Ranger got off the plane 20 minutes late. He picked up a rental car and drove the short distance to his office's apartment. He needed to talk to Diana, but he wanted to take a shower first.
Thirty minutes later, he was on the road again, this time to his daughters house. His relationship with Diana was complicated. For starters, they had never married. In his Senior year, he had met her and got her pregnant. Her father refused to let Ranger anywhere near his daughter again. To end any chance of a accidental bump in, he sent Diana to California to live with her aunt. By the time she returned, with a six-month old Ashley, Ranger was about to ship out for Iraq.
He visited his daughter every chance he had while he was on leave, then finally quit to stay home. But Diana refused to let him back into her life. Her father and aunt had brainwashed her and she was no longer the starry eyed little girl that had fallen to bed with him. She was a devil-horned monster who's only mission in life was to see that Ranger suffered.
Over the years, Ranger visited his daughter for the holidays, and on her birthday, and a few times in between. His daughter hated her mother as much as he did, though no influence by him. Diana had endured a lot of grief over being a mother at 18. In a lot of ways, it seemed that she felt it as a burden. She blamed Ashley, she blamed Ranger, she blamed everyone for her every displeasure.
Ranger and Ashley were both sick of it.
But no matter how he felt about Diana, he was still stuck with her. For every hate he hated her for, he love his daughter. She was everything she wasn't. And now she was in trouble.
He pulled to the curb and stopped. His daughter's car was in the drive, and Diana's was presumably in the garage. He walked up the front porch, and before he was even three steps into their property, the door was swung open and Ashley flung her arms around his neck. She buried her head into his shoulder and continued to cry the soft cries he'd heard over the phone.
Finally, she pulled away. "Hi daddy." She said softly and whipped tears from her eyes.
"What's wrong, kiddo?" He asked, and they began to walk into the house.
Ashley said nothing. She watched her feet as she walked, but Ranger watched her face. There was something forming in her mind. Something was terribly wrong, and she couldn't get the words out.
Finally, she whispered quietly, "Daddy, I'm pregnant."