Discovered: Daddy

by Marilyn Pappano

  Small-town minds? Or small-minded town? He remembered enough from his years in New Hope to know the answer to that one. While many of the town’s residents couldn’t care less, there would be a substantial number who could. Hell, his own parents probably disapproved. They wouldn’t blame Faith, wouldn’t let it color how they felt about her, but they undoubtedly believed that she should have had a husband before she had a baby.

  But he didn’t believe that she was trying to fool him into believing that her child was his when it wasn’t. And he didn’t believe that the timing was mere coincidence. In the three times he’d seen her today, not once had she looked at him as a welcome rescue. The first time she had fainted, and the other two times “hostile” was the first word that came to mind. And she had denied that he was the baby’s father, had demanded that he go away and leave them alone.

  There was also that sick feeling in his gut, the one that had appeared as soon as he’d made the connection between his erotic dreams, the party nine months ago and Faith’s pregnancy. It was the same sense of inevitable doom that he’d felt when he’d seen his partner shot by Diego Sanchez, when he’d known in the passing of a heartbeat that it was bad, in spite of the protection of Dave’s body armor. Even if Faith Harper was a complete stranger to him, Amelia Rose was his daughter, and he had to do something about it.

  A dozen feet away the door opened, splashing yellow light onto the gray boards. Michael called his goodbyes, then closed the door, walked to the top step and paused there to button up his overcoat. He was about to take the first step down when he turned slowly toward Nick. “You hiding out here or just soaking up the atmosphere?”

  “Just thinking.”

  His brother came closer, moving through the shadows, then into the light filtering through lace window curtains. “Everything okay?”

  Nick’s answer was noncommittal, a simple grunt. If he told the truth, Michael would want to help, which would require details he wasn’t ready to offer. If he didn’t tell the truth — well, he would be lying, and he tried to avoid that off the job.

  “Mama kept a plate warm for you. I hope you got your tux a size too big, ’cause she’s planning on feeding you until you leave.” After a moment he asked, “You did pick up the tux today, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” That damned tux had been the start of a long downhill slide. If he’d gotten the address of the formal wear shop from the phone book instead of thinking he could just stop in somewhere and ask, or if he’d chosen to ask at the bank or the post office or any of the other stores on Main, he never would have gone into the Baby Boutique. Faith would probably be at the wedding Saturday, but so would everyone else in New Hope and every Russo relative within a thousand miles. He could have easily missed running into her. He could have gone back to Houston still a stranger, completely in the dark about her and her baby, and she, still believing that he had a wife, would have let him.

  Thoughts of his temporary marriage of convenience made him rise from the swing and find a spot on the rail to lean back against. “Hey, Mike, did you guys tell a lot of people that I’d gotten married?”

  “Not a lot. Mostly just family. Mama wanted to wait until you brought her home to meet everyone before she broke the news. She was planning a big party for the whole town.” He shrugged. “Then you told her that it wasn’t for real, and everyone just put it out of their minds.”

  But someone had shared the news with Faith and then had forgotten to put it out of her mind. Would she have contacted him if she’d known? Would he have come home from work some evening to find a message from her on his answering machine, or worse, to find her standing on his doorstep? If she hadn’t believed that he was already married, would she have wanted him to know she was pregnant? Or would her sentiments—Go back to Houston and forget all about us—have remained the same?

  “Hey, Nick, are you okay?”

  He exhaled heavily. “Yeah, just tired.”

  “Then you’d better get inside, eat and get to bed. Tomorrow morning the hungry hordes will descend on the house, and you won’t have a moment’s peace.”

  Nick smiled a bit. His brother wasn’t exaggerating. A family gathering at the Russo house was as crowded and as noisy as — although less profane than—a drunk tank on a Saturday night. Space would be at a premium, mere paths that meandered through the crowd. The men would congregate around the television in the living room, the women at the dining table and in the kitchen, and the children would be everywhere. It would be minimally controlled chaos, and, ordinarily, he would love every minute of it.

  But this wasn’t turning out to be an ordinary Thanksgiving. With each passing moment, it seemed he was finding less and less to be thankful for.

  And he could thank Faith for that.

  Tired as he was, though, he didn’t head for the door. He needed another moment to get his feelings under control, to find a mask that he could hide behind, to find some dark, secret place inside him where Faith, Amelia Rose and his incredible dismay would be safe from his father’s sharp eyes and his mother’s prying questions.

  Turning, he focused his gaze on the moonlit yard. The grass was yellow, most of the trees bare. The stark light illuminated a tire swing hanging from a sturdy oak and washed over a platform, either all that was left of an old tree house or the beginnings of a new one, six feet above the ground in the next tree over. Twenty-five years ago it had seemed that all the kids in the neighborhood had played in the Russo yard — not because they had the most or best or newest toys. They hadn’t. But they had had the most kids in the widest range of ages, the best-loved mother and the most tolerant father. Neither Luisa nor Antonio had ever complained about the chalk drawings on the sidewalk or the dying grass flattened in the shape of a baseball diamond. They hadn’t minded the constant shrieks and laughter or the regular thump-thump-thump of a basketball dribbling down the driveway and rebounding off the garage wall. They hadn’t even cared how many of those kids who had come to play managed to find their way to the dinner table. Luisa just always cooked extra, expecting company.

  His parents were good parents. So were his sisters and their husbands. Michael and Michelle would be, too. It seemed that he was the only one of the bunch who didn’t feel the urge.

  “Nervous about the wedding?”

  He glanced his brother’s way. “It’s your wedding. Why would I be nervous?”

  “Because I’m the last single sibling. Because now Mama’s going to turn all her attention to getting you married.”

  Nick ignored Michael’s all-too-true prediction. “Are you nervous?”

  “Michelle and I have been dating nine years,” he dryly reminded Nick. “This is something we decided on right at the beginning.”

  “You were sixteen — just kids. How could you know then that you wanted to get married?”

  “The same way you knew when you were eighteen that you didn’t want to get married. I can remember you coming home from college to go to Dan Wilson’s wedding. When you came home from the bachelor party the night before the wedding, you were more than a little bit drunk, and you insisted that you were never, ever going to get married.”

  Nick could recall the same memory — most of it, at least. Dan had been one of his best friends. From grade school on, they had studied together, played together and, in high school, double-dated the Harland twins together. They had intended to go on to the University of Texas together, but only a few weeks before classes were scheduled to begin, Dan had broken the news that he wouldn’t be going. Instead he was staying home, going to work full-time on his father’s ranch outside town and marry Tammy Harland, who was three months pregnant and kicking up a fuss. The last Nick had heard, they had four kids, spoke to each other only to fight and generally made each other miserable.

  He could all too easily imagine himself in the same situation — minus the extra three kids. If he had to get married, if he had to make that kind of sacrifice, there was no way in hell he would bring any other kids
into it to suffer along with them.

  “Come to think of it,” Michael continued, his tone teasing, “you got more than a little plastered when Tim Bailey got married, too. And Brent Owens. What is it? An uncontrollable response to the prospect of wedding vows?”

  “They all got married within a year of finishing high school. I was a dumb kid. I didn’t know better,” Nick said in his own defense. But he hadn’t been a kid when he’d overindulged at Michael’s engagement party. He’d been within a month of turning thirty-four—old enough to know better. For damned sure old enough to avoid what had followed.

  “This time just make sure you stay sober at least until Saturday evening. By then, Michelle and I will be on our way to the Caribbean. I won’t care about your sobriety.” Grinning, he pulled his car keys from his pocket and started toward the steps. “See you tomorrow.”

  Nick watched him leave, then drew a few deep breaths of sweet-scented night air. Prepared the best he could be for the interrogation to come, he walked to the door, wrapped his fingers around the cold metal knob, twisted it and pushed the door open. “Hey, Mom, Pop,” he greeted with a smile that was as phony as they came. “Is it too late to get some food around here?”

  Thursday was a beautiful day for Thanksgiving — chilly enough for a sweater but warm enough for a stroll through fallen leaves to enjoy the sights and especially the scents of autumn. Faith could use the exercise, but for some reason she couldn’t find the energy to leave the rocker, put on her shoes and head out the door.

  It was the shoes that were stopping her, she decided, stretching her feet out and wiggling her toes in soft ragg socks. Walking on a day like this required comfortable shoes. She had a pair of green suede hiking boots that she loved, but it was doubtful that she could squeeze her swollen feet into their well-worn confines. Even if she somehow succeeded, how would she ever get the laces crisscrossed over the hooks and tied in tight bows? Her belly was too big, or her arms and legs too short, to manage anything other than slip-on shoes.

  And so she would simply sit here, alone in her big house with Amelia Rose and...

  And what? Initially, when she had turned down the Thanksgiving dinner invitations that had come from all her friends, she had intended to spend the day exactly the way she was: alone with Amelia Rose. She had intended to make it a special day, to fix a special dinner for herself, to make plans and daydream and simply treasure the peace, the quiet and the specialness of the day.

  Then Nick Russo had shown up.

  Most men who found themselves in his situation would have been more than happy to hear her absolve them of any responsibility. Most men would have listened to her first denial, and then gratefully run from her life, without a backward glance. Why couldn’t Nick be like them? Like her father?

  Yet some small part of her was happy that he wasn’t. Some small part was grateful that Amelia Rose’s father wasn’t quick to turn his back on her and run away. It might still happen, she knew. After all, he’d made it clear that the prospect of fatherhood didn’t thrill him at all. But he could always change his mind. Once she was here, once he held her and saw how sweet and innocent she was, he might well decide that part-time parenthood wasn’t so bad. He might even acknowledge her to his family, and they would welcome her and love her even if he didn’t.

  Or he might take Faith’s last words to heart. He might enjoy his visit, have a good time at Saturday’s wedding and never speak to her again. He might never acknowledge his daughter to his family. He might never give her anything more than dark hair or dark eyes or a wickedly sweet smile.

  Across the room the television was tuned to a Thanksgiving Day parade broadcast from New York. Next year Amelia Rose might give the giant balloons a wide-eyed moment of her attention, but it would be several years before she could truly enjoy the hoopla. Today it was simply depressing, too strong a reminder of Thanksgivings past. There had never been any joyous holidays celebrated in this house, not while Great-aunt Lydia had lived, and Thanksgiving had been no exception. Every year they had arisen at their usual 6:00 a.m. — Lydia hadn’t believed in wasting God’s mornings in bed — and had eaten their usual breakfast of oatmeal and toast. They had passed the morning quietly before sharing a dinner for two. The afternoons had been spent in quiet, too — no visitors, no playing outside, no television. The only diversion allowed the entire day had been the Macy’s parade — one half hour of it and not one minute more.

  Once, when she was fifteen, Faith had suggested inviting guests for dinner — friends of her great-aunt’s who were alone, a couple from church whose children had moved too far away to visit — but Lydia had refused. Thanksgiving was a holiday for family, she had decreed, and that was how they would observe it. Even though they had no family but each other. Even though, regardless of the weather outside, the day was always dreary and bleak. Even though they gave thanks for little.

  Lydia had died four years ago, only one week away from her seventy-eighth birthday. She had left Faith this old house, enough money to start the business and a lifetime of teachings, rules and judgments. It had taken Faith less than four years to break the most important rule, to commit the gravest sin. If Lydia were alive to see her now, the old lady would be full of righteous anger. She would profess great shame, would induce great guilt and exact daily penance from her great-niece and even from Amelia Rose. She would make them suffer, the way she had tried to make Faith’s mother suffer, the way she had made Faith herself suffer for twenty-one years.

  But she wouldn’t throw them out. She wouldn’t wash her hands of them. No matter how great the burden, no matter how deep the shame, Lydia would do her Christian duty. She would accept her responsibilities, would carry out her obligations.

  Was it possible that Nick Russo had a little of her great-aunt Lydia in him?

  The thought made her scowl. It didn’t matter if he did. Faith had lived most of her life not as Lydia Harper’s great-niece but as her duty, her family obligation. She was never going to be anyone’s responsibility again. She was never going to be anyone’s burden.

  Pushing the subject to the back of her mind, she slid to the edge of the big scooped seat, then awkwardly got to her feet. Some days she forgot how her body had changed and remembered only after trying to do something that was once routine — stand up or sit down, pick up a box, bend to take something from a low cabinet. Other days, like today, she couldn’t forget the changes even when she was sitting and doing nothing. Her back ached. Her feet ached. Her hands were swollen. The twenty-nine pounds she’d gained threw off her center of gravity and made grace and easy movement things of the past. Some days she felt she had been this way forever, feared that she might stay this way forever.

  Walking — waddling — across the room, she shut off the television, then gave the parlor a slow, thorough study, searching for something to do. There was little enough cleaning when she lived alone and had learned by the time she was three to put things away as soon as she finished with them. The only things out of place in the room were her fuzzy house slippers that she’d kicked off once the central heat had warmed the room this morning and the two small packets that last night’s visitor had left behind.

  Condoms. What would Wendy or one of the others say if they dropped by to try to change her mind about sharing their Thanksgiving dinners and found the condoms so prominently displayed there? Probably point out that she was, oh, about nine months late in acquiring them. “I never leave home without ’em,” Nick had proclaimed, which meant that he’d probably had a few tucked in his wallet that cold February night, if only he had been sober enough — or she had been rational enough, knowledgeable enough or smart enough — to look. If either of them had checked, he would have been saved the discomfort of having only eight days’ or so notice that he was having a baby with a woman he didn’t know, and she would have been spared the shock, the gossip, the whispers and about six months of incessant questioning.

  But she also would have been robbed of the sheer joy an
d pleasure of the past nine months. She would have missed out on the thrill of feeling her baby growing and moving within her. She wouldn’t have experienced the miracle — oh, yes, no matter how sappy it sounded, it definitely was a miracle — of life. She would have missed out on feeling, for the first time in her life, all this love — hers now, of course, but sure to be returned by Amelia Rose in full measure.

  Bending at an odd angle, she scooped up the two packets, intending to take them straight into the kitchen and the wastebasket there. Instead, though, with the curiosity of the near-virgin that she was, she studied them carefully. The packets were white plastic with blue writing that had been scratched off in places. They had been bent and creased and treated with no care at all. There was a tear in one that went all the way through both layers of plastic and the latex inside, and the crimped edges of the other were coated with what looked like grease, from an engine, maybe, or a tool that had been used to work on one.

  She was no expert, but she expected that a single man intent on protecting himself—a man like Nick, handsome, sexy, always popular with the ladies — would take better care of his protection than this. The plastic packs looked as if they’d endured a long, rough period of neglect. They didn’t look suitable for anything but their eventual destination: the trash.

  But she was no expert, and she never would be. Her one and only experience with that aspect of life, although supremely successful at the time, had turned into a disappointing failure. She had no need of a man in her life, and, once Amelia Rose was born, she would have no desire for one, either.

  Not even one like Nick.

  Carrying stacks of dirty dishes in both hands, Nick made his way through a maze of dining chairs and through the open door into the kitchen, where his mother and two of his sisters had begun the after-dinner cleanup. It was a job as big, it seemed, as the dinner preparation. Every bit of counter space was filled with dishes, pots and pans, serving platters and bowls. The kitchen table all but groaned under its load of leftovers and desserts, and a folding table pushed against the far wall held stacks of clean dishes, sorted by owner. He recognized his grandmother’s glazed pottery and, at the opposite end, Aunt Marguerita’s good china. The plain white dishes in the middle came from the family restaurant that bore his father’s name. His father the chef created mouth-watering dishes at the restaurant five days a week, but he rarely set foot in this kitchen. This was the women’s domain. Even Nick felt like an interloper, but he stayed after adding the dishes he carried to the stack... especially once he heard an all-too-familiar name.