Too Early for a Good Title

"Mia."

                Since I'm determined to be perfectly honest with you, I will tell you that the first thing that entered my mind was a loud, screaming "FUCK!" I am not a cursing person, let me inform you. I try to limit myself to five swears a month. Most of them directed towards inanimate objects, like bills or expensive high heels that break easily.

I am a therapist. A good one, many of my patients and peers have told me, in fact. I am good because I am balanced, professional and calm. Always. But… 

                It was that voice. The voice. The voice had caused me trouble to last me a lifetime in my already short, 27 year life so far. I had spent a total of two months worth of time in the hospital from numerous injuries and a near total of half a year's worth of nights, sitting in a jail cell – and that was just when she had somehow gotten me intoxicated enough to participate in her hellish hijinx.

It was the voice of Satan herself…known as Kei, my half sister, to others.

                That, of course, was only part of the reason I cursed silently to myself when I first managed to figure out the owner of the voice, the other part was because I couldn't understand how I could have been so stupid as to have picked up. I had Caller ID and had for a year. I bought it after Kei had called me on ten different occasions to come get her out of jail. This, of course, being the only warning I received that she had come into town earlier, meaning to visit me. Somehow, she always ended up in some kind of trouble. Mostly, she ended up arrested. This is me being optimistic: I tried to think of it as not being cleaning up after her, but just cleaning up my reputation, which she had very nearly ruined on several occasions. I tried to think of it not as her in jail, but as me NOT in jail with her. Hey, one out of the two of us is not bad!   

Usually, she had some story explaining how she ended up in jail. It went something like…she met up with some really cute guy on the plane over and they decided – "for a joke, y'know?"- That they should have sex on a sidewalk…outside a police station. Or it turned out he was carrying a concealed weapon or a lot of illegal drugs on him and somehow, when they were talking, some of that stuff got transferred onto her body and she, obviously, had "no idea how that happened, Mia."

I had learned that if my machine said "Boston Police Department", that I was not to pick up. Sometimes, she called me on her cell phone, too. So if my reliable, loyal machine said Kei Dingdong (She changed her last name at some point in what she said was a New Year's Office Party gone "TOTALLY" awry. Let's just say she doesn't work there anymore and from what I managed to get out of her when I drove her to my apartment after bailing her out of jail, there was some talk of a restraining order.) I never picked up. 

Despite the fact it was 2:00 in the morning, I still could have read the Caller ID fine because of my experience – thanks to Kei – at looking quickly at the clock and then my phone by my bed when I was woken abruptly in the middle of the night by the phone ringing. Of course, I didn't have enough coffee in my blood to actually remember what the Caller ID had said a moment later when I had picked up.

"Mia?" There was her voice again. It meant impending doom, obviously. I contemplated hanging up. I calculated it quickly in my mind.

Pros:

- Won't have to talk to her,

- Won't have to see that atrociously ugly officer who hits at me every time I go to bail her out

- Maybe she'll just die in there and I'll never have to hear from her again

Cons:

- She may keep calling

- I'll, therefore, never get any sleep

- If she dies in jail because I didn't bail her out, I may be blamed and put on trial

"I'm not in jail, Mia, or in the hospital, if that will make you talk." She said before I could make a decision. Her words were slow and a bit clumsy, but I could tell she was trying – not very hard, of course, since she never tried anything very hard – to cover up her messy speech.

"Points off for being hung-over." I snapped before I could shove a fist in my mouth to stop myself. There still might have been hope before I replied that I had maybe been struck by a surprise stroke when I had picked up the phone and, because of this, couldn't answer her. Now, I was stuck to have to listen to her, at least.

"You can't have everything." She slurred into the phone with a deep sigh. After a pause, she added, "I'm in a hotel room, that's already all paid for, so I don't need a place to stay or money."

Almost immediately, I remembered reading 'Something Hotel' on my Caller ID so I was certain she wasn't lying about that. I still paused for a second, waiting for the bad part.

"And I'm not calling so we can plan to get together some time."

"Good morning!" I chirped, nearly cutting her off. Not giving myself time to think about my manners. Somehow, when you're with some one whose etiquette is far below, it sort of rubs off on you.

"Hello, Chatty Cathy." She answered as if my answer had been too overwhelming for her, which pissed me off. She was supposed to be the dim one and I was supposed to be irritated with her. Not the other way around. She took another deep breath as if to recover, which just ended up as annoying, unnecessary static on my end, before she went on. "I have some good news." 

"I knew there would be something bad." I muttered. I don't know if she heard me, but if she had, she ignored me and continued.

"I found out where our father is."

Suddenly, I couldn't work my lungs. My breath had been knocked out of me, it seemed. I didn't plan the long pause that came after her statement, but it came anyway. I felt something block any thoughts from appearing in my mind and any words from escaping from my mouth. I felt like I was staring at a blank TV, too scared of turning it on in chance of seeing something I didn't want to, but feeling my finger itching to press that red POWER button because I had been looking forward to doing it for so long. And I'm curious by nature. My mother always told me that.

"It makes a good therapist." She always believed. 

"The reason I flew here is because he lives around here. What a coincidence, huh? Runs in the blood, right, Mia? Maybe you have some gene of his that makes you want to live in Boston. I mean, that's what genes are like. Anyway, I'm preparing myself to meet him. Unlike you, he won't know me. I never met him and he never knew of my existence, remember? He was too busy watching you grow up. Anyway, I'm thinking of entering his life as just some carefree spirit that blows through and opens up so many doors for him, like in those books you read. Actually, since you're a therapist..."

 (Even the way she pronounced my profession ticked me off)

"…you probably know of some real life stories about this kind of situation. I'm expecting this experience to be...solely spiritual. I even bought a new vintage 60's bohemian dress..."

(Every experience with Kei required a new dress.)

 "…I thought it went well with the whole theme."

I cleared my throat, ignoring her spiritual theme nonsense blah-blah.

"Now that you said that, I realized that I have heard of some cases like that, where a daughter that a father doesn't know existed appears. It's very traumatizing. Usually, it is hard for both because a father might not be ready to accept some one like that so quickly into his life. As you can see, often that hurts the daughter. And it usually does not turn out well." I said. God, there's nothing like hard, cold facts to make me feel better when I am in a shaky situation like this.

"Uh-huh." The cold, hard facts had evidently entered one of Kei's ears and exited out the other just as quickly, like any information any authority figure has ever given to Kei. "Well, you knew him. What is he like? Would he find me 'traumatizing'?"

It was true. My father was with my mother and me until I turned seven, when he left. His leaving had never appeared to have disturbed me in the smallest bit. I went about my life as normal. This, I always guessed, was because we had never bonded. He had worked a lot when I was young, which had always aroused my mother's suspicions in the first place about him having an affair, and had never made an impact on my life. His presence had always seemed more false than real; sometimes, I wondered if some of the memories of walking besides him, seeing only his khaki pants, were just dreams I had or maybe even memories of somebody else. When I asked my mother to describe him, while I was trying to search deep into my soul for some profound hurting maybe that resulted from his leaving (this usually being after I had been dumped by a guy and was feeling depressed and, denying that it was the boy causing the heartache, I tried to blame other things) her descriptions were very shallow. She would always remark that it was hard to put him into words. She said he was quiet and not a man of many words, but he always took her breath away with his actions. He was tall and well-built, a little on the skinny side, though. And he grayed early, she said.

"He grayed early." I repeated what my mother said. My mind was shuffling through my virtual flashcards and not really paying attention to what came out of my mouth.

"Well, I wonder which one of us has that gene." She then coughed, trying to hint it was me. After a while, with Kei, you just sort of expect the stupidest thing that could be said in a conversation to be said – by Kei, obviously.

"We can both have the same genes, Kei. It's not like we both got one half." I said, though I would not be surprised if that was what happened. The only thing that Kei and I shared were eye color, as far as I could see. My mother had said my father had gray eyes. Kei's mother hadn't known since she was the basic equivalent to a prostitute, except without a paycheck, instead relying on her endless trust fund, and could barely remember our father's face out of the millions she had slept with. Somehow, though, I had noticed that many people knew immediately that we were sisters, from just looking at us, despite our different hair color, noses, sizes and heights. Kei was blonde – not natural, unless you call monthly dye jobs from the age of eight on natural – shorter, slightly skinnier and had a small button nose that looked like it had been quickly drawn by a cartoonist. I was a taller brunette with a long, straight nose and more curves. Thank you very much.

"Right." She responded half-heartedly. "Whatever. Look, I have his address and everything. He doesn't seem to have another family and it says he only works part-time, so I'm going to go visit him tomorrow."

"What? No invite?" I said before I realized what I was saying. After it was said, though, I understood that I had meant it. Kei usually invited me on her adventures, though I usually tried to avoid them, but this one didn't sound so risky or dangerous. And he was my father, just as much as hers. I didn't care if she found him or not.

"Thought you didn't like getting together with me."

"Did I say that?"

"Um...Yes."

"No." I answered, hoping she would just shut up and give in. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to see my father. She had planted the darned seed of curiosity, of course, which was no help, but now this was some sort of game and I was going to beat her at it.

"Fine. It's not like we both have one half of him. The genes are shared, right?"

"Absolutely!" I assured her.

"Okay. Meet me at Starbucks at 11:00. Bye -"

"Wait. What Starbucks?" I interrupted, saying it loudly so just in case she was putting the phone down, she could hear me and put the phone back to her ear.

"Huh?" She sounded confused. Apparently, she really had almost hung up on me then. My questions were answered. She was really that stupid. Sadly, I was not surprised.

"Which Starbucks do you want to meet me at? There's, like, a million in Boston." I didn't understand how this was so puzzling to Kei. We both had grown up pretty close to each other in a small city near Cleveland, which, though not as big as Chicago or New York City, was no stranger to the Starbucks chain.

"The one nearest my hotel. I dunno. I was just gonna keep walking 'til I found one." I could almost hear her shrugging.

"What is your hotel?" I had to pinch my ear to stop from screaming at her.

"Four Seasons."

"There's an Au Bon Pain around the corner. Go there."

"Fine. Whatever."

There was a pause. I didn't know whether to say good bye or not. I looked at my clock. It was 2:30 am. I didn't care about the stupid dynamics between us. I had a client early tomorrow and even four cups of coffee was not going to keep even one of my eyes open if I talked any longer.

"I've got to go back to bed," I said when another thought struck me, "Which reminds me, why did you call me – and so early, too? Why didn't you just wait until morning?"

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Well, you didn't want to see me. And it sounded like you had no interest in even talking to me, anyway."

"Oh. This really annoying guy in the room next to me kept waking me up with his TV. He went to sleep about an hour ago and I'm doing this to get back at him. I might call my mom after this. And then try to get the phone number to his room."

 I did not even attempt to answer this. Not that Kei gave me any time to do so, also.

"Night-night, Mia."

And the phone went dead.

I lay back in my bed and stared at the ceiling and just said: "Fuck." to myself.

So that was two swears and I had already said "Shit" and gave the middle finger when I was driving yesterday, which counts, I guess, too. I had one more swear to use for this month and I felt happy that tomorrow, of all days, was the last day of September.