’s someone I want you to meet."

"OK," Sophia said, puzzled. She walked into the kitchen and saw a man, about her Mom’s age, sitting at the kitchen table. "Mom, you bringing strange men home?" Sophia giggled.

"Not hardly," Ellen said with a weak attempt at a smile. Sophia looked at the man, questioning, but Warren didn’t. Sophia hadn’t figured it out yet, but Warren took one look at this man and knew exactly who he was. The resemblance was unmistakable. "Oh, shit," he muttered under his breath.

Ellen confirmed his suspicions. "Sophia………" she took a deep breath……"this is your father."

"My……..father?" Sophia managed to squeak out. Brian Daniels looked up at his daughter.

"Hello, Sophia. You certainly have grown into a beautiful young woman."

"You….are my……father?"

"Yes, I am." Brian replied.

Warren had had his hand on Sophia’s shoulder, as reassurance. Suddenly, he felt that shoulder go to steel. He almost withdrew his hand, but Sophia grabbed it and put it back.

"How can you be my father? I don’t have a father!"

"Ellen, what did you tell her?" Brian asked.

"She knows she has a father. Sophia, I never told you you didn’t have a father."

"You didn’t have to tell me. I never had a father. I had a sperm donor, and an abusive one at that. You don’t get the right to be called father when you disappear for twelve fucking years!!!"

"Sophia, I….." Brian started.

"Sophia, calm down," Ellen said at the same time.

"CALM DOWN???? Mother, how could you let this maggot into our house, and let him call himself my father? So, tell me, "father", where have you been for twelve years?"

"The time wasn’t right," Brian offered weakly.

"Oh, no, the time was right, ‘father’. You should have been here, oh, about a year and a half ago. You would have seen the results of your wonderful fatherhood. But you weren’t. So where were you, ‘father’? Where were you when I was a complete drunk, just like you? Where were you when I was letting myself get beat up by guys, because of the subconscious memories of you beating me, ‘father’? Where were you when I had one foot in the fucking grave? WHERE WERE YOU, WHEN ALL THE DAMAGE YOU CAUSED ALMOST DESTROYED MY LIFE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! WHERE WERE YOU?????????"

And with that horrific outburst, Sophia tore up the stairs to her room, crying so badly she was almost screaming.

Warren was standing with his head in his hands, leaning against the wall. "Oh, lovely."

Ellen was moving towards the stairs. "I’d better go up there."

"NO!" Warren shouted. "You stay right here, Mrs. K. I will go up. I love you dearly, but bringing him in here was so colosally stupid I can’t believe it. And she’s going to take your head off if you go up there."

"HEY!" Brian yelled at Warren. "Who are you to talk to Ellen that way?"

"No, he’s right." Ellen offered.

"I’m sorry, Mrs. K. I know you thought it was going to go better than this. I don’t mean to be a jerk." He sighed. "I just don’t know if I can handle this, if she backslides because of it." Ellen nodded agreement. "As for you," he said to Brian. "Who I am, is Sophia’s boyfriend. Who I also am is the guy who helped her stitch herself back together because of the lingering damage that you caused. Who I am is the guy who lived through that horror that she just told you about when you weren’t here. Who I am is the person that loves her more than anything else in the world, who loves her more than life itself, and who proves it by being here every day, which is more than I can say for you." And with that he stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

Brian watched him go. "Ellen, how much of this is true?"

"Every word."

"She was that bad?"

"If not worse."

"Oh Jesus."

Warren entered Sophia’s room. "Soph?"

She was on the bed, sobbing convulsively, clutching a pillow, shaking violently. Warren came up behind her on the bed. "Soph?" He touched her shoulder, and she flinched, violently. Oh, Shit, Warren thought, but then Sophia realized who had touched her.

"Warren? Oh, God, Warren! Why did she bring him in here? Why? Why? Why?" she cried pitifully.

Warren turned her towards him, lied down nest to her, and wrapped her in his arms. "It’s OK, Soph. Let it out. It’s all right."

It took quite a long time for her to calm down. Warren stayed with her the whole time, holding her, whispering encouragement in her ear. Finally, the sobbing stopped, her shaking subsided, and she took a deep breath.

"Warren, whatsoever would I do without you?"

"Cuddle one of your teddy bears?" He cracked. Sophia managed to grin at that. "There’s my Pookie."

"Thank God I’m somebody’s Pookie. Since you’re all I’ve got."

"I’m not all you got. Sophia, your mother loves you."

"She does not love me if she brought him in here!"

"Yes she does. It was a huge error in judgement, but she thought she was doing the right thing."

Sophia sniffled. "I suppose you’re right. Just don’t tell me the sperm donor down there loves me."

"I won’t. I have no idea what his motives are."

"Trying to ease his conscience, no doubt."

"Oh, that won’t be easy, after your outburst. And I had a little one of my own."

"You did?"

"Got to take care of my Pookie, don’t I ?" Warren grinned.

"And I’m always grateful." Sophia said. "But, don’t worry, Snugglebear. There won’t be any jagged edges this time. I had my outburst, I had my cry, and I had my Romeo comfort me. I am not going to let his sudden reappearance awaken all the old demons. I refuse to."

"Good for you, Juliet."

"I don’t intend to lose my head over this."

"Well, you shouldn’t. You are a Straight A student, right?" He grinned at her. She grinned right back.

"Warren, you are the light of my life, you know that?"

"Sophia?" A voice came from the door. "Honey, I am so sorry. If I had known you were going to react like that….and, dammit, I should have known. It was stupid. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Yeah, Mom." Sophia grinned at her.

"I was hoping letting him in here would close some old wounds, not reopen them. It was a stupid hope."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because he’s not the same man that left us 12 years ago."

"He convinced you of this?"

"I’ve known it for a while. He’s always written. He does support you, he has since you were seven or so and he got back on his feet. He encloses notes with the checks. I’ve never written back, but he’s not the same man. He asked to see you, and I thought you might be able to talk some things out."

"Why hadn’t he wanted to see me before this?"

"Because he knows what he did to you, to us. He is horrified that you were still living the effects from it twelve years later. He figured if he stayed away, that would go away." She smirked. "He was never the best at understanding psychology."

"So why come back now?"

"He’s wanted to come back for some time. He figured you’d be old enough, now, to not be affected by what he did."

"He’s wrong."

"I know. He knows now, too."

"Is he still here?"

"Yes."

"Is he waiting for me to come back down?"

"I told him I would try. I also told him there was a snowball’s chance in hell, but I told him I would try. If I couldn’t get you to come back down, he will leave."

Sophia thought. "Warren, what do you think?"

"Oh, don’t get me involved in this!" Sophia and Ellen both laughed.

"Warren, I just want your opinion." Sophia asked.

Warren sighed. "OK. Yeah, he’s done some serious damage. But, you had your outburst. You told him everything you’ve been wanting to tell him for some time, no doubt. Now, if, and only if, you think you can go back down there without breaking down again, you might want to at least think about it. You screamed at him twelve years of abandonment and frustration. Like I said, if you can handle it, it might not hurt to listen."

Sophia thought, and took a big breath, "OK. I’ll do it. Warren, you need to be there with me."

They went downstairs. Sophia sat down at the table across from him. "Hi."

"Hi." Brian looked up at Warren leaning against the wall. "No offense to your boyfriend, but is there anyway we can do this alone?"

"No," Sophia said with finality. "I’m willing to listen, but Warren stays."

"OK." Brian took a deep breath. "Telling you I’m sorry is woefully inadequate. Saying that I wish I could make it up to you is pathetic. But I have no other words. I wish I could have come back sooner. I wish I could have never left in the first place. I wish I hadn’t been an abusive drunk. But I can’t take any of that back."

"Why did you come back, now?" Sophia asked him.

"I just wanted to see you. I wanted to see how you turned out. Even if I had no part in that, you are still my daughter. Heck, I wanted to see what you looked like."

"You just had to look in a mirror for that. Except for the gender, of course," Warren interjected from the corner.

"Excuse me?" Brian asked.

"When I walked into this room, I knew immediately who you were, without being told." Warren told him.

"Soph, you might have other issues with the man, but you can certainly thank his genetics for those faaaaabulous good looks of yours." Even Sophia chuckled at that. "The resemblance is unmistakable."

"He’s right. Except you got your mom’s complexion." Brian got serious again. "I wanted to just see you. It was probably selfish of me, I know. If I had realized you were still dealing with the damage I caused, I never would have come back."

"I’ve been in AA for a very long time. I don’t drink, and I do not hit people, especially women and children, anymore. I’ve been through lots of therapy, besides the AA. I’ve managed to straighten my life out. I just wish you didn’t have to pay for it."

"I’m OK. Really," Sophia smiled.

"Good. No thanks to me, but good all the same." Brian took another breath. "When your mother and I got married, and you were born, I was not ready for it. Not even a little bit. I tried. I did try. And I failed, spectacularly, in every way possible. I am sorry. I wish I could offer you more, I really do. But I can’t. It’s too late for that."

He slid a piece of paper over to her. "That is my address and phone number. I live on the South Shore, now, down towards Cape Cod. If you want to call, write, or come visit, great. If you don’t want to call, write, or come visit, that is your choice. Unless you want to, you will never hear from me again. If you need or want anything from me, all you have to do is ask. I would love to try to get reacquainted with you, but that is your decision, and, if you never want to see me again, I will understand, completely." He took another breath. "One other thing. You have a stepmother. You also have two sisters. Briana is almost three. Katrina is just a couple of months."

Sophia looked up, surprised. "I do?"

"Yeah. And, before you ask, my wife knows all about my past, including the abuse and the alcohol. She understands, as I do, that this is my past. I’m still paying for it, but I’m trying to not let it eat me up inside. Sophia, don’t let it eat you up inside, either. Please."

:"I won’t."

"Good. If you would like to meet your stepmother and sisters, without dealing with me, call that number and ask for Michelle. That’s your stepmother’s name. She knows all about you, would love to meet you, and will keep me out of it if that is what you wish." He took out a picture and handed it to her. "That’s Briana. She’d love to meet you, too."

"My God, she looks just like me!"

"Yeah, she does. And this is Katrina." He handed over another picture, of an infant. "I’ve got a second chance. I don’t plan to blow this one. I wish I hadn’t blown the first one."

He stood up. "Goodbye, Sophia. You know where to find me. I do love you. I never stopped. And it’s OK if you don’t believe that." With that, he walked out of the house.

Sophia started crying. She looked through the door, sobbing.

"He’s still out there, Soph. He’s sitting in his car. I think he’s trying to compose himself, too."

"Oh damn," cried Sophia. "Do I really want to do this?"

"Only you can answer that, Pookie."

"Can people really change that much?"

Warren pointed to her report card, still sitting on the counter. "Do you really have to ask that question?"

Sophia thought for a second, then jumped out of the chair, sprinted towards the door, flung it open, and called, "Dad! Wait!"

When Warren looked out the window, he saw Sophia giving her father a hug.