“She’s beautiful,” Breanne told Kari.
“Thanks.”
“Max’s shiner is finally fading.”
Kari lifted a brow. “He deserved everything he got.”
“I figured as much.”
Lindsay waved at her from across the yard. She looked at home in a lounge chair near the pool, holding Sally and Dan’s baby in her arms. Even from here, Kari could see Lindsay cooing and making faces at two month old Hannah. A few feet from Lindsay, she saw Nicole and Dan sitting at one of three outside tables talking.
“I’m really glad you came,” Breanne said. “Max isn’t the same when you’re not around.”
Breanne, Kari realized, was still doing her best to play matchmaker. “I’m sure he does just fine without me.”
“You’re wrong. Look at him. He’s smiling...first time in three days.”
Kari tried to shift the direction of their conversation when she asked, “Will Joey be coming today?”
“No. But you’ll be glad to know we’re meeting with a therapist next Saturday.” She grabbed Kari’s hand and squeezed. “I have a huge favor to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“I was hoping you would go with me...for support. I never say the right thing under pressure and I could really use your help.”
“Did you ask the counselor if they allow third parties into the room?”
“If they want to get paid they do.”
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Kari said. “Joey already dislikes me. Having me there might only make matters worse.”
“Joey won’t even notice you. I need you there.” Breanne bit her bottom lip as she waited for Kari’s answer. “You’ll come with me?”
“Sure. I’ll go.”
Breanne threw her arms around her. “I can’t thank you enough. Max is so lucky to have met you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kari saw Max’s mother heading toward them. The woman’s face was pinched. She made it clear she didn’t want to see Kari when she abruptly headed in another direction.
“Mom,” Breanne called out as her mother tried to walk by unnoticed. “Did you say hello to Kari yet?”
Mrs. Dutton let out an exaggerated sigh as she moved to her daughter’s side. Kari couldn’t help but wonder if she was the only one who noticed that Max’s mother wanted nothing to do with her.
“Hello, Kari,” Mrs. Dutton said, her eyes partially shaded by a yellow visor that matched her pale silk shell and perfectly fitted pants. “I heard you were bringing your daughter with you today.”
Breanne pointed to where Molly was chatting with Jill and Sally near the pool. “She’s over there, Mom.”
The moment Mrs. Dutton’s gaze found Molly, a small gasp escaped her. Breanne didn’t seem to notice. Mrs. Dutton stared at Molly for a long while. The woman knew.
Kari didn’t want to think about what that meant. Had she read the letters? Did she purposely keep them from Max? Not once over the past fourteen years had that scenario crossed her mind.
Breanne waved a hand in front of her mother’s face. “Are you okay?”
“I feel dizzy.”
Kari wasn’t feeling so good herself.
“I think I’ll give everyone my apologies and go upstairs and lie down.”
Breanne excused them both before she took her mother around the pool area, explaining to everyone that Mom wasn’t feeling well and she was going to lie down for a while.
Lindsay was now playing a game of ping pong with Jill’s two kids, Brooke and Matthew. Cole flipped burgers, even though his attention was focused more on Lindsay than the grill. The man had it bad for her and yet Lindsay seemed oblivious. Feeling incredibly uncomfortable, Kari realized she shouldn’t have come. Her thoughts were a million miles away. She felt like a fraud amongst make-believe friends. It only made matters worse that she and Molly weren’t getting along.
“You’re doing it again,” Max said, giving Kari a start. “You’re thinking too hard and too much.”
“I need to talk to you, Max. It can’t wait any longer. I should have told you everything the moment I saw you in Dr. Stone’s office.”
“That goes without saying, only I was hoping it would be sooner rather than later.”
“You’re right. I’ve been a coward.” Obviously, Max thought she was referring to their first meeting fourteen years ago. More than likely, he had no idea that what she needed to tell him would change his life forever.
“Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “If it’s about the other day...I never should have bombarded you with so much at once. I don’t know what’s come over me lately. I’m—”
“Don’t apologize, Max. It’s me. There’s something very important about the night we spent together, something you need to know.”
“Max,” Breanne interrupted.
Breanne, Kari noticed, had yet to get her mother into the house to rest. Instead, she and her mother and her sisters were all gathered around the table a few feet away. Molly stood in the center of them all and had their attention riveted on something in her hands.
“Have you seen these pictures of you and Molly?” Breanne asked her brother.
“Don’t forget what you were going to say,” Max said to Kari before he headed that way.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch. What pictures? Her gaze locked on Molly’s. The look in her daughter’s eyes said it all. Somehow her daughter had managed to have the pictures from her bowling party developed. Suddenly, her daughter’s sudden change in attitude made sense. Molly knew that Max was her father.
Kari headed straight for her daughter and laid her hand on Molly’s forearm. “What are you doing?”
Molly’s blue eyes narrowed and her shoulders stiffened. “Do you really want to know?”
Everyone around them grew quiet.
Max looked from Molly to Kari. Judging by the look on his face, he felt the tension between them, but he still had no idea what was going on.
“You always tell me that I can tell you anything,” Molly said, making sure to speak loud and clear. Cole stopped turning burgers and Lindsay stood at his side.
“That’s right,” Kari answered. “You can tell me anything. But maybe right here, right now, isn’t a good time for this discussion.”
Molly lifted her chin. “I disagree. I think it’s the perfect time and place. Why haven’t you told me everything, Mom?”
Kari refused to discuss this in front of people she hardly knew. “It’s time for us to go.”
“Not until you tell me if you and Max met before I was born.”
Sally returned with a newly changed baby. She opened her mouth to say something about the baby, but the rest of the gang stopped her with wildly gyrating hands. Nobody looked more bewildered than Max.
“Yes,” Kari said matter-of-factly, “we met before you were born.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
“How many years exactly?”
“Almost fourteen years ago,” Max chimed in, trying to be helpful. Heat crept into Kari’s face. If her daughter wanted to have it out right here in front of strangers, then so be it. She refused to cower a minute longer to her thirteen-year old daughter.
“Mom,” Molly said firmly. “Tell Mr. Dutton what you’ve been wanting to talk about, but didn’t have the guts to say.”
Kari held her shoulders upward. “No. I won’t. Not until the three of us step into the other room. And I don’t like the tone of your voice. We’re going to go home and you’re going to stay in your room until you’re ready to apologize.”
“Fine. Take me home, but not until I’m finished.” Molly turned to face Max. “Mr. Dutton,” she said, “if you had a daughter, would you run scared?”
Max frowned. “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Molly,” Kari said, “stop this right now.”
“Would you run scared?” Moll
y asked again, her voice shaking. “If you knew you had a daughter would you be afraid to accept responsibility...would you avoid your daughter and pretend she didn’t exist?”
Kari looked at Max. “You don’t have to answer that.” Kari grabbed her daughter’s hand, but Molly refused to budge.
Max kept his eyes riveted on Molly.
Molly pointed to her chest. “I am your daughter, Mr. Dutton.”
Gasps and murmurs erupted from Max’s sisters.
Mrs. Dutton looked pale and faint, but not nearly as surprised as her daughters.
“I didn’t know either,” Molly said to Max in response to his confused expression, “not until after the bowling party when I overheard Mom talking to Lindsay. If you don’t like me or you never want to see me after this, I understand. I’ve never had a father, so I don’t know what to say, except that I’m glad to have met you. Glad to finally know who my father is.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I’ve always wondered why I didn’t have Mom’s light hair or her green eyes. And I always wondered if my father had blue eyes like me, or if he was funny or a good singer.”
“He can’t hold a tune,” Breanne said, prompting Jill to elbow her in the arm, quieting her so Molly could finish.
Molly wiped at a tear running down the side of her face. “I’m sorry about today...about telling you all this and ruining your family party and everything. But it was nice to meet you again...and your family.”
Molly reached for the picture that Breanne was holding, the one of her and Max at the bowling alley. Then she offered it to him. Her lip trembled.
Kari stood frozen in place. She was angry with her daughter, but even angrier with herself for letting it come to this.
#
Max took the picture and gave it a long hard look before looking to Kari for confirmation. Not nearly as brave as her daughter, she looked to the ground...ashamed.
Max didn’t know what to think or say or do. He felt suddenly slow and dim-witted. Glancing at the picture, he examined it as best he could under the circumstances. It was the strangest thing: Same dark hair and blue eyes. Same lips and nose. There was no mistaking they were father and daughter.
“I know this must be a shock,” Molly said, sounding nothing like the little girl he’d met at the bowling alley.
His sisters all nodded in agreement.
Kari didn’t have the guts to look at him, and he didn’t quite know what to think about her or about any of this for that matter. Five minutes ago he’d wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around Kari and kiss her deeply and passionately in front of every member of his family, let them see how he felt about the woman he’d loved for over a decade; his dream girl.
But now it all made sense. Now he understood why she’d been pushing him away. She was right...he didn’t know her at all.
Molly wiped at her tears again and when Max looked into her eyes, she said, “According to Mom, it took fifteen hours of pushing to get me out. They almost had to do an emergency c-section, but that’s when I decided to get moving, I guess. Aunt Lindsay tells me I came into the world with a cone head and that I was sort of ugly.” Molly forced a laugh that made his insides twist and turn. She was trying so hard to be strong and yet he didn’t know what to say.
“As you already know, I was born in June. I’m kind of a tomboy and I’m not the most popular girl in school. But I can curl my tongue and I’m a leftie. My favorite ice cream is mint chip. Most of my friends have started their menstral cycle, but not me.”
His sisters mumbled between themselves, most of them agreeing that that made sense since they were all thirteen or fourteen when they started the cycle.
Max glared over his shoulder, silencing them all with one look.
“I think I’m a late bloomer like my mom,” Molly continued. “And,” she added as an afterthought, “you might be glad to know I made the basketball team.”
He smiled at her bravery. Not once had she looked away from him as she spoke. The tears had stopped and her twiddling thumbs were the only giveaway that she was nervous at all. He could only imagine how hard this must be for her, standing before him now, neither knowing what to think about their predicament or about one another.
Kari finally brought her head up, her eyes round and scared as she met his gaze, nothing in her eyes resembling the take-no-prisoner sort of woman she’d been when they met face-to-face in Dr. Stone’s exam room.
“I’ll be a starter,” Molly said, transferring his thoughts back to the little girl who was telling him she was his daughter, his own flesh and blood.
He had a daughter. The notion was surreal.
“I like a boy named Grant, who you’ve met. I took ballet once, but I wasn’t very good at it. I like to play video games and e-mail my friends. I like pizza, but who doesn’t?” She smiled. “Well, that’s about it. If you ever want to call me and talk, you have my number.” She turned to Kari. “Can we go now?”
Max wanted to follow them to the door, but his legs wouldn’t move and his mind was mush. Nobody said a word. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Kari said she was sorry before she left and Molly sort of shrugged and gave him a half smile before she followed her mother back into the house.
Breanne put a hand on his back and tried to push him in their direction. “Aren’t you going to go after them and say something to the poor girl?”
Max shook his head as he watched them walk through the French doors and disappear down the hallway leading to the front door. “No,” he said. “I need to think.”
CHAPTER 14
Max pulled up to the curb outside of Lindsay’s Daycare, turned off the ignition, and then just sat there for a moment. For three days now, he’d known he had a daughter, and yet he still hadn’t come to grips with the idea.
He never wanted a family before because he knew he was headed for an early grave, and he didn’t want to leave them behind. But fate had stepped in and took the choice away from him, leaving exhilaration in its wake. He always thought having a family would make him feel weighed down with responsibility. But he felt the opposite. He felt keyed up, energized. He’d thought a lot about the speech Molly had given at the barbeque and every time he replayed her words in his mind, he got all misty-eyed, overcome with an overwhelming desire to protect his little girl. He felt something else too...an instantaneous love...the same sort of love he felt for his sisters and mother. Unconditional, but somehow deeper and stronger. How could he feel that kind of love for a kid he hardly knew?
Max looked at the house with its overflowing flowerboxes and white trimmed windows. His daughter had been living in that house for thirteen years. It boggled the mind.
Today was Wednesday. Yesterday, after prodding from Breanne, he’d called Kari to see if Molly could come to his house for a few days so they could get to know one another. Although her aunts and uncles and her grandmother had all headed back to Santa Barbara, Breanne would be at the house, too. Reluctantly Kari had agreed. He was angry with Kari for not telling him he had a daughter, but he had also made a few calls and although his mother couldn’t recall whether or not she’d talked to a young woman nearly fourteen years ago, she didn’t say it was impossible. The people in charge of fan mail for the Los Angeles Condors told him they received dozens of letters every week from women who said one player or another had fathered their children, usually asking for compensation. Certainly Kari’s letter could have been filed away or tossed with the others.
A part of him felt sorry for Kari. All a person had to do was talk to Molly for five minutes to see she was a good mother. And yet he also knew it was probably best if Kari didn’t come along and hover over Molly while he got to know his daughter, at least for now. As for his feelings for Kari...well, he wasn’t sure what he felt any longer. He decided to take it one day at a time.
Max climbed out of the car and headed up the walkway. The afternoon sun warmed his back. Geese flew overhead, all honking at once as if to announce his arrival.
The door
opened before he reached it and Lindsay exited the house, shutting the door behind her.
“Hello, Lindsay.”
“Hi, Max.”
She had on jeans and a T-shirt. She looked how he felt...emotionally drained. “Before you see Molly,” Lindsay said, “I was hoping you and I could talk.”
He waited.
“Molly and Kari are the only family I have. If you ever hurt either one of them I will stalk you, Max. I will make your life a living hell.”
“I would never hurt either of them.” He shoved his hands deep into his pant pockets. “Is that all?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I need to know if Kari needs to worry?”
“About what?”
“About you hiring a lawyer and trying to get custody of Molly.”
Three days ago he was thinking about the possibility of spending the rest of his life with Kari, but he kept that tidbit to himself and said, “I haven’t had a chance to think about it.”
“How can you be sure Molly is yours?”
Something sharp twisted in his gut. “She knows I’m her father and I know she’s my daughter.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to try to tell me she’s not?”
Her arm dropped to her side. “No.”
“Good. If you’ll just step aside now and let me...”
Lindsay stepped to her right, blocking him. “What if Molly doesn’t want to go with you?”
“Did you ask her?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t we both go inside and find out?”
“Not until you tell me why you didn’t respond to any of Kari’s letters.”
“I never received them.”
“And so that’s that, huh?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is. What did you expect? Did you think I would walk away without even trying to get to know the daughter I never knew I had? Just disappear out of Molly’s life as quickly as I came into it?”
“If you have any qualms about being a father to Molly, yes, I think walking away would be best.”
Taming Mad Max Page 16