"Brenda, you are home."

"Father." I nodded.

A pretty lady was standing beside my father and I guess she must be my soon-to-be stepmother.

"Here, I'll like to introduce you to a friend I knew from church. This is Cassandra."

Cassandra extended her hand to me. As usual, I stared at her for some time before accepting her hand. Her handshake was firm for a small lady.

"Hello Brenda. Your father has told me a lot about you."

How cliche, I thought. I nodded again at her and turned to my father. Before I could open my mouth, Cassandra spoke again.

"Clay, I'll love to get to know Brenda better. You mentioned that you were going to buy our dinner for us, didn't you?"

To my surprise, my father nodded and started out of the house. I blinked at his back and at Cassandra. This woman had the audacity to order my father around the house!

"Father, I need to..." I began.

"Later, Brenda. Dinner first." With that, he closed the door behind him. I decided that my father must be crazy. Leaving me alone with a stranger, in his house! Unless of course Cassandra isn't a stranger to him. Not for a long time, I guess.

I folded my arms and sat down on the sofa. I knew I was being rude but I really didn't care much about my mannerism. After all, she didn't show much respect for me when she intercepted my attempt to speak to my father and bossing him around as though she was the mistress of the house.

Cassandra looked at me steadily. After some cold silence, I decided that if she isn't going to say something, I would.

"Alright Cassandra, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Your father and I are getting married in September."

My jaws dropped. Of all the outrageous things I expected her to say, this was beyond my imagination. Perhaps I should say it was my worst nightmare.

When I kept silent, she continued.

"I know it probably comes as a shock.."

"Damn right you are."

Cassandra doesn't seem to be offended by my language. If anything, she appeared quite calm.

"Well, we wanted to tell you sooner but there had been no appropriate opportunity."

"And you think this is the best opportunity?" I snapped.

"No, just that since we couldn't find you most of the time, we decided that the best way perhaps, might be to just tell you straight and spare you all the preliminaries."

"Look here, you don't just barge into any man's house and tell his daughter that you are marrying her father without ANY preliminaries. Who do you think you are?" My blood started to boil. This woman was really too much.

Cassandra was quiet. She wet her dry lips and continued her argument.

"I understand how you must be feeling. If I were you, I would be mad too. But at least, please give me a chance to explain."

"I'll like to see you try." I stared at her coldly.

"Your father and I met about a year ago in the church. At first we were just friends. However it didn't take long before we realized that we have fallen in love with each other." She stopped.

"You are telling me nothing that I don't already know."

Cassandra didn't seem surprised at that.

"Well, we wanted to tell you about a month ago but it seems that you were not at home most of the time."

I knew she was right, but you don't try to reason and hope to succeed with someone who just discovered that her father is about to marry you on your first meeting with her.

In a way or so, I supposed my obstinacy; anger and feeling of betrayal robbed me of the ability to reason. I decided that I had enough of the woman and her excuses. I was angry with her, but more so with my father. I grew up without a mother. Just when I was doing fine getting on with that fact, he had to turn my life upside down by introducing a woman into my life whom I didn't and will never need.

"Maybe we should wait for your father to return before continuing this discussion."

Would it make a difference? I wondered. Apparently, they were going ahead with their wedding with or without my blessings. Suddenly I sighed heavily. I felt too tired to argue anymore. Father and I had never been close. What is the difference whether I have a stepmother or not? I probably wouldn't even be facing them more than twice everyday. However, I knew it was more than that. I guess I could swear all I want that I no longer held Father responsible for Mother's death, but perhaps deep down inside, I was still resentful. Now he is going to marry another woman without my prior knowledge.

Alright, granted that they did tell me now, still it could've been handled better than having a strange woman telling me she was about to join my family. I was still seething over this when Father returned with dinner. He seemed relieved that Cassandra and I am still in one piece. Perhaps he was worried that we were going to kill each other while he was gone.

"How was the talk, Cassandra?"

I wondered if he was going to speak to me.

"It was okay. But I think you should still talk to Brenda."

I wondered if I had suddenly turned invisible.

"Father, I think we need to talk." I started.

"Good."

"In the absence of Cassandra." I added.

He seemed startled, and then he heaved a great sigh, as though thinking to himself that it was inevitable that I would have something to say about this, which is true. Which sane daughter would welcome a stranger as a stepmother?

Cassandra glanced at Father and excused herself. Well, at least she had some manners.

"Father, how could you?!"

"Brenda, first and foremost, I do not need to explain myself to you. I am telling you because I feel that since you are my daughter I should at least let you know about this."

I couldn't believe my ears. Since when had Father turned into a male chauvinist?

"Well then in that case, I don't see the necessity of continuing this discussion. You are going to marry Cassandra whether I like it or not, right?"

Father hesitated. "I, or rather, Cassandra and I would of course like to have your approval and blessings. It makes things much easier and I would love it if you and Cassandra get along well. It would do you some good to have feminine companionship too, don't you agree?"

"It's a pity you didn't think of that during my adolescence years." I mumbled.

"What's that again?" Father narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I said I am doing fine the way I am. What's wrong with me?" I grumbled.

"Nothing much, I just thought it might be good for you to have a female companion."

"Whatever for? I have Joey and my friends. Aren't they enough? I have girl friends too, in case you failed to notice."

"But they cannot give you the right guidance, unlike an older female figure."

"Father, I am twenty years old, I don't need whatever kind of guidance you have in mind."

"So you think that the minute you turn twenty you can leave on your own? You think you are an adult? You are not! What you really are is just a child. You think you have seen enough of the world to fend for yourself?"

"I have always fend for myself since Mother died!" I glared at him.

Father kept quiet. I could feel my anger rising when the subject of Mother was brought up.

"You think that you are marrying for my sake, don't you? Well you are wrong. You are marrying for yourself, your own sake. If there was at any one time that I needed a mother, it was during my teenage years. You failed to do that. Instead, you chose to wallow in self-pity. Even when I was well over my own grief, you were still turning to bottles for comfort. Where were you when I returned home hungry from school? Where were you when I needed a parent to hold me after fights in school? And don't you dare tell me I deserved it after getting myself into trouble. I wasn't the one picking fights, but you never asked, did you?"

I stopped and wiped a tear away from my eyes.

"Mother died giving birth to me, didn't she? Where were you when she needed help during her labor? You were never around when we both needed you, Father. Why the sudden concern now that I needed a stepmother? Someone to look up to? If you are getting lonely and looking for a woman to serve you for the rest of your life, say so. Don't invent excuses like you did and try to convince yourself and others that you are doing it for them, because you are not. The only thing you proved was that you are a coward, afraid of admitting the truth. You are a weakling, since you were never sober much of the time. You have been, and you will always be. Letting Cassandra do the dirty work of telling me about this proves this point."

I stopped again, but this time I didn't bother waylaying the stream of tears running down my cheeks.

There really wasn't any need to. The smack of Father's palm across my cheek wiped most of it away.

I vaguely realized that it was the first time Father had raised a hand to me. I turned and stormed out of the house. I heard Cassandra called after me but Father stopped her cold with his holler.

"Let her go!"

I continued running. I could hear Cassandra raised her voice at Father. I turned at the corner of the streets and I could hear no more.