Fatherless: A Novel

by Dobson, James

  FROM JARED DAVIDSON: When are you coming home? I need to talk to you.

  The fight over Fin must have been more intense than Maria had implied. Jared almost never asked Julia to talk. It was his aunt’s job to smooth things over, to cajole Jared from hiding behind the protective shell of his locked bedroom door. Glancing at the time she decided to wait until morning to call. She opened the second message.

  FROM PAUL DAUGHERTY: Have an idea for the feature. Give me a call tonight no matter how late.

  Julia tapped Paul’s image. She heard a single ring followed by a stew of pounding music and laughing crowd chatter.

  “Hi, Jewel!” Paul shouted. “Hold on a sec while I find a quiet spot.”

  Moments later the background noise dipped, along with the volume of Paul’s voice.

  “There we go,” he began. “Great party at the Funky Buddha. Wish you were here!”

  “I’m in DC. I got your message. Is now good for you?”

  “Now’s great. I might be hungover in the morning!” He laughed more than the joke deserved.

  “What’s up?”

  “The editorial board is pressing me pretty hard on this bright spots controversy. They want something soon.”

  Julia felt a mix of exhilaration and alarm. RAP editorial board mandates generally meant top story billing. They also meant walking the journalistic high wire without a net.

  “How’s it going, by the way?”

  “Making great progress. I’m interviewing Congresswoman Florea and Trisha Sayers on Monday.”

  He didn’t react.

  Remembering that he had arranged both meetings, she quickly added, “And you’ll never guess where I am right now.”

  “You told me. DC.”

  “I’m in the Washington residence of Congressman Kevin Tolbert.” She let the name sink in.

  “Good Lord, girl! You do move fast!” He seemed both impressed and mistaken.

  “Not like that!” she said hastily. “I’m in the guest room after spending a day with Kevin’s wife Angie. You remember. I told you we were high school friends.”

  “Right.” He sounded disappointed and intrigued. “Any openings?”

  “I think so.” She thought of her agreement to attend church. “I plan to meet several of his associates tomorrow morning.”

  “Perfect.”

  A brief intermission.

  “You said you had an idea for the feature?” she reminded him.

  “Oh yeah. A soft-think idea you can take or leave.”

  Julia knew that Paul’s “soft-think” suggestions were actually nonnegotiable edicts. “Great. Let me hear it.”

  “I want to position this story as your next Guylanders.”

  Another surge of adrenaline.

  “I don’t follow.” But she did hope.

  “Think about it, Jewel,” he continued. “You became a legend by exposing the downside of a major demographic shift. You gave women everywhere a vocabulary for describing their angst.”

  He was right. Her Guylanders feature had struck a major cultural chord. For decades two trend lines had been moving in opposite directions. Women were on the rise, earning most of the college and graduate degrees and filling most openings in the more lucrative professions. In a few short decades, American girls managed to overtake centuries of boy’s-club bias and patriarchy to become the most affluent, independent females in history.

  Over the same period, however, another trend had emerged. American boys were more than happy to hand over the reins to assertive gals. Unlike their grandfathers, more and more guys inhabited the comfortable borders of Guyland, where they formed clans of rent-sharing roommates and worked part-time jobs to protect time for climbing virtual-world ladders and sampling the endless supply of young women offering no-strings-attached pleasure.

  Many said the trends of guy passivity and gal advancement had fueled the innovations that created the multibillion-dollar in vitro selection industry. As age ambushed millions of women, they now sought something no Guylander seemed willing to provide. A child, rather than a mate, became the life partner of choice.

  Girls on top.

  Boys having fun.

  Every child a wanted child.

  The perfect world.

  But getting what one wants does not guarantee liking it. Julia’s feature was the first mainstream story to overtly associate a decline in male achievement with a rise in female depression. She compared the phenomenon to separation anxiety after centuries of male domination. Like abused children taken from parents to foster-care safety, oppressed women needed time to adjust to a better existence.

  Medicate the depression, she had written. Don’t abandon the dream.

  “I think you can do it again,” Paul continued. “I’ve already decided on a title for the feature.”

  A feature I haven’t even outlined? she thought.

  “The Breeders.” He paused for impact. “What do you think? Clear. Simple. A short title like Guylanders. It has your name written all over it, pardon the pun.”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, Guylanders wasn’t an offensive word. But Breeders is used, you know, like an ethnic slur.”

  Momentary silence suggested Paul hadn’t thought of that. He protested anyway. “Apples and oranges. You can’t equate offending religious nuts with demeaning an entire race.”

  Glancing at the family photo hanging on Angie’s guest room wall, Julia wasn’t so sure. But she went along anyway. “What do you have in mind?”

  “You need to get inside Tolbert’s head. Spend time with his coalition. I promise you’ll find more than enough to characterize the bright spots agenda as radical breeder nonsense.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said pensively.

  A rhythmic thump resurfaced on the other end of the line, accompanied by what sounded like a sea of humanity shouting over one another. Someone must have opened whatever door Paul had hid behind to take Julia’s call.

  “There you are!” The faint voice sounded vaguely familiar. “Come on, Paul. You’re missing the table dance contest!”

  Julia resisted the urge to ask, choosing instead to end the call. “Go back to your party. I’ll touch base with you in a few days.”

  “Do,” Paul shouted. “Bye, love!”

  Julia set her tablet aside and reached for a decorative pillow sitting on the undisturbed half of the bedspread. She held it close while sorting a half dozen thoughts and feelings.

  The thrill of journalistic resurgence.

  The challenge of a big idea.

  The pressure of a tight deadline.

  The determination to win at all costs.

  Hushed voices interrupted her sorting. Angie and Kevin had arrived home. Quickly slipping out from under the covers, Julia quietly pulled her door closed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kevin gazed at Leah slightly longer than he had at Tommy or Joy, the final stop on his promised round of inspections before joining Angie in the bedroom. All three were blessedly asleep. He glanced at the floor beneath the guest room door. No light. Julia was out after what must have been an exhausting night of a job well done.

  The phone in his jacket vibrated. Reaching into his pocket, Kevin congratulated himself on the silence, recalling too many opportunities for intimacy derailed by an ill-timed ring that woke one or more of the kids. He decided to ignore the message, turning instead toward the kitchen, where he retrieved two glasses. He checked for orange juice, without which he could not mix fresh mimosas, Angie’s favorite indulgence when accompanied by fresh strawberries.

  Moments later he arrived at their bedroom door, one hand awkwardly balancing the glasses while the other held a small plate.

  Another vibration. Two instant messages in rapid sequence piqued his curiosity. It had to be Troy burning the midnight oil again. He slid into the kids’ bathroom to free a hand by placing the strawberries on the sink counter.

  FROM TROY: See attached. Press interview I just approved for Monday afternoon.


  There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the message, the kind Kevin received routinely whenever Troy had screened a request and determined a meeting advantageous and safe. He ignored the attachment, confident in Troy’s judgment. But then he read the second message.

  FROM TROY: BTW—Who is Julia Davidson?

  He immediately opened the attachment: an interview request from Julia sent to his office in-box a mere six minutes earlier.

  Dear Congressman: I hope you and Angie had a great date. Your kids are terrific! Any chance you would return the favor by granting me an exclusive interview? I’ll be in DC through Tuesday afternoon. (Julia Davidson, RAP Syndicate)

  Kevin smiled. Apparently, Julia was not as soundly asleep as she had made it appear.

  Angie had already lit the bedroom candles by the time Kevin arrived. Eyes still adjusting to the diminished light, he heard her voice before he saw her.

  “Are they asleep?”

  “Like rocks,” he assured her.

  “Julia?”

  “No sign of life.” True, if you discount messages intended to be read on Monday.

  “Good,” she said, stepping from the shadows into the warm glow of a dancing flame.

  Kevin’s heart began to race as it had on countless occasions since their wedding night as he anticipated opening the same favorite gift in new wrapping paper.

  Flowing lace in precisely the right locations.

  A single finger summoning him to draw closer.

  An alluring grin that enticed him back into everything they had known together: the flirty glances of a teenage crush, the tingling thrill of gently held hands, the sweet taste of a first stolen kiss, the breathless wonder of caressing her honeymoon body.

  He smiled gratefully for a fifteen-year discovery of pleasures both had come to crave.

  “I told you I had a surprise.” She blushed at his greedy gaze. “Do you like it?”

  He approached, delightfully conflicted between a desire to satisfy her and anticipation of his own culminating release.

  “You’re amazing.” He brushed his lips across hers. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Angie and Kevin lay on top of their bedspread gently caressing one another’s arms. The intensity of their union had both exhausted and refreshed. Still catching his breath, Kevin sensed himself being renewed, as if a mysterious tailor were repairing his frayed edges. He turned his head to look into his wife’s contented eyes. He wondered if she felt the same. Had he been for her what she had been for him, a brush in the hands of a gentle artist adding yet another finishing touch?

  She rolled onto her side while pulling his arm around her relaxed body from behind. They held one another silently for several more minutes.

  Kevin felt himself drifting into sleep until Angie’s voice pulled him back.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  He forced his eyes open. “Thinking?”

  Angie giggled. “I forgot. Your mind ceases to function after we make love.”

  She was more right than she knew. “My mind is in perfect working order. Although I’ll admit not as perfect as other parts!”

  She giggled again. “I was thinking about Julia.”

  He ignored the bruise to his ego. “What about her?”

  “I was trying to imagine what it’s like for her. You know, no husband or kids. Having sex instead of making love. I couldn’t live her life.”

  “I certainly hope not!” he teased.

  She slapped his hand, then raised it to her lips for a gentle kiss. “You know what I mean.”

  “She probably can’t imagine living your life either.” He immediately disagreed with himself. “I don’t know, maybe she can. After all, she was made for it.”

  “Made for what?”

  “Family.”

  “She’d beg to differ.”

  “Sure. But she’d also know it’s true.” He said it as if launching a political speech. “Do you remember what God said after making Adam before Eve?”

  “‘Just kidding’?”

  He moved his hand to her naked side to threaten tickle retaliation.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He moved his hand back, receiving another peck. “God said it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone. After describing everything else he made as good, he called something he made not good.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “I told you. My mind is in perfect working order,” he continued. “He couldn’t have meant that Adam was bad. He must have meant Adam was incomplete. You know, unfinished.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Men and women are two halves of a whole. I bet Julia has moments when she feels incomplete.”

  “She certainly doesn’t show it. I’ve never met a more confident woman.”

  “I have,” he said.

  She turned her head in his direction. “Who?”

  He propped himself up on this right elbow to kiss Angie on the cheek. “I know a woman who is confident enough to volunteer for the most important job on earth, a job very few of her girlfriends would even consider.”

  She turned toward Kevin’s eyes as he continued.

  “I know a woman so courageous that she quit a successful career in order to give three kids the kind of love and security no other person in the world could provide.”

  Her hand rose to his face in an invitation to kiss her fingertips before saying more.

  “I know a woman who stood up to an arrogant pediatrician and defended the dignity of a little girl whom God entrusted to our care.”

  Kevin used his palm to intercept a single tear leaking from Angie’s eye before it could reach the pillow.

  “And I know a woman whom every guy in high school wanted to date, but who wisely chose to become Kevin Tolbert’s better half.”

  Angie burst into moist laughter as she mashed her face against her husband’s.

  “I love you,” she said through a flood of tears.

  “I love you too.”

  They lay side by side to resume their gentle caresses. After a few minutes Angie’s hand moved lower, surprising Kevin with an invitation to a second round of intimacy.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The building appeared to have been constructed with a capacity for five hundred worshippers, six counting the small balcony located above the entry door at the back of the room. It possessed all the markings of a traditional East Coast church circa 1950, when the iconic Billy Graham had dominated headlines and personified the growing evangelical movement. Countless fire-and-brimstone sermons must have been heard between these walls before Protestant congregations found a new audience using a simpler, more user-friendly message about God’s love, man’s sin, and Christ’s gift to all willing recipients.

  The walls and pews retained the faint aroma of sweaty weeknight revival meetings ending with an invitation for sinners to stream forward and accept salvation. A large woman would have been playing soft hymns on an upright piano while the minister extended his hand to the congregation, asking reluctant stragglers, “Won’t you come?”

  The church, like so many others, had suffered a gradual death during the years when another style of evangelicalism took center stage. Before the turn of the century, pianos and organs lost ground to guitars and drums. Pulpit-pounding appeals were replaced by conversational teaching. Hardwood benches, like the one Julia occupied now, had been replaced by padded theater seats in front of large-screen projection units. The style had created some of the largest congregations in Christian history by appealing to the huge baby boom population during its child-rearing years. The early twenty-first century had seen churches from various denominations in every large city boast weekly attendance in the thousands or even tens of thousands. But that movement also died when a new generation of kids started yawning at their parents’ favorite songs and teachers.

  From the first moment of the sermon Julia sensed something quite different. The minister seemed to lack the bohemi
an-casual persona of Angie’s high school and college pastors. Perhaps Reverend Mubar had flunked the seminary course on coffee shop posture and trendy lingo. Maybe he had assumed his slight African accent would doom all attempts at cool. Regardless, Julia found his dignified solemnity absorbing as he invited the congregation into hushed reverence at the start of its weekly litany.

  Like the lift of a maestro’s baton to call an orchestra to the ready, the pastor’s move toward a small podium summoned all two hundred worshippers back to their seats. Moments earlier they had been lifting their hands while singing melodies and words Julia didn’t know with a passion she didn’t share. Killer shows by her favorite recording artists had never stirred her to tears as a few simple songs had stirred Angie and other members of Apostles’ Church. One guy with a guitar, his voice barely on pitch, seemed to elicit more emotion than a platinum-album-selling band with massive projection systems and thousands of screaming fans.

  Julia wondered whether the low-key style represented Angie’s reaction against her own parents’ brand of church. No big screen or coffee shop. No cool band. Not even a conversational teacher, which became abundantly clear when Pastor Mubar transitioned them from “a season of worship” into a talk he read rather than presented to his flock.

  “Peace be to you,” he began.

  “And also to you,” the congregation responded.

  “This morning’s text comes from the Gospel of Saint Luke, chapter twenty-four.”

  Julia heard the sound of mass movement. She noticed Kevin retrieving a Bible from the slot in front of them. She did the same.

  “Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “‘Peace to you.’”

  Kevin and the other listeners managed to locate the passage in time to read along. After a momentary effort to find some sort of index, Julia forgot the name of the page she was supposed to find. She held the book open toward the middle and ignored the print in order to listen to the reading.