Papa Bear

Chapter Three

The next day, Dimmi had zoom calls with a few clients that wanted to launch a marketing campaign and chose her little company to be in charge of the designing of the brand. It was the break she needed, and she hated the long hour meetings to sooth their needs and to show them what she worked on the past week.

She left a note for the girls on the fridge where to find their lunches.

Around four, she finally ended the zoom meeting and sighed. She pushed herself out of her chair and rushed out the door, up the stairs to say hi to the girls.

Both sat behind their computers, busy with homework, and Dimmi left so that they could finish.

Around five, Danny called out to her. She knew it was Danny, as Lizzy squeaked like a mouse. That girl needed a confident booster.

"Kitchen," she replied as she cut up vegetables while the macaroni was boiling on the stove.

Danny stormed in, followed by Liz that hid behind her twin.

Dimmi's gaze flickered from Danny to Liz, her eyebrows furrowing. "Everything okay, girls?"

"No, what is this?" Danny put her laptop on the table. Dimmi squinted and bent over to get a clearer shot at the guy on the computer, wiping her hands on a dishcloth.

Oh, fuck! Her eyes grew slightly as she saw the picture she used 14 years ago to patch up Chad's face, in order to give the girls a father. Her heart pounded faster and the demonic fear squeezed her chest as she kept staring at his photo. How on earth did they get this? It was a 14-year-old photo.

"It's Dad, but it's not!" Danny said, as her jaw muscles pumped. "Don't say we are imagining it."

"Where...?" Dimmi cleared her throat. "How did you find this?"

"In digital art class, today." Liz peeped like a mouse.

"What is this? Why is it Dad's face?" Danny yelled.

"Give me a few seconds, okay." She put off the stove and walked out of the kitchen.

"Mom!"

"Give me a few seconds, Danny!"

Dimmi shut her office door and rummaged her drawers. Her hands shoved books and mail away in search of her Alzam. She never used to get panic attacks. It started when the girls had found one of the two movies she acted in, Down Under. She'd laughed it off, saying that she would never be as beautiful as Shania White.

Then they found a post about Shania listed she had died and discovered that she was a South African when the girls were thirteen. She gave them an Oscar winning performance and told her that Shania had died. Their mother was alive and well, with a heartbeat. The girls somehow bought it. They hadn't asked her Shania White questions after that.

The girls couldn't help but see the similarities. The panic attacks started after that. They just crept up on her and a fear she'd never felt her entire life overtook her more than a few times.

Chad knew her real name. She met him way before she got famous. They both shared the same dream in life. They wanted to become actors. Something Danny shared. Dimmi had always teased Danny about what a real top class drama queen she was and a few minutes ago, the girls discovered what she had done more than a decade ago. How the hell did this guy still have a profile?

She was so sure that fourteen years ago, his photos would've been off sites, buried, something of his past by now, but guessed she went with the wrong model as he actually had thousands of photos now, all taken at different ages and the photo that the girls focused on was the same one she used to doctor Chad's photo to give the girls a father.