He pulled out an envelope and offered it to me. I stared at it without moving.

"What's that?" I managed.

"It will explain a little. But you need to come with me right now. He's waiting for us." "Who's waiting?" "Your father."

My mouth dropped open. Out of everything he could have said to me, I couldn't have expected that. At all.

"You're obviously mistaken," I said. "I don't have a father."

"You do. Please, take the envelope."

My fear and anger were quickly losing ground to a deep annoyance. "Look, I don't know who put you up to this, but it's not funny."

The hand that held the envelope dropped a little. Michael seemed uncertain of what to do now, since I wasn't being at all agreeable. "He… he said you'd be surprised to hear from him after all this time, but there's no other way."

"My father sent you to give me a message," I said with major disbelief.

"And to bring you to his side."

I still couldn't believe I was hearing him correctly. "Well… why you?"

He frowned. "Because he asked me to."

This was so unreal. I'd barely thought about my father for years. It helped that my mother refused to talk about him even on the rare occasion that I was curious to learn more about where I came from. I guess being left alone and pregnant at eighteen might make you have a tendency to want to forget the somebody who's treated you so badly. Made sense to me.

Michael waited patiently with his arms crossed, the envelope held loosely in his right hand.

"Let me tell you a little something about my father," I said. My headache was getting worse the longer I talked to this weirdo. "He got my mother pregnant and then he disappeared without a trace and left her all on her own. Sixteen years and he hasn't tried to see me. Not once. Not a letter, a phone call, or an e-mail. So even if I did believe you, why would I want to see him at all?"