A Father’s Regret, A Daughter’s Rise
William stood in the kitchen, heart pounding. He couldn’t look his wife, Linda, in the eyes. She sat across from him, fidgeting, sensing something was wrong.
“What is it that you wanted to discuss, William?” she finally asked, her voice calm but wary.
He hesitated, then spoke the words that shattered everything.
“I’m seeing someone else, Linda,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I… I couldn’t help it.”
Linda froze. “What do you mean?” Her face went pale. “You… you have another woman? Answer me, William!”
William lowered his head. “I know how it sounds, but I love her. She’s young… she’s different. We just clicked.”
Linda slammed her hands on the table. “Do you even hear yourself? Twenty years, William! We’ve been married for two decades! We have a daughter!” she shouted. Then her phone rang, buzzing loudly between them.
She answered, still shaking. “Yes?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. But the moment she hung up, she was trembling with rage.
“That was the court. Our home is being seized! The mortgage on the house—remember that loan we took for the jerky business? You were supposed to handle the payments, William! They need $80,000!” she screamed.
“I-I couldn’t save enough…” William mumbled, guilt washing over him.
“You’re unbelievable!” Linda shouted. “Are you seriously going to leave me and your daughter homeless while you run off with your mistress? Get out! Get the hell out of my house!”
Six years passed.
William stood at a red light, the sound of car horns snapping him out of his thoughts. His life had gone from bad to worse since that day. He’d left his wife and daughter thinking he was chasing happiness. But his new relationship fell apart. He lost his job. He lost everything. He’d spent years drinking, trying to forget.
Now, he was trying to turn things around.
He had an interview for a packaging job at a beef jerky company. Nervous but hopeful, he waited outside the interview room. Maybe his past experience with the failed family business would help. To his surprise, he got the job.
On his third day, while labeling boxes, the manager, Mr. Dunn, walked over.
“If you want to move up in this company, you better impress the CEO today,” he said with a grin.
William raised an eyebrow. “CEO?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Dunn chuckled. “She’s doing an inspection today. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
William shrugged and got back to work, uninterested. But soon, a buzz of excitement filled the room. William glanced up—and froze.
At the entrance, Mr. Dunn was shaking hands with a young woman in a crisp suit.
It was Isabelle. His daughter.
“Isabelle?” he gasped as she walked toward him.
“Dad?” she said coolly, looking him dead in the eyes. “It’s been a while, huh?”
William could barely speak. “How… how are you the CEO?”
Isabelle smirked. “So you care more about how I became successful than how I’ve been? Don’t let your personal drama distract you. I’m here for work. And yes,” she added sharply, “meet me in my office after lunch.”
In the quiet of her office, William sat across from his daughter, nervous.
“You’re not going to ask me what happened?” Isabelle said, her voice steady. “Fine, I’ll tell you anyway.”
She leaned forward. “After you left, we had nothing. The bank took our house. Mom and I only got a third of what it sold for. You didn’t pay the loan, remember?”
William swallowed hard, unable to speak.
“Mom gave me her last bit of money,” Isabelle continued. “She wanted me to go to college. But then… Aunt Georgina called. She said Mom might have heart disease. The doctors said if she had another attack, she’d need surgery—$100,000.”
Isabelle paused, her voice trembling for the first time. “I almost gave up college. But then I remembered the jerky business you and Mom started. I decided to try again. I needed the old kitchenware. So I broke into our old house through the broken dormer window you never fixed.”
Six Years Ago
Isabelle had used a hairpin to pick the lock of the abandoned back door. She’d climbed through the attic and found the dusty boxes of kitchen supplies and recipe books her mother had treasured. She loaded everything into her old pickup truck and set up a secret jerky workshop in the basement of an abandoned house.
The first few batches were awful. The jerky was either too salty, too tough, or just plain gross. But she didn’t give up. Night after night, she kept trying.
And one day, she tasted a batch and whispered, “Oh god… this is it.”
Isabelle sent out samples to retail companies. She wrote email after email, cold-calling buyers and food managers.
Then came the reply she’d been waiting for.
Dear Isabelle,
We believe your dried beef snack would be a great match for our customers. We’d like to try your samples…
Isabelle jumped from her seat in excitement. She completed the first big order—1,000 packets—and met with their inspection team.
“Wait outside,” the manager, Chris, said after tasting her product. “We’ll call you in an hour.”
She paced for what felt like days. But when she walked back in, Chris smiled.
“We like it,” he said. “We want to do business with you. But first, we’ll need to inspect your factory. Can you handle producing 10,000 packets a month?”
She agreed without hesitation. But inside, she was panicking. Where would she get the money to scale up?
Then came another call.
“Your mom’s condition is worse,” Aunt Georgina said. “The surgery can’t wait anymore.”
Isabelle didn’t sleep that night. The next day, she met Mr. Navarro, the father of a former classmate, and pitched him her story.
“I’m offering you 35% of the business,” she said. “I know it’s a risk, but I need this.”
Mr. Navarro smiled. “Make it 35% plus one-third of the proceeds from the house. Deal?”
She shook his hand.
Back to the Present
“I passed the inspection,” Isabelle said to William in her office. “I got our house back. I paid for Mom’s surgery. I built this company from scratch. We survived.”
William nodded, ashamed.
“But,” Isabelle added firmly, “I don’t tolerate betrayal. You’re no longer working here. Meet me behind the warehouse.”
Fifteen minutes later, William stood outside the warehouse, confused. Isabelle arrived with a worker carrying two boxes.
“Open them, Dad,” she said.
Inside, William found the old kitchenware. The oven. The same tools he and Linda once used when their dream was still alive.
“I think we’re even now,” Isabelle said. “You have everything you need to start over. I know it’s hard. But if I did it, you can too. Just… don’t waste it.”
With that, she turned and walked away, leaving her father standing there—speechless, stunned, and holding a second chance in his hands.
