Old Dad Goes to Visit Daughter for His 80th Birthday, She Doesn't Even Let Him Into Her House – Story of the Day

Richard surprises his daughter with a visit to celebrate his eightieth birthday with her, but she answers the door in tears and sends Richard away. Richard guesses something is wrong but doesn’t realize how much trouble his daughter is in until he peeks through her front windows.

Richard grinned widely as the highway took him into the town where his daughter, Deidre, lived. Fall had come early to Minnesota that year, and the trees put on a spectacular display of color as he headed for the neighborhood where Deidre lived.

He tapped his fingers nervously against the steering wheel while he drove. He'd been planning this surprise visit for weeks and couldn't wait to see the look on Deidre's face when he appeared on her doorstep.

He hadn’t seen his daughter since his wife’s funeral, four years ago. They spoke on the phone every week, but it wasn't the same. Nothing was really the same since his wife died. Deidre used to drive through every Thanksgiving, but those visits stopped after the funeral. As the years rolled past, Richard missed his daughter more and more.

At last, he pulled into her driveway. Deidre started a home business the previous year. She rarely divulged any details about her life, answering all his questions with 'everything's fine,' so he was curious to see how well she was doing for himself.

Richard knocked on the door. When Deidre opened the front door, he spread his arms wide and yelled: "Surprise!"

"Dad? What are you doing here?" Tears ran freely down Deidre's face as she looked at Richard in horror.

"I came to celebrate my birthday with you...it's the big eight-oh, and I wanted to spend it with my daughter." Richard reached out to take Deidre's hand. "What's going on, honey? Why are you crying?"

"It's nothing; everything’s fine." Deidre quickly wiped her eyes and smiled a little. "I just... I wasn't expecting you and this isn't really a good time."

"I know you're probably busy, but I can wait." Richard leaned sideways to catch Deidre's eye as she glanced over her shoulder. "I'll quietly camp on your couch and watch TV—"

"No, you can't come in." Deidre closed the door until only half her face was visible. "Sorry, Dad, but I...uh, need to focus. On my work. We'll have dinner later, okay?"

"But I—"

Deidre shut the door, leaving Richard standing on the doorstep feeling hurt and confused. Mostly, he was worried about the way Deidre was acting. His daughter was crying when she answered the door and hadn't told him why.

Something strange was going on here. Richard stepped back from the front door but couldn’t bring himself to leave. Instead, he stepped over the short, flowering shrubs lining the path and snuck up to peek through the front windows.

Richard peered through the glass and immediately ducked down. Two rough-looking men were in the sitting room with Deidre. They stood on either side of her like they were keeping her penned in.

"Who was that?" One of the men asked in a rough voice.

"Nobody," Deidre replied in a shaky voice. "The neighborhood kids sometimes prank people by ringing their doorbells and taking off."

"Back to business then," the second man said. "You’re now six months behind on your loan repayments, Deidre. Mr. Marco is starting to get impatient."

"I just need a little more time, please!" Deidre pleaded. “Business is sure to pick up again in the winter.”

Richard slowly turned and peered through the windows again. His heart broke at the sight of his daughter hunched over and begging before one of the men.

"Deidre, sweetheart, time is the one thing you don't have."

Terror froze Richard in place as he watched the man pull out a gun.

“See this gun?” The man asked. “People who owe Mr. Marco money don’t have a great life expectancy. They tend to end up feeding the fish in the lake…I’m sure you know what I mean. If you keep skipping your payments…”

The man pointed the gun at Deidre, and she sank to the floor, sobbing. Soon, he stepped back with a look of disgust and tucked the gun away in the waistband of his trousers.

"Fine, we'll give you one last chance. Danny, look around this dump and see if there's anything valuable we can take back to Mr. Marco. She's a businesswoman so there must be a computer around here somewhere or some kind of equipment."

"But I need those things!" Deidre started to reach for the man but seemed to change her mind. "I won't be able to earn the money I need to repay my loan if you take my equipment."

"Don't be ungrateful, Deidre." The man patted the butt of his gun. "I can still change my mind."

The men left the room, leaving Deidre curled up in a sobbing heap on the floor. Richard struggled to process what he'd just seen. Deidre had never mentioned that she'd loaned money from rough folks like these.

Nothing made sense, but one thing was clear to Richard: Deidre needed his help. He crept back to his car and parked a little way further down the street, where he could watch Deidre's house.

Fifteen minutes later, the second man appeared at the front door carrying a computer printer. He loaded it into the trunk of an SUV parked at the curb, then went back inside. The men loaded several more appliances from Deidre's home. When they finally drove away, Richard followed them.

The men led him to a two-storey brick building downtown. Signage on the wall beside the entrance stated that it was some kind of club. Richard watched them carry Deidre’s possessions inside with a frown.

This was clearly a front for some kind of criminal enterprise, but Richard didn’t hesitate to go in after the men. The door was unlocked, even though the club was closed, and no staff was nearby to stop him as he entered the building.

The men had joined a large table where several other rough-looking men were seated. One of them stood and swaggered toward him.

“The club’s closed,” he growled. “Come back later.”

"I’m here to discuss Deidre's debt," Richard announced.

"Oh?" The man seated at the head of the table rose and stared at Richard. "Speak fast then old-timer because Deidre's on thin ice already and I don't have the patience for any more time wasting."

Unlike the others, this man wore a well-tailored suit and, with the exception of a nasty scar above his left eye, looked like a gentleman. Richard assumed he must be the leader of this gang, the 'Mr. Marco' he’d heard the thugs mention earlier.

"Well, I want to pay off her debt." Richard straightened his shoulders so he'd appear more confident than he felt. "How much does she owe you?"

Mr. Marco smiled. "A good samaritan, huh? But you have no idea what you're offering... Deidre took out a business loan from me to the tune of 80,000 dollars. She was supposed to pay me back from her monthly profits, only she never made any."

Richard frowned as he recalled various phone conversations with Deidre where he'd pressed her for details about her business and what she did. He'd been excited that she'd set out to do something for herself and happy every time she replied that the business was doing well.

Deidre had been lying all along. This realization made Richard sick to his stomach.

"I have around 20,000 dollars in my savings," Richard said. "You can have all of it—"

Mr. Marco interrupted Richard with a heavy sigh. "That's only a quarter of what she owes us. However, there's something else you can do to make up the difference."

Richard didn't like the sound of that, but he had to do whatever it took to save his daughter from the mess she'd gotten herself into.

"What do you want me to do?" Richard asked.

"It's a small job." Mr. Marco grinned at Richard and beckoned him closer to the table. "My partner and I recently started a small business importing cars to Canada, but some of the paperwork has been delayed so we're having difficulties getting the merchandise across the border. That's where you come in."

"A kind, innocent-looking Grandpa like you should have no trouble crossing the border in one of our cars," the man continued. "I'll even arrange transport back into the States for you. Simple, huh?"

Richard chewed his lower lip as he thought about the gangster's proposition. Exporting the car without the proper papers was undoubtedly illegal, but it seemed reasonably low risk compared to what was at stake for Deidre if he refused.

"Okay," Richard said, "I'll do it."

The gangster walked up to Richard with a wide grin, put an arm around his shoulder, and escorted him to a parking lot at the back of the club. A row of cars were parked there. Soon, he followed the GPS app on his phone to the border crossing in the next town.

The car wasn't at all what Richard had expected. He'd assumed the gangster would be exporting muscle cars to Canada, or something similar, not a beat-up old Valiant. Nonetheless, the car ran smoothly as he zoomed down the Freeway.

Richard pulled into a gas station near the border town to use the bathroom and parked beside a patrol car. He climbed out and got the fright of his life when a dog barked in his ear.

He spun around. A German Shepherd in the back of the police cruiser was barking at him and pawing at the window. That struck him as strange.

Surely service dogs were trained not to bark at random people unless...Richard glanced over his shoulder at the Valiant.

A chill ran down Richard's spine as he realized there might be more to the old car than met the eye. He quickly climbed back in and started reversing. The police dog went crazy.

Two cops hurried out of the gas station store. They glanced at the dog, then turned to glare at Richard.

"Stop right there!" One of the cops yelled as he raced toward Richard.

Richard ignored him. Tires squealed as he peeled out of the gas station and raced away. His GPS app voiced directions, but Richard shoved it in his pocket to silence the darn thing. His only thought was to get as far away from the cops as quickly as possible.

Sirens sounded behind him, and Richard swore as he spotted the police cruiser's flashing lights in his rearview mirror. Panicked and desperate, Richard drove like a maniac down the highway. He pushed the old car to its limits as he wove through traffic, leaving a trail of outraged drivers and narrowly-avoided collisions in his wake.

But those flashing lights remained in his rearview mirror. He was reaching his wit’s end when he noticed road signs for a national park ahead. That might be his chance to escape.

Richard soon spotted a narrow unmarked dirt road veering into the forest up ahead. He sharply turned, leaving the road behind him as he raced into the forest.

The muddy trails were awful to navigate in the Valiant, but Richard pushed on. Golden tamarack trees towered overhead, but the dark, peaty ground made the area seem ominous. Richard turned down a narrow track leading downhill.

He wanted to find cover so he could stop and figure out his next move. Branches scraped along the car's sides as Richard skidded and bumped deeper into the park. He turned up a slight rise and instantly regretted it.

The car was now stuck in a precarious position, balanced on a narrow rise above a wide river. Richard tried to reverse back the way he came, but the tires spun without getting traction. In fact, the car was sliding closer to the water.

“No!” Richard desperately pulled up the parking brake, but it didn’t seem to be working.

The car’s nose hit the river with a loud splash, sending a wave of dark water flooding over the bonnet.

There was only one thing for it. Richard shoved the car door open, desperate to escape the sinking vehicle.

The pressure from the water started to push the car door shut against Richard's legs. He frantically crawled backward and threw his weight against the door. The Valiant tipped sideways, and water flooded inside.

Richard splashed around in panic as the river filled the interior. Soon, it was up to his neck. There was only one way he could escape. As the water level crept up his face, he tipped his head back, took one last breath, and pulled himself underwater.

He braced himself against the dashboard and kicked the door. It opened and stayed open as it jammed against something hidden in the muddy river bottom. Richard squeezed himself out of the opening and pushed himself up toward the surface.

Richard gasped in a lungful of air and swam toward the river bank. As he clawed out of the water, he looked over his shoulder to see if he might somehow rescue the car.

As he looked on, the car's back end suddenly swayed almost vertically into the air, and a series of bubbles boiled along the surface of the water.

It seemed like only a few moments passed before it vanished beneath the water.

Richard stared at the water. He was shivering, and every breath burned his throat. Dear God, he’d almost drowned. He rubbed his arms as he looked at the spot where the car sank.

A realization colder than the brisk Fall chill settled on him then. All his hopes of saving his daughter had drowned alongside that stupid car. There was no way he could retrieve it from the river. He and Deidre were screwed.

Eventually, Richard realized there was one last thing he could try to get the full 80,000 dollars he needed.

He slowly stood and climbed up the bank. Before he could implement his plan, he needed to get back to civilization and out of his wet, filthy clothes.

Richard hitchhiked home to Hibbing. He hated to leave Deidre, but he needed paperwork from his home to pull off his plan. He took several documents from his locked desk drawer and went straight to the bank.

"I need to mortgage my house," he told the assistant who helped him. "And I need the cash in my bank account fast."

Richard waited impatiently as the bank employee processed the paperwork. A day had passed, and he realized the gangsters must be concerned about the fate of their car. He was terrified they might take their frustrations out on Deidre in the meanwhile.

He jumped in fright when his phone started ringing. The caller ID showed Deidre was calling him.

"Deidre, is everything okay?" he asked.

"No, Dad, it isn't. Some thugs from a local gang were just here asking about you...what on Earth is going on?"

"Just let them know I'll be there soon. I arranged to pay off your debt for you, but it's become a little more complicated than I anticipated."

"What? But how did you even find out about that? I never told you I had to take a loan from those gangsters."

"I know, but you should've," Richard sighed.

"I don't understand why you didn't come to me first, Deidre, but this isn't the time to discuss this. Tell those men I'll meet them in about three hours with the cash to cover your debt."

Richard ended the call and signed the papers the bank employee pushed toward him. He left the bank with a muddied sense of relief. On one hand, he’d just mortgaged the house where he’d made most of his happy memories with his family. He didn’t want to give that up, but it was the only permanent solution to Deidre's problem he could think of.

A few hours later, he pulled into the club's parking lot in a rented car and headed toward the entrance.

"Dad, wait!"

Richard looked back as Deidre ran toward him. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Richard shut his eyes as he squeezed her. His beautiful daughter...he'd missed hugging her. It seemed like such a small, silly thing, but he wished he could bottle this moment and keep it forever.

"What are you doing here, honey?" Richard asked.

"I won't let you face those thugs alone," she said. "I still don't understand how you found out about this mess, or how you got the money to repay them, but the least I can do is stand by you while you save me."

Richard smiled and put his palm on her cheek. "I'd rather you didn't, honey. It's not safe."

"It's not safe for you either, Dad! I'm not letting you go in there alone."

Richard studied the determined look in Deidre's eyes and knew he couldn't convince her to leave.

"Okay...but I want you to stay behind me and if anything goes wrong—"

"I'm not leaving you," Deidre said.

Richard entered the club with Deidre. Thugs immediately surrounded them.

"Oh, look! It's our missing driver." Mr. Marco stood and beckoned to them. "Bring him here so he can explain himself. Bring the girl too."

Fear prickled along the back of Richard's neck as the thugs herded him and Deidre toward the table. He placed his duffle bag, which contained the cash he'd withdrawn after the mortgage went through, and put it on the table.

"Here's the 80,000 dollars Deidre owed you plus another 15,000 to cover the cost of your car. Unfortunately, I...uh, got into some trouble and the car ended up in a river."

Mr. Marco's mouth twisted angrily, and he thumped his fist against the table.

"You stupid old man! You come in here and tell me you sank the 100,000 dollar shipment hidden in that car and think everything will be fine? A measly 15,000 doesn't even begin to cover what you now owe me."

The gangster grabbed the duffle bag and threw it to one of his thugs. He then leaned forward to glare at Richard.

"Now, tell me how the hell you plan to repay your debt and make up for the disaster you've created?"

"I don't know...I can't! I mortgaged my house to get that money. There's nothing else I can give you. If I'd known there was something in the car—"

"You would've ratted me out," Mr. Marco interrupted. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know, Deidre, I really believed in you, but sometimes in business, you've got to know when to cut your losses. Unfortunately, you and pops here have become a liability."

The gangster removed a gun from his suit jacket and pointed it straight at Deidre's forehead.

"No!" Richard pulled Deidre behind him. "This is all my fault. Don't punish Deidre for my mistake."

"You make a good point."

The gangster shrugged, and the next moment, Richard was staring down the gun barrel. He heard Deidre scream, but it seemed distant even though she was right by him. Mr. Marco’s finger seemed to flex against the trigger in slow motion.

Then Richard heard police sirens outside.

"Police! Disarm and get down on the floor with your hands in the air!" A voice announced over a loudhailer.

Immediately, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire boomed through the interior. Mr. Marco turned and ran toward the back of the club. Several of his thugs followed.

"Get down!" Deidre put her hands on Richard's shoulder and pushed.

Father and daughter crawled under the table. It was chaos in the club, and as Richard looked into his daughter's fear-filled eyes, he knew he had to get her to safety, no matter what.

It was impossible to speak over the sound of the guns, so Richard relied on hand signals to communicate his plan to Deidre. She nodded, and the pair crawled along the floor.

Richard and Deidre pulled one of the tables over and barricaded themselves in a corner. They hid there until the police escorted them to safety.

Richard watched from the back of an ambulance as the police arrested the thugs and Mr. Marco. His attempts to escape had been unsuccessful.

"Your pulse rate is still very high, sir," a medic said. "Are you certain you don't have any heart-related health issues?"

Richard shook his head. He couldn't tell the medic his heart was racing because he was expecting a police officer to approach at any minute to arrest him! He may have failed to smuggle the car and whatever it contained across the border, but the cops might still charge him for being associated with these criminals.

He looked across at Deidre, who was being treated for shock. She seemed to have curled in on herself. He hated to see his daughter suffering but took heart from the fact that she was alive and free of her debt.

"Excuse me, sir. I need to speak with you and the young lady."

Richard looked up. He swallowed hard when he saw the police detective standing just outside the ambulance. The time had come for him to face the music.

The detective looked sternly at Richard. “Sir, what were you and your daughter doing in this club today?”

Richard told the police about Deidre’s loan and how they’d come to the club that day to repay it. He hoped he might get away with not mentioning the car he sank in the river.

"Well, you should not be taking out loans from such disreputable people, miss.” The detective glanced at Deidre. “You both are very lucky we arrived here when we did. If we hadn’t found a car full of contraband in the river, we wouldn’t have been here to rescue you."

“A car in the river?” Richard asked nervously.

The detective nodded. “It was registered to Mr. Marco’s cousin, which was exactly the lead we needed to take this gang down. We don’t know how it got there, but that’s not a major concern right now.”

Richard sighed. It seemed like he was in the clear!

Once they'd finished providing their statements, the detective let Deidre and Richard go. They were walking around to the front, where Richard's car was still parked. Deidre put a hand on Richard's arm to make him pause.

"I owe you a huge apology, Dad." Deidre frowned and bit her lip. "I dragged you into this whole mess."

"No...that's the problem, Deidre. You didn’t drag me into this, and you should've...I'm your Dad! You should've told me you were in trouble, instead, I had to find out for myself."

"I'm sorry." Tears filled Deidre's eyes. "I...I didn't know how to tell you! How does anyone tell their father that they're a huge failure?"

"You are not a failure!" Richard put his hands on Deidre's shoulders. "Maybe your business idea didn't work out as well as you'd hoped, but you tried, Deidre. That's what matters. I just wish you’d felt comfortable enough to tell me what was really going on in your life."

"Dad..."

Deidre didn't finish her thought, but she didn't need to. He saw the doubt and uncertainty in her eyes. Richard sighed.

"When your mother was alive, you and she used to spend hours speaking on the phone." Richard smiled fondly. "She'd go sit out on the porch with her coffee and her phone and I wouldn't see her for the rest of the afternoon...I wish you and I spoke like that."

"Heck, I just wish you felt you could be as honest with me as you were with your mother," he continued. "Every time we've spoken over the past four years, you've told me everything's fine, but it wasn't." Richard put his arm around Deidre.

"I don't think you've been 'fine' for quite a while now."

Deidre burst into tears. Richard hugged her tightly and let her cry into his shoulder as she babbled about how difficult it had been to start her business, the heartbreak she'd suffered when her last relationship ended badly, and everything else that had been eating away at her.

Richard kissed the top of Deidre's head. It killed him to know his only child had kept so much pent-up inside her, but he was glad she was finally opening up to him.

"It's okay, honey," he whispered soothingly. "Everything's going to be okay now."

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