by Mary Campisi
“And what was the agreement?”
“He would stay away from the kids and I wouldn’t ask for child support or alimony…or anything.”
Anger seeped through him, slow, steady, hot. “That’s not what you told me. You said their father paid child support when he could be found.” Who would have thought that the only woman he’d ever trusted would be the one to betray him with lies?
She looked away. “That wasn’t true. I didn’t want you getting involved.”
“Do you realize how screwed up this is?” And people called him messed up? This was nuts. “What did you tell the kids? Dad’s on the moon for the next twenty years so he can’t see you, but we’re still married?” She didn’t like that; he could tell by the way she pinched her lips and sipped in air like there wasn’t enough in the room for both of them.
“He calls every six weeks, tells them he misses them and wishes he could be home, but duty to country keeps him away.”
“Oh, for the love of God.” This was like a script for a bad movie. “Let me guess. CIA? Special Ops? What is it? Some superhero-type bullshit he saw in the theater?”
She dipped her head. “Something like that.”
“This is ridiculous.” Harry swore under his breath and paced the room. Was Greta a whack job disguised as a normal person? Who would believe this kind of crap? Of course. Kids. They were the victims and it pissed him off. “Please tell me you did not conjure this up, because if you did that is the sickest—”
“I didn’t,” she spat out. “But he wouldn’t leave unless he could take a superhero image with him.” She dragged her gaze to his and swiped at her eyes. Tears. Were they supposed to replace his anger with compassion? Understanding? What about the damn kids? Who had thought of them?
“So you let him create a story that will live in Arnold and Lizzie’s brain for the rest of their lives? And you think just because he told them he’s doing something noble, that will make up for his absence? You think it will fix things?” He was nine again, waiting for his father to show up for his swim meet. I can’t, Harry. I’m expecting a call about a merger. Big stuff. And again at thirteen, the soccer tournament where Harry scored the only goal. Wish I could have been there, boy, but I was being honored at the country club. Can’t very well skip my own party now, can I? They expect me to give a speech. And finally, senior year. Charlie said he’d take you to see a college or two. I’m sure you don’t want your dad hanging around when you can have your brother with you. But Harry had wanted his dad to hang around. He’d wanted that precious time so badly he stayed awake at night thinking about it until it was all he thought about. He wanted to belong to someone, somewhere, and maybe that’s how he’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant at seventeen.
“I’m trying to give them a normal life.”
Harry rounded on her. “Normal? You think it’s normal to let a kid think his dad is Superman? That’s messed up, Greta.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle as though she could shut out his words. Nice try. She’d need a suit of armor to shut out what he had to say. “What’s his name?”
She hesitated, then asked, “Why?”
Harry shrugged. He was not going to divulge his game plan, though he didn’t really have a game plan yet. But he would. Count on that. “I want to meet him, have a little conversation.”
“No.”
“What? Did you say no?”
She stared at him, an open challenge. “I’m not giving you his name.”
“You can either give me his name, or I’ll hire a private investigator to find him.” Why was she protecting the idiot? “You know I’ll do it, Greta.”
Apparently she did, because she deflated right in front of him; lips and eyes sank, shoulders slouched. “Lars,” she said. “Lars Servensen.”
“Good.” Now he had a name to go with the man. He could funnel his anger into finding this guy so he didn’t have to think about the bigger problem: Greta had lied to him. The one person he trusted could not be trusted. “Do you have an address?”
She nodded. “Why do you want to see him? What difference does any of this make?”
“I can’t marry you until you divorce him, and I am going to marry you.” There, let her try to get out of that one. This time, with this baby, he would do the right thing.
“Are you crazy?” She faced him, hands on hips, displeasure coating her face. “I can’t marry you.”
“Why not?” Why the hell not?”
The laugh that escaped her was not filled with humor. “You’re not the marrying kind, Harry. If you were, you would have been married by now.”
Good point. “And the baby? Is this going to be one of those one potato, two potato, hopping between houses?”
She ignored the question and threw him one of her own. “Can you picture taking a baby and a diaper bag on a date? Or a crib in the next room while you’re pleasuring your ladies?” Greta sighed her disgust. “I don’t think so.”
“What if I want to be a bigger part of its life?”
“Listen to yourself.” Her voice softened. “You’re in shock. The Harry Blacksworth I know would be planning an escape route, not talking about being a bigger part of a baby’s life.”
She was giving him a way out, nice and neat, no strings. Oh, there would be child support, but so what? He could pay for ten children, plus college, and everything in between. All he had to do was stroke a check and walk away. But he couldn’t. Dammit, he couldn’t do it. At seventeen, his old man had stripped him of the opportunity to be a father, and then the mess with Gloria and the possibility that his blood might be running through Christine’s veins. But now, here he was again, holding the “father” card, but this time he could do something about it. He knew nothing about being a father, but who the hell really did? If “qualified” individuals were the only ones to have a kid, the population would decrease by seventy percent. This was about a chance to do the right thing, to redeem his sorry soul, if that were possible. And while he was a New Age kind of guy, he still possessed a few old school values—knock up a woman, you marry her.
“We’re going to get married,” Harry said. “Don’t even try to argue.” He ignored her blue stare and pinched lips. “But first I have to find your husband and convince him to get a divorce.”
***
Harry found Lars Servensen two hours outside of Chicago in a town the size of Magdalena. It wasn’t hard to locate the jerk; the townies called him Lars the Giant, which didn’t bode well for Harry if the guy had a temper or liked to use his fists. Still, what Harry planned to offer the man was more powerful than twenty-inch biceps and a strong right hook. Once Greta realized the futility of fighting him, she relayed all sorts of interesting and bizarre information about her husband. He worked out four times a day, was covered in tattoos, including a sleeve on his right arm, had once thought of becoming a minister, and had fathered two other children, all born within seven months of Arnold. When Harry asked Greta what the man did to make money—inquiring about a profession would have been a stretch—she’d blushed and said he was a male model and actor. Right. Harry might have seen him in a few “movies” but it might be hard to tell, given the man would be wearing clothes when he met him today. What a scumbag. Impregnating multiple women, running off and pretending to be a superhero?
What the hell had Greta been thinking to take up with somebody like Lars Servensen? The guy sounded like a narcissistic, manipulative bastard, only interested in his own pleasure. Damn, he kind of sounded like Harry. Maybe the real question was what the hell was wrong with Greta to take up with men like them? She appeared so squeaky-clean honest, but maybe emotionally damaged men turned her on. Was she a psycho? She was pregnant with his kid; did he need to have her evaluated? What if she tried to harm the child because she was a nut case? His brain burst with possibilities, all beginning and ending with blood and baby killing.
He sucked in air, forced his brain to calm down. Is this what being a parent did to a person? Made
them so friggin’ irrational they couldn’t think straight? If he was this way already and the kid hadn’t even popped out yet, what would he be like when the kid had to enter the world with all of its sickness and depravity? A surge of protectiveness pulsed through him and he thought he was going to puke. How was he going to keep the kid safe? How could he save him from pedophiles, disease, gunshot wounds, random acts of violence, and dammit, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time? And if the kid survived all of that, what if he hooked up with the wrong kind of people, got into drugs, shot up, overdosed?
Harry was only one person, and so was Greta. Two people could not protect a kid from the world; sometimes they couldn’t even protect him from himself. So, what the hell was a person to do? How do you deal with the knowledge that no matter if you took your kid for every medical checkup, bought him the “safest” car on the road, installed a state-of-the-art security system, and gave him an Ivy league education, you could not protect him? That realization blew Harry’s mind, because now it was real, now it had to do with the child Greta carried in her belly. Their child.
By the time he parked his car in front of the three-story apartment building where Lars Servensen supposedly lived, Harry was pissed and agitated. The pissed part had to do with the futility of man and Harry’s sudden sense of mortality and insignificance. He did not need or want to have those feelings jacking him up right now when he had to face Greta’s loser estranged husband. But it didn’t seem to matter what he wanted, the feelings were there and whenever Harry thought of his kid, he grew more agitated. He did not wish this sense of helplessness on anyone, and yet, he bet every parent and parent-to-be felt it.
Harry climbed the outside stairs of the apartment building to the second floor and knocked on 2B. “Hold on.” The voice was rough, gravelly, maybe from lack of sleep, too much booze, or a combination. The guy couldn’t be rolling in cash or he wouldn’t be living in an apartment with pizza boxes and beer cans stacked by the stairwell and doors that looked like they’d been kicked in a time or two. The place smelled of piss and stale beer. Had Greta lived in an apartment like this? Had her kids? The door squeaked open and a monster of a man towered over him. “Who are you? I paid my rent yesterday.”
Meaning, the man owed rent money. The beast behind the voice had a solid six inches and fifty pounds on Harry. Muscle on top of muscle, shaved head, nonexistent neck. And the tattoos. Lots of tattoos.
“I’m Harry Blacksworth.” He kept his voice even, his expression bland. Think of it as a business transaction, don’t let emotion get involved or you’ll lose your edge. “I’m here on behalf of Greta Servensen. May I come in?”
The man’s blue eyes turned to slits of ice. “What’s Greta want? You a lawyer?”
Harry shook his head. “No. But I do represent her.” That could mean anything and in a way, it was true. Lars Servensen considered this, muscles flexing in his neck, his shoulders, along his forearms. Harry glanced at the tattoos on the man’s left arm; too hard to identify what they were unless he studied them, which he chose not to, seeing as the man attached to the tattoos was eyeballing him, and none too kindly either.
“I don’t know.” He crossed one trunk-sized arm over the other. “Whatever you got to say, you can say out here.”
So, the man didn’t want to extend an invitation into his pigpen. Well, that was too bad because Harry wasn’t dealing anything from a piss-laden doorstep. “No, I really can’t.” He glanced to the right, then left, dropping his voice. “I really can’t do that.”
The man sent him an extra five-second stare, an intimidation tactic, no doubt, and stood back to let Harry enter. “Five minutes, that’s all you get.”
Harry entered the apartment, scanned the living room, and decided pigpen was an understatement. The place smelled like sweat and yeast and was strewn with clothes, bodybuilding magazines, and dog toys. The last one threw Harry. “You’ve got a dog?”
“Pixie, come here, girl.” Servensen whistled. “Come see Daddy.” A brown and white shaggy dog the size of a football ran down the narrow hallway, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. Pixie wore a pink collar with sparkly blue studs. Tattoo Man scooped her up and kissed her head. “This is my baby,” he said, his voice softening as he nuzzled the dog’s ear.
“She’s cute.” Harry knew nothing about dogs, less about owners who treated their dogs like children. Still, the dog might be the angle he needed. “How old is she?”
The man smiled at Pixie and lifted a monster shoulder. “Don’t know. I found her by the Dumpster last Christmas.” His thick brows pinched together and his thin lips pulled into a long frown. “Can you imagine somebody just dumping her? I mean, to not own up to your responsibility, like she was nothing? What kind of person does that?”
Scumbags like you, he wanted to say. Didn’t you dump your kids and leave them for Greta? “I don’t know.”
“A worthless piece of shit, that’s who would do it,” he growled.
“Pretty much.” And that includes you. “Look, I know you must be really busy, so I’ll be brief.” Harry reached in his suit jacket and pulled out the envelope with the letter and the check that would set Greta free. “Greta wants a divorce and here are the terms.”
“Who the hell are you?” Lars Servensen stared at him, the veins in his temples bulging.
Harry cleared his throat. “I’m a friend. I’m helping her out.”
“Ahh.” The man gave Harry a once-over, his steel-blue eyes knowing. “You’re banging her, aren’t you?”
If Harry didn’t need this asshole to show up in court, he’d punch him in the gut. He wouldn’t get a second punch because Muscle Man would floor him, but the jerk deserved one good shot for speaking about Greta that way. “What I am or am not doing with Greta is none of your business.”
Servensen laughed. “Yup, you’re banging her. She’s a piece, isn’t she? All passion and fire, makes you feel like you’re the only man in the world.”
“That’s enough.” If the bastard said one more word about Greta, Harry was going to punch him. In the nuts. “Listen here, you piece of shit. I’m going to offer you a very large sum of money, probably more than you’ll make in the next ten years doing whatever it is you do. When the judge sets the date, you better damn well show up in court at the time on the docket. Not three hours late or the next day. You’re going to give Greta the divorce and agree to everything in this letter.” He tapped the envelope against his thigh. “Once you do, you’ll get a check for ten times what I’m giving you today. Got it?”
The man stroked Pixie behind the ears, his gaze honed in on the envelope. “How much we talking about?”
Now he had him. Harry opened the envelope, pulled out the check, and held it up. “That’s a helluva lot of food for Pixie, isn’t it?”
***
Ninety-seven days was a long time for a man to wait when he wasn’t accustomed to waiting ninety-seven seconds. But Harry did it; hell, he probably would have waited seven years to be with Greta. Who would have thought that Harry Blacksworth would actually be excited for his wedding day? Certainly not Harry, but here he was, dressed in a black suit and burgundy striped tie, his old man’s pocket watch in his hand as he counted the minutes before Greta became his wife.
Greta’s divorce to Lars Servensen was official eight days ago, but he and Greta began making plans for their future the night he returned from seeing Tattoo Man. Actually, Harry was the one making the grand plans while Greta hung back, asking him every sixteen minutes if he was certain he wanted to take on the responsibility of a family. After the third day of questioning, he’d pulled her to him, kissed her long and hard, and said, “I love you, Greta and I want this, more than anything.” She’d pretty much melted after that, crying and telling him her heart was filled with love for him. He’d liked the breathy little hiccups that spilled out between her tears and profession of love. And then had come the sex, ahem, lovemaking, and it had been damn explosive, better than before.
They’d settled on a house in the suburbs, three-car garage, colonial, six bedrooms, four and half bathrooms, with a pool table in the basement. A.J., formerly Arnold, liked that room the best and had already asked if Harry would teach him to shoot pool. Of course Harry had agreed and damn but the boy seemed more confident. Greta thought it was because he had a man in his life, but Harry attributed it to the new nickname. Lizzie loved the swing set in the backyard, complete with a fort and sliding board. She’d conned Harry into playing hide-and-seek with her and he’d pushed aside his embarrassment and done it, but he told her he wasn’t doing it again until he bought “play clothes” because he’d snagged his dress pants climbing up the fort ladder and ripped a hole in his shirt.
Greta had insisted on lugging some memorabilia from the old house: a bowl from Germany, a crocheted afghan from her grandmother, a stack of photo albums with two inches of dust. What the hell. There were enough bedrooms and closets to stash things in and he’d agree to anything, as long as Greta and the kids were attached to it. What he would not and did not agree to was Greta’s mother taking up squatter’s rights in the new place. Oh, he might have halfway considered it had his future wife asked him to, but she hadn’t. Not once, not even when A.J. and Lizzie asked if Grandma Helene was coming to the new house. She’d told them it hadn’t been discussed, but one afternoon, a week before the move, it was discussed…in great detail and in loud voices.
Harry had swung by to pick up the kids and a carload of their junk. While they were gathering their things upstairs, he made his way to the kitchen where Helene stood at the stove, frying peppers and onions. He tried to make small talk but she ignored him, pointy nose in the air, thin lips pinched into a straight line. To hell with her, she was nothing but a miserable woman, moody, obsessively critical, and cruel. He’d taken three steps toward the living room when she’d lashed out, calling him a monster, a derelict, an immoral bastard—yes, she’d sworn at him—and wishing him and her sinful daughter to hell and back. Wishing Greta to hell? That was it.