by Hart, Staci
He took a drag of his cigarette, exhaling smoke in my face. “The second you quit with the checks, this’s the first place I’ll come. Can’t imagine what Tommy’ll think about you payin’ me hush money all these years.”
“Oh, I’d be more worried about what he’d do to your sack-of-shit face. Never mind if you hurt Ma. ’Cause in that case, you’ll have to watch out for both of us.” I stepped into him, eye to eye, glare into burning glare. “And I might be the nice one, but I’m the one who will fuck you up beyond repair.” I straightened up when he pushed off the doorframe. “Next time you need to harass me, you fucking call me to do it, or the deal’s off. I don’t wanna have to put you in traction, old man.”
A laugh, a cold, haughty laugh. “You just keep that cash coming, Teddy.”
“Sign those papers. Let her go.”
But he was already turning to leave. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get right on that,” he said, and I watched him walk away.
For a long moment, I couldn’t move, grappling with the sight of my father for only the second time in twenty years. But then I found a way to carry myself inside with mannequin legs, walking stiffly to the kitchen where I poured myself a drink.
Thank God Ma was out with Tommy and Amelia. Thank God John and I were on the same page.
And thank God things were fine.
For now.
I downed a glass of scotch and poured another just as the door opened.
Katherine appeared in the entryway, looking exhausted and utterly radiant despite the fact. And all I wanted, all I needed, was her in my arms.
I strode across the room, scooping her up with a laugh and a question that I swallowed when I kissed her. I kissed her long and hard, kissed her until she was soft and pliant in the circle of my arms. Kissed her until I wasn’t mad or scared or hurt anymore.
When I broke away, her lids were heavy and lips were smiling. “Well, hello.”
“Hello,” I said and kissed her again.
I kissed her with abandon, with wildness. I kissed her with singular purpose.
To erase John Banowski from my mind.
18
Mathmagician
Theo
20 weeks, 2 days
“Kassandra,” Katherine said, smiling down at her pasta, fork spinning in her linguini.
“Kassie. I like it.”
The joke earned me a stern look. “No nicknames. Maybe we should name her something like Jane so you won’t give her a pet name.”
“Like Janie?”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “What about Sarah, after your mother?”
“Too confusing to have two Sarahs in one house. What’s your mom’s name?”
Her humor was gone. “Susan, but she changed it to Sparrow when she turned eighteen.”
I watched her for a second, waiting for the punch line. One didn’t come.
“Well, I can’t think of a nickname for Sparrow other than Birdie or Cuckoo.”
A ghost of a smile flickered on her face. “A cuckoo isn’t even in the same family as sparrows, but my mother is crazy. So, there’s that.”
I kept on, not wanting her to unpack anything she wasn’t ready for, regardless of my curiosity. “What about Natasha? Gabrielle? Yvonne? Genevieve?”
“Those are names of hot spies, not babies.”
“Well, babies grow up,” I reminded her.
One of her brows rose. “You want your daughter to be a hot spy?”
“Good point.” I forked some penne. “What about something like…Hope? That way, there’s no nickname.”
She nodded, her smile spreading. “I’ll add it to the list.”
I took a bite, my eyes finding the sonogram picture on the table while we ate for a moment in companionable silence. We had come to Del Posto to celebrate three momentous occasions. Our first official date, Katherine hitting the midpoint of her pregnancy, and the cherry on the sundae—this afternoon, we’d learned the sex of our baby.
The fuzzy black-and-white sonogram lay on the table, a series of photographs of our daughter. Her small arms, hands fisted in some and open in another, her tiny feet kicking. She had moved around the whole time, the ultrasound tech chasing her measurements.
But what had struck me beyond seeing her kick and move and suck her thumb was even more simple and strange. It was her profile, white against black, the button nose and curves of her lips. Her cheeks and little chin, the shape of her head. One day soon, that little head would rest in my palm. Those little lips would smile at me. That tiny hand would hold my finger.
That little girl would one day call me Daddy.
That morning, I’d sat in the chair next to Katherine in the dark sonogram room, her face turned to the screen, most of the time spent in silence while the tech measured the baby’s forehead and amniotic fluid and spine and a dozen other things she never explained the significance of. And I held Katherine’s swampy hand and documented the moment, etching it in stone so I could remember it always. The look on her face, the joy, the discovery when we saw our daughter for the first time.
I loved Katherine with a fierceness I’d never known.
There had been no moment to pinpoint, no lightning bolt of realization. It had grown like ivy—in slow tendrils and unfurling leaves, day by day, hour by hour. It had been happening since the first time I laid eyes on her, in every minute spent with her, in every breath and heartbeat between us.
I loved her.
And God, how I wanted to keep her.
“Hope,” Katherine said again. “I like that one.”
“Me too. It’s sweet for a little girl, but she could have a professional adult job and it’s classic enough to work.” I loaded my fork. “What do you think she’ll do?”
Katherine made a face at me. “That’s an impossible question. We don’t even know what kind of disposition she’ll have.”
“Well, we could assume she’ll be like us in some sense.”
“That isn’t a safe assumption. I’m nothing like my parents.”
It was the second mention in a handful of minutes, which led me to believe it was safe to ask, “What are they like?”
Another look, this one flat. “My mother changed her name to Sparrow. I’m sure you can imagine what kind of mom she was.”
I chuckled. “So, she’s an accountant?”
She frowned. “No, I’m not even sure she can do math without a calculator. She’s a yoga instructor.”
“It was a joke, Kate. What brand of hippie is she? Weed and conspiracy theories or vegan and reiki?”
“Vegan and reiki. She actually thinks dream catchers catch dreams.”
A laugh shot out of me.
“I mean it,” she said. “She psychically cleans them on Saturdays.”
“That’s…”
“I love her, but she drives me crazy. We are exact opposites.”
“How so?”
She set down her fork and folded her arms on the table in front of her. Her face was touched with both amusement and annoyance. “For my thirteenth birthday, all I wanted was a gift card to a bookstore. That was it. I explicitly requested that, a vanilla cake with strawberry icing, and no party. But she didn’t listen—she never does. Instead, she deemed the occasion too momentous to let pass without a hoorah. So, she showed up at school during lunch, floated into the cafeteria with balloons and chocolate cupcakes, and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in front of all my peers. I thought I was going to melt into the floor and die.”
I laughed, only because it was so outrageous. “It’s like she didn’t know you at all.”
“Doesn’t. Doesn’t know me and doesn’t listen when I tell her who I am or what I want. That night, she threw me a surprise party with a bunch of kids from school I didn’t even know. I think all their mothers made them come, maybe with bribery. I can’t imagine why else they would have shown up.” She sighed and picked up her fork again. “It’s classic Sparrow—I ask her for something, and she not only ignores my request, but goes
in the complete opposite direction. I think it’s her own method of control, an effort to fix me, prove to me that there’s a better, happier way to live, if only I’d give it a whirl. That rationalization helps me endure, coupled with the knowledge that she means well. But I’m glad there are several thousand miles of distance between us. She has boundary issues but square miles help.”
“I’m guessing she wasn’t bent to find out you’re pregnant when you didn’t have a boyfriend.”
She shrugged, her attention on her food. “I haven’t told her yet.”
I stilled. “You haven’t told your mom you’re pregnant?”
“She’s been on a spirit journey in Washington for the last two months, and I didn’t want to tell her until we were out of the first trimester.”
I hadn’t moved. “A spirit journey.”
“A spirit journey.” She didn’t elaborate. She had more important things to attend to, like her pasta.
“Where did you say you grew up?”
“Sedona—land of a thousand psychics. My kindergarten teacher read tarot cards for us during recess and didn’t believe in the word no.”
Ten pieces of the Katherine puzzle snapped into place at the admission.
My straight, serious Katherine had grown up in fucking Sedona to hippie New Age parents who believed in magic. It was no wonder she craved bounds and rules and order. I wondered how in the hell Sparrow Lawson had handled having a daughter like Katherine.
“How about your dad?”
“His name is Dave, and he’s the lead singer of an Eagles cover band.”
“Please tell me he has a ponytail.”
“Of course he does. How could he not? It’s the color of graphite, and he doesn’t use a ponytail holder—he keeps it in a leather cuff.”
A laugh burst out of me.
“You’re surprised. Everyone is surprised.”
“I expected them to be scientists or mathematicians or professors. Intellectuals.”
“I wonder sometimes if they had been, if I’d have ended up their opposite. Whatever genetics they passed on to me were not applicable to them, and their attempts to nurture me into a spiritual being didn’t stick. For a long time, I thought I was adopted. If there’d been such thing as Photoshop and if my parents knew how to use computers, I’d have convinced myself they fabricated the photos of my mom in the hospital with me. I even had a fantasy about being switched with another baby in the hospital.”
“You wanted to find reason where there was none. Sounds nothing like you,” I joked.
“I couldn’t ever understand how it was possible. I had no rules. None. And it was so dire, I ended up making rules of my own, not only for myself, but for them. We had a chore chart hanging on the fridge, but it wasn’t to motivate me. It was to motivate them, with little gold stars and extra allowance for their favorite mystic shop. Nothing motivated my mother to do the dishes like the prospect of buying more crystals.”
“I can only imagine little Katherine in the kitchen with sheets of foil stars in primary colors.”
“I won’t lie, it was fun to coordinate rules and systems, but it was emotionally exhausting. I felt constantly depleted. In fact, I didn’t know it was possible to be in any kind of relationship and it not exhaust me of all my emotional resources. At least, not until you.”
A smile brushed my lips with a tightening of my heart. “I’m glad I could make things easy for you.”
With a laugh, she said, “If only I made them easy for you.”
“Oh, trust me, it’s easier than you think, Kate.” I leaned back in my seat, eyes on my fork as it pushed pasta around without intent. “When my dad left us, Ma had to work three jobs to keep us out of the rain and put clothes on our backs. Tommy acted out, started getting in fights, especially when it came to kids getting bullied or picked on. So that left me to keep things together at home.”
Her smile fell gently into a compassionate expression.
I continued, “I did the laundry. Picked up groceries for dinner. Made sure Tommy and I stayed after school if we weren’t doing well in class to get tutoring. I wrestled Tommy into bed on time and made sure we weren’t late to school. Because I was the man of the house, and part of that responsibility was to support Ma. I got a hardship license and work permit when I was fifteen. Got a job stocking groceries and convinced Tommy to do the same.”
“I’m sorry, Theo,” she said quietly.
“Don’t be. Growing up fast wasn’t a bad thing—it taught me how to be responsible, and it showed me early on what’s important to life. Family. We care for the ones we love, and we show that love however we can. We protect them, no matter what. We do whatever we have to to keep them safe from harm. For you, that came in creating order where there was none.”
“But you did it out of love. I only feel resentment. It’s…it’s so hard for me to be flexible, to share myself with anyone. Because my fear is that I will be completely depleted, and what is taken from me won’t ever replenish.”
“Well, that’s why we’re taking it slow, Kate. It’s why I took my lemons and made lemonade.”
“I took my lemons and made lemon juice.”
“Once diluted, and with the help of a little sugar, lemon juice is lemonade. I like to think we’re making lemonade right now.”
She smiled down at her hands as she smoothed her napkin in her lap. “Where is he now? Your father?”
My mouth dried up, my tongue covered in sand. “We didn’t know what happened to him. He just…disappeared. Ma couldn’t afford to hunt him down for child support or even a divorce. Tommy figured him for dead, but we woulda heard. They’re technically still married.”
“Really?” she breathed.
“Really. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I knew what’d become of him.” I took a breath and spoke words I’d never uttered, not to a single living soul. “When Tommy’s career broke out, our father showed up asking for money.”
Everything about her was still. She said nothing.
“You know how Tommy hid our past, Ma, everything from the public? Well, John Banowski was prepared to blow that cover with a well-placed phone call. So I paid him to keep quiet. Pay him,” I amended. “Every month, I write that son of a bitch a check. And I sleep like a baby knowing Ma and Tommy are safe from him.”
“They don’t know?” She was frowning, her brows drawn.
“They can’t know. He’s a monster, Kate. They’re better off assuming he’s dead or living in Costa Rica or on Mars. Subjecting them to him would only hurt them all over again. I know it did me.”
She reached for my hand, wrapped her slender fingers around my square ones. “You protect everyone you love so well, Theo.”
“I try. I don’t always succeed. Even now, I might have gotten myself in too deep. Ma filed for divorce, and John showed up to shake me down about it. He thinks I’m trying to cut him out, threatened to tell Ma and Tommy I’ve been lying to them for all these years.”
Her jaw flexed, her eyes hardening. “After giving him monthly checks for six years?”
“It’s my own fault. I knew what I was getting myself into. I’m just not sure how to get out of it.”
“You could stop paying him for starters.”
“And then he’ll tell Ma and Tommy.”
“You could head him off and tell them first.”
I sighed, the sound heavy. “I will, if it comes to that. If he keeps giving me hell, I will anyway. But I’ll have my own hell to pay when I do.”
“They’ll understand, Theo. You’d never hurt anyone on purpose. All you do, you do for others. It’s so much more than we could ever repay you for.”
“Kate, all you have to do is exist. That’s payment enough for me.”
She flushed, smiling.
“Anyway, I hope the baby won’t inherit the Banowski knack for getting into trouble.”
That earned me a smile. “It’s probably safer to assume she’ll be nothing like either of us. In fact, she’ll prob
ably take after my mother and be reading our tea leaves before preschool.”
“Good. We can put her to work.”
She made a face.
“What? Kids are expensive.”
At that, she laughed, the sound musical and vibrant. “I just imagined a toddler version of our baby sitting at a crystal ball.”
I felt my smile all the way into my bloodstream. “Did she look like you or me?”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “She had your eyes.”
“Boring brown?”
“They’re not boring. They’re hypnotic, a place without depth, a place to get lost. I’m fairly certain that was how you got me to sleep with you.”
“I thought it was my smell,” I countered.
“That too. You smell incredible.”
“I thought you were going to climb me like a ladder right there in the middle of the club.”
“You made me feel…” She paused, correcting herself. “You make me feel like I’ve been starving my whole life, and I thought my depravation was just the way life was. That living in a constant cycle of exhaustion and retreat was just how relationships worked. That’s the best way I can explain it—I was starving, and you are a feast. You even engage my salivary glands.”
“I’ve never felt so desired as making your mouth wet.”
“That among other things.” She was smirking, smug and wry and absolutely gorgeous.
“Kate, are you coming on to me?”
“Maybe,” she said, making a show of taking a bite of her dinner, which—thankfully—was almost gone.
“You know something, Kate?”
“What?”
“I sure am glad I knocked you up so I could woo you.”
She laughed, that musical sound I loved so well. She was Kate through and through, soft and smiling. Katherine was long gone.
Served her right. It just wasn’t fair to be the only one.
In my life, there was one thing I knew I would have—a family. It was a construct I only understood in theory, pictures painted from television and movies and Norman Rockwell paintings. I’d never known what it was like for the mother and father to be in love, to be a team. To raise their children in a safe, secure place, not the kind that had come from crime or depravity but security born in love. I wanted family vacations in the Hamptons. I wanted road trips and a family dinner every night. I wanted matching Christmas pajamas and soccer practice.