by Robin Wells
“Hello, there, Katie,” the man called.
“Hello, Mr. Gantor—Mrs. Gantor.”
“We sure enjoyed that casserole,” the man said.
“I’m so glad.”
“If you have a moment, I’ll fetch the dish for you,” the old woman called.
Gracie blew out an impatient sigh. “I’m starving.”
Katie glanced at her anxiously, then smiled at the elderly couple. He could see that she was torn between making the elderly couple happy and appeasing Gracie. Apparently Gracie won out. “We’re kind of in a hurry. I’ll stop by for it tomorrow.”
“I couldn’t quite hear you, dear. Did you say there’s something you want to borrow?”
“She said she’ll stop by tomorrow,” Mr. Gantor said loudly.
“Oh. Okay, dear.” The woman smiled at Katie. “Who’s that with you?”
“This is my daughter, Gracie.”
“Racy? Oh, I wouldn’t say that, dear. All the girls wear their clothes tight these days.”
“She said it’s her daughter, Gracie,” Mr. Gantor said.
“I’m not her…,” Gracie began.
“Stuff it,” Zack warned her under his breath.
“And this is Zack Ferguson,” Katie continued. “He’s moved into the old Ashton house.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
Mrs. Gantor pulled on his sleeve. “What did she say?”
“That Nellie was right after all.”
“I’ll come see you tomorrow and we’ll catch up,” Katie promised.
“Ketchup? That’s sweet, dear, but we have a full bottle.” The woman wiggled her fingers in a little wave. “Nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, too,” Zack called. He glanced down at Gracie and gave her a nudge. “Likewise,” she muttered.
Katie strode quickly past the next house, where a curtain parted as they walked past. She opened her front door.
“Don’t you lock your place?” Zack asked.
“I do at night, and when I’m gone long, but not when I’m just going down the street. My neighbors keep an eye on things for me.”
A louvered window opened across the street. This place took neighborhood watch to a whole new level. “Apparently so. But you should lock up anyway. Someone could sneak in when your neighbors aren’t looking.”
Katie looked like she was about to protest, then glanced at Gracie. He could see the thought rolling through her head. She had to set a good example. “You’re right. Gracie, I’ll have a key made for you in the morning.”
She strode into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a green pepper and a stalk of celery. She handed them to Gracie and indicated the cutting board. “Would you please dice these?” She went to the cupboard and pulled out an onion and two cloves of garlic. “And you can cut these.”
“I can see where I rank,” he commented. “I get the stinky work.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Gracie almost crack a smile. Katie opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables, then opened the refrigerator and pulled out a package of precooked chicken breasts. As Katie made rice, she gave Gracie directions on preparing the stir-fry. Zack set the table, and twenty minutes later, they sat down at the dining table to steaming bowls of stir-fry and rice, fragrant with lemongrass and garlic.
“I think we should say grace,” Katie said.
“Grace,” Gracie quickly said. “Although I prefer to be called Gracie.”
Katie grinned at her. “I meant a blessing.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “What for? That’s just superstition.”
“Not to me.”
Gracie huffed out an exasperated sigh. “You didn’t insist on praying last time we all ate together here.”
“You were upset.”
“I can get upset again.”
Apparently the baby high was wearing off and she was reverting to ticked-off teenager mode. Zack decided to try to head things off. “It’s Kate’s house, so let’s do things her way.”
Katie held out her hands. Zack folded his fingers tightly around hers, enjoying the sensation of her warm palm in his. He extended his other hand to Gracie. The girl rolled her eyes again, blew out another long-suffering sigh, then took each adult’s hand.
The moment struck him as surreal. There they were, gathered around the table, holding hands, just like one big happ family. The concept should have alarmed him, but oddly enough, it didn’t. Katie bowed her head and closed her eyes. “Thank you, God, for this food and all our many blessings. Help us to remember how loving and kind you are toward us, and help us to be loving and kind to others. Amen.”
“Amen,” Zack echoed.
Gracie remained silent. He squeezed her hand.
“A men,” Gracie said, jerking her hand back. “A women, too.” She picked up her fork.
“Napkin, Gracie,” Zack said.
She huffed out a sigh. “What are you, the etiquette police?”
“Yeah. And I’m citing you for a moving violation.” Zack grinned and picked up a pair of chopsticks. “You’re going to have to set a good example for your child, you know.”
“Oh, like you did?”
The kid really knew how to kick him where it hurt. He forced a smile. “I’m trying to make up for lost time.”
“Yeah, well, don’t bother.” Ignoring the chopsticks Katie had put out, Gracie scooped a pile of food on her fork. “I had a dad, and you’re not him.”
“I couldn’t believe how clearly the baby showed up on the ultrasound,” Katie said in a transparent attempt to change the subject.
Gracie’s face softened. “Yeah. That was way cool.”
“You ought to send a copy of the ultrasound to your baby’s father,” Zack remarked.
Gracie’s hand went still. “My baby doesn’t have a father.”
“You’re saying it was an immaculate conception?”
Gracie’s face turned stony. “I’m saying it’s none of your business.”
A nerve ticked in Zack’s jaw. He’d meant to try to cajole her into a conversation about her baby’s father, but if she wouldn’t cooperate, he had no problem forcing the issue. Seeing that ultrasound had made the baby’s arrival seem imminent. The fact that there might be a problem made it seem all the more urgent that they waste no time notifying the baby’s father.
If he had seen a picture of Gracie in Katie’s womb, it could have changed his whole life. He was sure of it. He wasn’t sure what he would have done, but he liked to think he would have given Katie the option of keeping her baby if she’d wanted to. “I beg your pardon, Gracie, but you made it my business when you showed up and asked me to take you in.”
“Zack, I really don’t think…,” Katie began.
“I never asked you to take me in.” Gracie’s eyes flashed. “I asked you to make me an emancipated minor.”
“Which I’m not going to do.”
“Well, there are some things I’m not going to do, either.” Gracie stabbed a spear of broccoli. “Including having this conversation.”
“Drop it, Zack,” Katie urged.
But Zack wasn’t about to. “Your baby’s father needs to know.”
“He’s not a father. He’s a sperm donor.” She stuck the forkful of food in her mouth, and continued talking. “Like you were.”
She shoots, she scores. She’d wanted to hurt him, and she had. He leaned forward. “Is it Justin?”
Gracie’s mouth fell open, inelegantly exposing her partially chewed broccoli, then abruptly closed. He watched an array of emotions play across her face: surprise, then disbelief, then amusement. “Justin? No way!” Her expression morphed again—this time into anger. “How’d you get his name, anyway?”
“I called your old high school in Pittsburgh and talked to some of your teachers.”
“Jesus.” Her jaw stiffened. “Is there no such thing as privacy?”
“This isn’t just about you, Gracie.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’
t about you.” She glared at him. “You’re way off base, anyway. Justin’s gay.”
“So who’s the father?”
“No one.”
He leaned back in the chair. “Look, if you’re not sure who it is, just give me a list of the suspects, and we’ll get a blood test after the baby’s born.”
Her face went scarlet. “Holy crap. You think I’m a slut?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You might as well have.”
“Gracie, sweetie, he didn’t mean anything,” Kate said. “There’s no need to get upset.”
“He accused me of sleeping with a whole list of guys, and you don’t think I should be upset?” Her voice was shrill and loud.
Zack scowled. “I’m not judging you. I just believe that the father’s right to know trumps any embarrassment you might have about who you’ve slept with.”
“My baby has no father. I’m a single parent. Got that? A single parent.” Her chair squawked as she pushed it back from the table and rose. “Stay the fuck out of my business.” Her glower encompassed Katie. “Both of you!”
“Gracie…,” Katie began.
But she wasn’t listening. She stormed out of the room and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Zack blew out a sigh. “Well, that went well.”
Gracie wasn’t the only one upset with him. Katie’s eyes threw daggers. “She was just starting to warm up to us. She was excited about the baby and starting to talk. Why did you have to start railroading her about the baby’s father?”
“That wasn’t railroading. That was straight talk, which is just what that girl needs. You’re not doing her any favors, tiptoeing around her as if she’s a prison guard with a new stun gun she’s just waiting to try out.”
“I’m trying build a relationship with her.”
“Yeah, well, letting her walk all over you is not the way to make that happen.”
Katie slapped her napkin down on the table. “She’s not walking all over me. I’m exercising patience. Which is something you might try for a change.” Katie snatched the dishes off the table, her eyes snapping. “The girl is hurting. She’s lost her parents—the only parents she’s ever known. She’s pregnant, she’s in a strange town with no friends, and all of her life, she’s thought of us as the bad guys. Don’t you get it?”
“I get that you feel so damned guilty for something you shouldn’t feel guilty about that you don’t want to cross her.”
“You don’t know the first thing about how I feel.” The plates clattered as she piled them on top of one another and strode into the kitchen.
Hell. She was probably right. He ran a hand down his face, blew out a sigh, then picked up the bowl of rice and the bowl of chicken and vegetables and followed her into the kitchen.
The plates clanged as she dumped them into the stainless-steel sink. Katie turned on the faucet. She picked up a plate and scraped its contents into the garbage disposal, then flipped the switch. The disposal roared.
“Would you like me to stick my head in there so you can grind it, too?” he asked over the noise.
“Great idea.” She flipped off the switch. “Unfortunately, your head won’t fit even in the sink, because it’s so swollen with everything you think you know.”
“I don’t think I know everything. I just think the boy ought to be in on things, especially since Gracie’s going to keep the baby.”
“What if he doesn’t want to be a part of things? What if you drag him into this and he’s reluctant or angry or unreliable or just not there? Do you really think that’s in the best interests of Gracie or the baby?”
He stared at her. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“Yes.” She rinsed the next plate. “Believe me, there are worse things than not knowing your father,” Katie said.
She’d never talked about her dad, other than to say he wasn’t in the picture. Because of Katie’s mother’s barfly ways, he’d assumed she didn’t know who he was. He crossed the kitchen toward her. “Are you talking from personal experience?”
“Yeah.” She turned on the garbage disposal again.
The roar of the motor reverberated through him. “You knew your dad?”
She flipped off the disposal. “I wouldn’t say that I actually knew him. He popped in a few times. Once he stayed a whole week. He made all kinds of promises about things we were going to do together and places we were going to go, and I believed him. And then he’d just disappear for another few years.” She opened the dishwasher and pulled out the bottom rack with a clatter. “It would have been a lot better if he’d just stayed away.”
His stomach felt like it was being squeezed in a juicer. “Kate—I didn’t know.”
“Why should you?”
“Because…” Because he’d thought they’d been close—closer than he’d let himself get to anybody else, at least as far as sharing stuff about himself. The poker games that summer hadn’t started until eleven or later, so when he’d pick Katie up after work, they’d often just sat and talked. He remembered one night in particular.
They’d been sitting in his eight-year-old Ford Taurus in front of her run-down trailer, “Let’s Get Rocked” by Def Leppard playing on his Radio Shack car-kit stereo. Katie had stared at her mother’s dented blue Chevy Nova with the smashed-in fender and the mismatched black door, parked at a cockamamy angle. “I hate to go in there. I don’t know if my mother is ‘entertaining’ or passed out, or if she’ll be drunk and crying and I’ll have to stay up half the night comforting her, as if I’m the grown-up.” She looked at Zack. “It must be nice, having real parents.”
Zack let out a derisive laugh. “I don’t have real parents. And it sure wasn’t nice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Real parents don’t hit their kid just because he’s standing there.”
Katie’s eyes grew round and concerned. “Your folks hit you?”
He’d never told anyone that before. He tried to downplay it with a shrug. “Nothing too bad. Just a slap or a backhand. And only if I interrupted one of their ‘conversations.’ ” Meaning one of their long, drawn-out, pretty-much-continuous slurfests. “Most of the time they ignored me.” Because he tiptoed around, trying to act invisible. “But when they got mad at each other, they’d yell at me, too. And then later they’d say, ‘I love you.’ ” His voice twisted into a sarcastic falsetto. “ ‘I love you, Zachary.’ As if that made hitting me or screaming at me all right.”
Kate had just sat there, her eyes urging him to keep on talking. So he had. “The worst part was, I had to say it back.” His voice went into sarcasm mode again. “ ‘Say it like you mean it, Zachary.’ ‘Zachary, tell your mother you love her so she’ll quit crying and shut up.’ ”
He’d stared at the lightbulb on the front of Katie’s trailer, illuminating the kicked-in dent on the mildew-covered, once-white door. “They acted like I was a big nuisance, like it was a real pain to take me anywhere or do anything for me, like they resented the fact I existed. When I was eleven, I found out why.”
“Yeah?”
“I was in my room, and I heard my mom tell my dad that he’d ruined her life. And he yelled back that she was the one who’d ruined it, getting knocked up with me.”
“Oh, no,” Katie breathed.
“Yeah. He said she’d gotten pregnant on purpose to trick him into marrying her. And she said it was the last thing she wanted, being stuck with a loser like him. And he said she should have gotten an abortion like he wanted her to. ‘You know I couldn’t,’ she yelled back. ‘I was too far along.’ ”
Katie’s hand had reached for his. “Oh, Zack.”
“I didn’t know what an abortion was. I looked the word up in the dictionary at school the next day.”
The jangle of silverware being jammed into the dishwasher pulled him back to the moment. God. He’d forgotten he’d told Katie all that. Knowing that about him must have made it really hard for Katie to call all those Fe
rgusons in the Chicago phone directory when she’d learned she was pregnant herself.
He watched her angrily jab the plates into the dishwasher rack. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew your dad?” he asked.
“I never talk about it.”
Ever? Not even with her husband? It made him jealous to think that another man might have known something she’d held back from him.
Which was totally stupid. After all, they’d known each other for only six weeks that summer. It only made sense that she’d form a deeper bond with a man she’d been married to for four years.
The thing was, he’d never formed as deep a bond with another woman as he’d formed that summer with Katie. Hell. Was he emotionally stunted or something? Apparently he’d peaked out on relationships in his teens.
But then, that had been his choice. He’d never wanted commitment and closeness and all that crap. He’d spent his childhood wanting his parents’ love, and all he’d gotten were empty words shoved down his throat. Loving someone just gave them power over you, and he never intended to be in that position again.
He watched Katie storm across the kitchen and yank a couple of plastic storage containers out of a cabinet. Another thought occurred to him. “When you were pregnant with Gracie, were you worried that I’d be like your father?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Since I decided not to keep the baby, it didn’t really matter.”
It wasn’t the outright “no” he’d hoped for. All that summer, he’d tried to be a stand-up kind of guy, to treat Katie the way guys in movies treated their girls. “Kate, I want you to know that I would have… I mean, I like to think that I would have…”
She cut him off. “None of us really know what we’d really do in a situation until we’re in it, do we?” She dumped the chicken and vegetables into one of the containers, smashed on the lid, and slammed it into the refrigerator, then whirled toward him, her hands on her hips. “I don’t even know why you’re here now.”
Zack didn’t really know himself. He didn’t know how to be a good father; he only knew how not to be the brand of bad father he’d had—disinterested, self-absorbed, and neglectful.