"Why can't you just leave me alone?" she yelled at him. Her face was red with anger and she could feel her heart beat in her throat. It made her mad how he always wanted to know everything about her. She felt like she was suffocating; that there was no place she could hide. Even though she went through a lot of effort to avoid him at school, he still saw her with Karl. And now he kept asking questions – most of which she didn't have an answer for even if she wanted to tell him.

"Because you're my daughter and I worry-", Ben said but she interrupted him.

"No, I'm not! You're not my real father, so stop pretending like you care about me and let me live my life!"

She left him standing there fully aware what the glimmer in his eyes and the tremble of his lips were but she ignored that the world was breaking down for him. Nothing would keep her there now, not even his tears. She grabbed her jacket, ran outside and slammed the front door behind her. Only then she realised it was raining but there was no way she'd go back inside to take an umbrella. She looked back at the door which had become a wall that she didn't know how to tear down ever again, and then she started running.

But she didn't get far. On the pavement in front of her house she ran into John.

"Whoa, hello there," he said. "Slow down. Are you alright?"

She tried not to look at him but he had already seen the tears.

"Why don't you come inside and tell me what's wrong?"

"You wouldn't understand," she mumbled.

"Try me."

A few minutes later she warmed her hands on the cup of tea that John had made for her.

"So? What happened?" John asked and sat down opposite her.

"We had a fight," she said, "my father and I."

"Thought as much. What was it about?"

"He's just always so nosy, I hate that. He saw me with my boyfriend and now he keeps asking all these questions like if we're in love and if we've been… you know."

"…intimate?"

"Yeah," she said hiding her face as deep as possible in the tea cup to cover her blushing cheeks. "It's none of his business, why does he not understand that?"

"Well, I agree that you should have your privacy, but I'm sure he doesn't want to take that away from you. He's just worried because he's your father."

She scoffed. "He said the same." She remembered how hurt he looked before she left. Ten minutes, that's how long she managed to pretend she didn't care. Now she began to feel terrible for what she had said and started crying.

"Oh my." John touched her arm to comfort her. "I'm sure you can talk it over with him, Alex. If you like I can come with you."

"No, I… I said something very bad, he probably hates me now. I can't go back there now."

"Whatever it was, he doesn't stop being your dad. He'll always love you and you can fix this."

She shook her head and gasped for air. "I literally told him that he's not my real dad."

John sighed and leaned back in his chair with a quiet laugh.

"What's so funny about that?" Alex asked.

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. "Nothing. I just had a little déjà-vu moment."

Alex's eyes asked the obvious question before her lips did.

"I grew up with foster parents," John explained. "More than one set of foster parents actually. I never got adopted. And I did use the 'you're not my real parent'-phrase a couple of times. It seems like a weapon at first to hurt those who hurt you, but really it just becomes a protective mechanism. Because if you don't accept someone as your parent then it doesn't hurt as much if they put you back in an orphanage or in the hands of another couple."

Alex used her sleeve to wipe tears off her cheek and put the cup of tea on the coffee table. "But I don't want to hurt my dad. He always takes care of me and I know that he loves me. I just don't want him to know everything about me."

"Do you love him?"

She nodded, eagerly. Of course she did. But he made her so mad sometimes, so angry that she wished she could just hate him. It would make things so much easier.

"Then tell him," John said. "Everything else is secondary."

Ben remembered the day he became a father as if it were yesterday. How could he ever forget the best moment of his life? It might not have felt like that back then – too frightening was the responsibility of fatherhood – but he would never regret making this decision. Never.

He closed the shop at 8pm, it was raining down buckets and he just missed his bus. Of course he had forgotten to bring an umbrella; he was so absent-minded these days. The stress of his upcoming final exam kept him awake at night and there was no time to study during the day for he had to take extra shifts to pay the rent. He didn't have to look in his wallet to know he couldn't afford a taxi ride home so he ran.

He was soaked wet and out of breath when he finally arrived at his apartment building. No use wiping the rain off his glasses yet, because it kept seeping from his hair. Taking two steps at a time he ran upstairs. Home, only home, that's all he wanted. And a warm shower before he had to dive back into his books.

But something was not right. There was a noise. Maybe the neighbour's cat, he thought. It wasn't. In front of his apartment door laid something that looked like a pillow or a blanket; a blanket that moved.

Slowly he approached this little mystery and got greeted by bright blue eyes and rosy lips. Who put a baby on my front step? Should I pick it up? He was so afraid he'd break that tiny fragile thing. He's never held a baby before. After a moment of consideration he kneeled down next to it and cautiously touched the soft cheek with the tip of his finger. It felt cold. He didn't have to be an expert to know that babies shouldn't be that cold. God knows how long it had been lying there.

He took a deep breath. And another. Then he picked it up as carefully as possible and took it inside. It started crying instantly. Oh no. No, don't cry. Don't cry. He wrapped another blanket around it and laid it down on his sofa without ever losing sight of it. What now?

He called the only number he knew off the top of his head.

"What's up?" the man on the other end of the phone said.

"Uncle Horace?" Ben's voice was shaking just like his hands were; he had trouble holding the phone receiver still.

"Ben? Haven't heard from you in ages, how are you?"

"Can you come? Please. Quickly. I need help. Please!"

Waiting for Horace were the longest thirty minutes of his life. He prayed for him to drive faster. When eventually he heard the knocking on his door he didn't feel as relieved as he hoped he would. But nonetheless he was glad not to be alone in this situation anymore.

"It's been crying ever since I took it inside. I don't know what to do!"

"How did you get a child, Ben?" Horace asked in a concerned tone.

"It was just there. I don't know. It was on my doorstep."

"What?" Horace picked up the baby and held it tightly. It calmed down and stopped crying in his arms as if he knew a magic trick. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Ben didn't know. He had been too afraid to look, for he didn't want to do anything wrong, something that could hurt his baby. His baby?

"Well then let's see." Horace put it back on the sofa and unravelled the tiny human. "What's that?" He held up a letter that had been stuffed between the folds of the blanket.

Ben took it and read it quietly to himself. "S'il vous plaît prenez soin de mon Alexandra. Dîtes lui que sa mère l'aime."

His French wasn't perfect but enough to understand the rough message. "Her name is Alexandra."

"Well, that answers my question," Horace said and tucked her in nicely again.

Then Horace left to buy diapers and a few jars of baby food and formula milk, and Ben was alone again with her. He wanted to hold her but he feared she'd start crying again so he sat beside her on the sofa and caressed her small face and played with the few little curls of fuzzy brown hair on her head.

"Hello, Alexandra."

She gurgled happily at him. He had never thought he was able to feel as much joy as he did in that moment. She was so innocent and breakable but she seemed to feel safe in his presence and he felt like nothing could ever be as important as her.

"I'm Benjamin. But you can call me Ben. I think you're gonna stay with me for a little while. To be honest with you, I don't know much about babies. But don't worry, uncle Horace will help us," he said and inspected her miniature hand that firmly held on to his index finger. "Wow, you're strong, aren't you? Look, I don't know why your mommy can't take care of you, but I will try to find her, okay? Then I can help her maybe so that you can be with her again. I guess until then, I'll be your daddy."

She walked quietly through the house searching for her father. First she went to the kitchen where she last saw him, but he wasn't there. There was also no sign of him in the living room, but Alex was too anxious to call him. She walked upstairs and saw that the light was turned on in his bedroom. She stood in front of the closed door for a moment before she had the courage to knock.

"Come in," he said after a few seconds.

She opened the door and saw her father sitting on his bed surrounded by papers, folders, letters – things she had never seen before.

"That's everything I did to find her," he said before Alex could ask, "your mother. I asked neighbours, people on the streets and in the shops. I asked everyone if they had seen a woman with a new-born baby. I called up local hospitals and women's shelters. I called adoption agencies and asked if they've been contacted by a French woman. Alex, I tried for years to find your real family. I even talked to the US embassy in France because I thought maybe she went back home and doesn't have the means to contact us."

Alex swallowed. She knew he had been trying to find her mother but not how much effort he went through and she had hardly ever asked him about it. He had explained to her that she was adopted when she was only three or four years old. At the age of eleven, when she started asking more questions, he told her how she came into his life. When she started high school, he encouraged her to learn French – and he refreshed his own language skills. She hadn't thought much about it before but now she realised he had done this to keep her connected to her roots. Even if she might never get to know her mother then at least she would have something in common with her.

"I'm sorry that I failed," he said after a long pause. "Every time I look at my notes and these documents I think I must have missed something. She must have known me somehow. Why else would she trust me with the most precious little thing in the world?"

Alex sat down next to him on the edge of his bed. "I'm sorry for what I said."

"I know."

"I mean it, dad. I didn't want to hurt you."

Ben nodded. "It's okay, I know you didn't, and I want to apologise for prying about your love life. Believe me, I don't have anything against your boyfriend. How could I? I don't even know him. But I'd love to know him because–" he shook his head, trying to find the right words, trying to show her that he cared without being overly protective. He knew she had to start living her own life but he wanted so desperately to be a part of it. "I'd love to meet him because if he's important to you then he's important to me, too."

Alex bit her lower lip. She didn't want to exclude her father from her life, not completely at least, and she tried to understand him and to allow him to take part. "Maybe… we wanted to go to that birthday party tomorrow, maybe he can pick me up here and say hello, would that be okay?"

"Yes. Sure. That would be wonderful," Ben replied and felt relieved that she was so understanding and forthcoming. "That's all I asked for. And I promise I won't embarrass you."

She smiled and braced herself with a deep breath before wrapping her arms around her father and hugging him – probably for the first time in months.

He was stunned by her embrace but quickly, like an instinct, placed his hand on her back and held her tightly. They both needed that now, perhaps more than ever.

"I love you, dad."

"I love you, too, Alexandra."