I Still...

Chapter 6

"No, I want that revised. Get with our corporate lawyer if we can get anyway around it. Yes. Thank you." Dara hung up before she answered another call that is on hold on line 2. "Dara speaking. Yes, Mr. Chen. I am reviewing the files for our Tokyo location. Can I get back to you on it by tomorrow, at the latest? Thank you." She hung up only to see her secretary's line beeping.. She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh before oressing the speaker to answer. "Yes?"

"Ms. Dara, Mr. So is on line 3?"

"Tell him I'm on a meeting and will call him later at 2. Or make that 4," Dara instructed before pressing the speaker off to end the call. She leaned in her chair to get some rest for a second before turning her attention back at her computer again. She should have been used to this by now since it has already been a month but it's still overwhelming her. Her father's job is definitely not a joke.

Her secretary's line beeped again and she pressed to answer. "Yes."

"Chairman is on line 1 Ms. Park."

Dara paused before rolling her eyes in exasperation. She pressed line 1 to answer. "Dad, why're you calling through my secretary?"

"Is that anyway to greet your sick father?"

"Only when the sick father is being a pest," Dara answered.

Her dad grumbled. "You're not answering your phone. I already called 5 times."

Dara took her phone from her pocket and realized she had turned it off on silent. Ooops.

"How're you holding up?" her dad asked her.

"Dad," Dara said wryly. "I have been here for a month and you are still asking that."

"I'm kinda worried about you," her dad answered. "I don't think it's the right time to be sent to the hospital."

"No time is the right time to be hospitalized dad," Dara said. "Just get youself better. I already promised you I'll take care of this company and I won't let you down. Did you see the reports I sent Carswell? We are up by 5% on sales."

She could only hear her dad sigh and know that he felt sorry for thrusting the position to her so suddenly when he had suffered another attack last month. She had rushed to the hospital when Carswell told her the Chairman was found slumped on the floor pale and barely breathing. His condition stabilized the day after he was in the hospital but he was unconscious for nearly 4 days. The doctor had told Dara that the Chairman can no longer handle stress and one last attack could mean his death. Without thinking twice, she had submitted her resignation on WinKon and packed all her things. Her station manager isn't glad to see her go, especially just after her promotion, but he understood. She felt lonely leaving all the people she had gotten friends with working under the Station but her father needs her now.

When her father had woken up, she announced that she is already starting to work for Park industries with Carswell's guidance and for her father to get well sooner so her position in the company would be official.

"Don't worry about me dad," Dara said with a fond smile. "You had let me do the things I want to do ever since I'm little and I'm really grateful that you had given me five years to work on my own and it means a lot to me. Get yourself better okay so you can get your things in your office and I can move in. The one they gave me is too small and stuffy Your office is a lot nicer."

Her dad chuckled. "I'm already better."

"Say that when I can see you walking again," Dara said with a scowl. Seeing her father in the hospital looking thinner and thinner each day is making her heart twist into knots and it's difficult because she had to pretend everything is fine and cheery for her while she looks at him. She could remember the face of her once-bulky father, her hero when she was a child, her frenemy in highschool, her everything in her life wash away into a skinny sickly-looking 70 year-old man. Her dad is too young to rot into a withered, shrunken man. "Or when you can eat without the support of an IV."