Chapter 36

Chapter Rating: PG

Natalia knocked on her father's office door. She knew he would be there. He was a creature of habit, always toiling away until a certain time each day; even making up things to do if he ran out of work to keep himself busy. It was 5 p.m. and it was dinner time. She would have warned him that she was coming there to share a meal but, in all honesty, she didn't want to give him enough time to make up an excuse to be away. As soon as she knocked, she heard her father tell her to come in. She opened the door and took a couple of steps into the room.

When he saw that it was his daughter, Antonio immediately put down what he was working on. The two of them hadn't seen each other since their last confrontation, and he wasn't entirely certain why she was standing there now. He decided to hold in his excitement to see her until he was sure that they weren't simply headed for another blow-out. He felt a twinge of sadness about having to be cautious of his daughter, and yet, he clearly remembered a time when he had given her just as much, if not more, reason to distrust him.

"Natalia," he greeted her pleasantly. "To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"Have you eaten?" She knew the answer to this but didn't want to sound presumptuous.

"No, actually, I was just about to make my way down to the restaurant."

"Wonderful!" Natalia said exuberantly. She went back to the door and leaned out into the hallway to pull in the room service cart that she had brought up with her from the kitchen.

Antonio was now curious as to what was going on. He pointed to the covered plate of food that was being placed on the small table that came as a standard with each hotel room. "What's all this?" he asked.

Natalia began setting out the cutlery and poured them both a glass of wine. "This is dinner. Well, this is our dinner. As a family." She paused to gauge her father's reaction which was, at the moment, indiscernible.

"I didn't know we had dinner plans."

"We didn't," she straightened up to look at him. "But we do now. I mean, if that's alright with you." She waited for the response.

Antonio paused, still slightly hesitant.

His daughter sat down at the table and uncovered the plates and set the lids on the cart, which she then rolled to the side. The elder Rivera still hadn't answered. "Consider it more of a peace offering than a bribe, Dad," she said with a bit of a smile to show him that she meant no ill will. "I don't want to talk about the merger, and I don't want to argue. You will do what you think is best, I get that." She pointed to the food on the table. "I made this myself," she added. "Makes it more of a valid attempt, wouldn't you agree?"

Antonio smiled finally and nodded slowly. "Very well then," he rose from his seat at his desk and moved over to the table. "What's on the menu tonight?"

"Tandoori Chicken. I remember you mentioning you really enjoyed it when we had dined with the Malhotras at the Vama in London."

"Very good memory. I'm impressed."

"Have a seat." Natalia motioned to the chair.

The tension seemed to lift with each passing non-confrontational sentence. They began their meal.

"This is marvelous, Dear," Antonio praised.

"I thank you for the compliment, even if it is a bit biased."

Antonio chuckled. They ate in silence for the most part with both trying to think of neutral topics of conversation, occasionally mentioning things like the newest hotels being built in the area or discussing the mundane daily tasks involved in the maintenance of the Empire.

"I noticed that you didn't invite Mateo to this little get together."

Natalia sighed. She had wanted to get through the meal without bringing up touchy subjects, but it apparently was too much to hope for.

"That's because this is a 'family' dinner."

Antonio had expected this answer but thought he would try anyhow. "I had hoped that the two of you would one day be able to get along with one another."

It wasn't the first time she had heard this. In fact, it had been a recurring theme throughout her childhood. She knew it was her father's greatest wish. She also knew that, from the day that Mateo had landed on their door-step, that day would never come. It seemed useless to even try to pretend that she could try.

"Wasn't that written on one of my report cards from grade-school? 'Doesn't play well with others?'"

"You get that from me, I suppose. I was never much of a team player myself."

"Oh, I don't know about that Dad. Seems like you did quite a bit of playing in your day."

Natalia knew that she shouldn't have said it. It was as though her contempt of their past had taken up a mind of its own and had begun controlling her tongue. Antonio rested his fork on his plate and reached for his wine. The wall was being raised; his daughter could see it in his eyes. She silently wondered if it was the same wall that he had put up all those years ago; the one which had allowed him to do all of the things he had done. The things that she had never forgiven him for.

"I'm sorry," she offered sincerely. "I didn't come here to fight."

Her father sat back in his chair. "It seems as though it is a bit too easy for us to do that these days."

"I've been doing a lot of... reminiscing, lately."

"That's not usually the Rivera style," Antonio shook his head with a faked smile and resumed working on the rest of his meal, uneasy about where their conversation was headed.

"No, it isn't. I agree. We like to sweep things under the rug and pretend they never happened," Natalia said stoically before taken another bite of her meal.

"And now you think it's time to do some house cleaning?" He eyed Natalia suspiciously but noticed nothing about her mannerisms that would suggest that she wanted to engage in another embittered battle.

"Not necessarily," Natalia said calmly. "I think I just have a few questions..."

"Questions?"

"...that might help me figure things out in my own head... for my own peace of mind."

"Well, if it's peace of mind you want, I don't know if I can help you. I haven't had that in over 27 years," Antonio said with sadness in his voice.

"Why did you let it go?"

“That, my Dear, is too broad a question, one that has many answers. Go ahead.... narrow it down a little." It's time we talked about this; I would rather do it now, while you seem in good spirits, he thought to himself.

Natalia contemplated her next question thoroughly. She paused long enough to work up the courage to finally ask for the answers she had longed to hear for more than half her life. She looked at her father as he waited patiently. He seemed to know what was about to come his way and was more than willing to accommodate her. She leaned back in her chair and lowered her gaze to the napkin with which she had begun to fidget with nervous fingers.

"Why weren't we enough?" she asked quietly.

By being unable to look up after the words fell from her lips, Natalia missed seeing the expression on her father's face change from one of defensiveness to that of regret and pain. Or, more precisely, a look of regret for causing so much pain.

Antonio didn't move for a moment. It was as though he was frozen within the icy chill of the sentiment behind the question itself. He reached for his glass of wine and pushed his chair away from the table. Standing, he slowly turned and made his way to the couch in the middle of the room. He sat down with his back to Natalia.

She assumed that he was shutting down. That it meant that she would never fully understand the truth behind the events that had catapulted her life into its downward spiral. She rested her elbows on the table and covered her eyes with her hands.

"It wasn't that you weren't enough." Antonio's voice cut through the tense silence.

Natalia lowered her hands, but didn't make a sound, not wanting him to stop talking. Willing him to continue. And he did.

"It was that I had long since felt as though I was not enough."

Natalia gingerly removed herself from the table, bringing her own wine glass with her as she moved towards the couch.

Antonio waited until she had seated herself at the opposite corner. She faced him, tucking her left calf underneath her right thigh and resting her left arm over the low backrest. He stared into the middle of the room.

"We were in a place... your mother and I... where we were just living the same day, over and over again. And it wasn't exactly a bad day, but it was just... life had become stagnant. We were no longer excited about the goals we had already achieved or the dreams we had for the future."

He took a sip of his wine. "We loved each other very much. But I had forgotten what it felt like to be needed."

Antonio looked down into his wine glass, his brows furrowing as he relived the sadness of the past.

"And Mateo's mother? She helped you... remember?"

"She made me feel young again... powerful. Invincible, even. I felt like a god when I saw myself through her eyes – eyes that worshipped me."

Natalia was listening to both her father's words as well as the many different questions that each one of his sentences were creating within her own mind. "Did you ever try and fight it?" She asked, not wanting to sound too confrontational but simply not understanding how he could have let it get to the 'point of no return'.

"Every minute of every day, for months," he replied with great conviction.

"Why did you give in?"

Antonio contemplated his answer as if it were the first time he'd thought about it. In reality he had asked himself this very same question thousands of times. Throughout the years the answer had changed. He gave his daughter the latest version. "The idea of it became easier to accept, easier to justify. I was already losing touch with the love that your mother and I shared. This new desire felt more real to me." He didn't really know if he was making any sense.

He turned to his daughter. "Natalia, I would love nothing more than to tell you that I did everything I could think of to avoid it – to try and stay faithful. That I didn't think about how it would hurt your mother even if she had never found out. But that would be a lie. I purposefully put myself in situations where I would need to be around her, knowing that sooner or later it was going to happen." He closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead with his fingertips. "And I knew, long before I slept with her, that I was already hurting your mother."

"And you did it anyway."

"And I did it anyway."

There was a long pause as both of them reflected.

"I know you want to know 'why'," he said in an almost small voice. "I have no answer to that. I have no explanation as to how I could have been so selfish."

His daughter said nothing for a moment. She ran her thumb over the rim of her glass.

"Have you ever wondered what life might have been like if you hadn't done it?"

"Every day since."

"That perhaps mom may have actually wanted to live if she believed she still had a heart?" There was the anger. Slow smoldering, orange coals that were being fanned with each new word.

"Yes, Natalia. I've never stopped regretting it."

"That maybe I wouldn't have rebelled the way I did?" Natalia continued as her pain helped her poured forth the 'what-ifs?'.

"Natalia..."

"There HAS to be a 'why'!" She felt one tear make its way out of the corner of her eye. She wasn't even aware that she was crying.

"Because the 'why' would help you understand why you made your own mistakes? That's not how it works, Natalia."

"I made mine because I hated yours." Natalia's voice was low and cold. "Whatever... I don't want to talk about me."

"Will you ever be able to forgive me for what I did to you?"

Natalia sighed. She hadn't wanted to bring it all up. It was inevitable though. The way one thing would always lead to the other. But it was too much.

"Father..." She calmed her voice and looked him in the eyes. "I may now have a little more of an understanding as to how you got the point to where you could make the mistake that ruined your entire family but don't expect me to forgive you for everything that happened because of it. That's far too much to ask of me."

"I will keep asking."

"I know." Natalia wiped her cheeks of the remaining evidence of her pain. "I have to get going..."

"Natalia..." Antonio tried to interject and ask her to stay.

"I'll wait until I hear when the next meeting will be held and I will see you then." She went back to the table and cleared both settings, piling everything onto the cart quickly. Antonio watched silently as she hurried to leave, not knowing what else he could say.

Heading towards the door, Natalia looked back at her father. The man she had once considered her hero, now slouched, sipping his wine. Defeated.

She had wanted to hear the answers he had given her. But she felt as though she was no closer to knowing what to do about her own issues. She wondered if she, too, would live out the same mistakes over and over. If, perhaps, it was a family curse. She didn't want to believe that, but looking at the man sitting there now, she couldn't help but ask herself, once more, the one question that had been bothering her since she'd realized her heart was beginning to make room to allow another soul into it.

Am I destined to destroy all things 'beautiful'?

As she walked down the corridor to head to her room, for the first time in her life, Natalia sincerely hoped that wasn't the case.