We went to a local coffee shop, the one I could not stand. I did not want to take him to Rainbow Cafe, that is my favorite place. I want that cafe to be a special place for me alone, I did not want him there, to keep away bad memories.

"Okay," I said immediately after we sat on a fancy wooden chair, across each other at a table beautifully designed to look romantic. We sat like lovebirds in a date. "Why are you here?"

He looked at the coffee cup in his hands, and I looked away from him, took my eyes to the window, pretending to enjoy the view of vehicles and building outside the cafe. Then I looked at his coffee, I noticed, the cup was a smallest size, black coffee. The most affordable thing on the menu.

He was not the man I know who request for cheap things on the menu. He believed that presenting oneself as poor attracted poverty, or he always said fake it until you make it. Seeing his smallest cup of coffee between us scared me even more than his crying did. What if he is faking the tears, in order to manipulate me, and by acting like he had lost every possessions he had?

This is strange, something bad must have happened.

"Jessica, please I need you to help me," He said abruptly, catching me off guard. "My life is not going as planned, and I can not fix what is happening to me. I am here because I need you and you alone can fix it. Please, Jessica."

What is this man saying? Oh god. I rose to my feet. "Were you lying when you said it is about my Mom?," I lashed out. "We are done here, I am leaving."

"She is sick."

Maybe, I mused, sitting back on my seat, is a good idea.

I sat down. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. "What?" I responded, foolishly.

His eyes filled with unshed tears again, and I also felt pity for him because the tears looked genuine. With confusion, I wondered why will my father cry over his wife? As far as I could tell, he had stopped caring about her immediately after their wedding.

"She is battling with cancer," his words caught in his throat, giving way to tears.

A strange feeling of cold enveloped me. I stared at my hands, I bend and twisted my wrist to get some warmth back. "I do not understand when you said she is battling with cancer!" I knew it was not a right thing to say but I could not help myself. I called my mom few days ago and she sounded fine or was she hiding her health condition from me by pretending to be fine?! And my father had to travel all the way down to give me this information about my mom health. None of this made sense. How come she did not inform me when I call her? Maybe she was already seeing a doctor and getting treated.

None of this thought could change anything.

I looked at my father, he brought his handkerchief from his back pocket and used it to wipe his eyes, then shook his head. " We got the news from the doctor few weeks ago," he told me, " but we have not started chemotherapy."

Dryness overtook my mouth, leaving me speechless. "Why haven't you?"

As he covered his face with his hands, I was taken aback by what I saw. His hands had age marks, wrinkled like paper. I did not noticed at first that his hands looks like a hand of an old man.

" I do not have anything left. Jessica, I have lost everything," he said.

My mouth hung open in disbelief "What do you mean, you have lost everything?"

He was unable to speak but shook his head and inhaled deeply. "I have spent all I have on her health," he said finally. "There is no money left in my bank account."

My lips drew into a tight line. "Gone, how?" This made no sense at all. I have known my father as a bloody rich man, richer than Bill Gates. How could all this money just disappear? "How did you spend all your money? Your cars? What about all your expensive art works?"

"It’s all dependent on borrowed resources. Everything. I owe it all."

I was overwhelmed by a numbing sensation. "Wait! Are you talking about your own savings or the company's asset and equity?"

"Both the company and my savings."

"You crossed the streams?" I find it hard to believe because, I know the company has enough assets and money to support any enterprise- project, even the one they know will lead to loss.

"It was for my personal gain. I wanted to establish a new firm on my own without the help of anyone. But it failed. And the company.. I do not know, making profit from a business or company is not as easy as it used to. We are ran out on losses. I have nothing left."

I sat quietly, lost in thought. On the other side of the coffee shop, I heard a loud laughter, the sound got me angry.

"Are you high on drugs?" I asked finally. "Why did you mess up so bad?"

He finally removed his hands off his face and looked down at his coffee. "Maybe," he answered. "Maybe I was high on drugs."

Fuck, I said murmured. "To what amount are you indebted to?"

He revealed the amount of money he’d lost. The figures he told me was so huge, that I could not explain. Even if a plane was full of money and I got to the ocean throwing bags of dollars into the ocean, I would not have made some of the money he had wasted.

I sat still, looking at him with annoyance. "Oh my God, are you for real? Even people who smoke and drink manage money more better than this. What the fuck is your problem?"

He said nothing more than a head shake. I already knew that was all I was going to get from him.

I pulled back in my sit, my mind spinning. "Why don’t you think about filing for bankruptcy protection?"

"We can not file for bankruptcy because, it is my life, Jessica." At this moment, I do not want him to call my name. "But I can still work on, I just need more money. I think one of the ways I can fix it, is by lying about the figures and get it, but..." He paused what he was saying, and gazed at me. "Your mom would have started the treatment two weeks ago. But I could not afford chemotherapy. We are have not paid for some drugs we got from the hospital, Our HMO subscription has expired. All the bills are past due, I can not use my credit card because the bank has blocked it.