An Unexpected Match

by Corbit, Dana

  At the newspaper-covered table, Haley sat sipping a can of soda, her thoughts appearing nowhere near his yellow kitchen. She didn’t notice him as he entered the room. He couldn’t help wondering where her thoughts had traveled. Wherever it was, her sad expression didn’t make it seem like a happy place.

  As if she sensed his gaze on her, Haley turned to look at him over her shoulder.

  “So you waited after all.”

  Her expression transformed as a glimmer of mischief appeared in her eyes. “Are you kidding? I’m one of three sisters. I learned early on never to do a job or at least a whole job when I could insist that everyone do her share.”

  “Unfortunately, I never could get my brothers to do theirs.”

  “Caroline would probably say the same thing about Jenna and me, but I wouldn’t buy it if I were you. Our mothers are quite a bit alike. Neither suffered slackers easily.”

  “Are you sure that wasn’t ‘fools’?”

  “Those, too.”

  When Matthew glanced at the mess on the table, Haley’s gaze followed his. The only thing missing from when he’d left earlier was the carton of eggs.

  “Oh, I did put the eggs away,” she said. “If we’re all going to have to eat them on Sunday, I figured we wouldn’t want to get sick.”

  “Good thinking.”

  Together, they transported the glasses of dye from the table to the counter and then started rolling up the newspapers from both ends to the center. The experience reminded Matthew of a certain shaving cream cleanup.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The only thing missing here is the scent of lime.”

  “We could arrange that if you’d like it.”

  He shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

  As he wadded up the damp newspapers and stuffed them in the trash can, Matthew cleared his throat. “I wanted to thank you for tonight. It was great.”

  “You were great,” she gushed. Her cheeks turned an attractive shade of pink. “I mean you did a great job. Elizabeth had a blast.”

  “She did, didn’t she?” He was probably grinning like a idiot, but he didn’t care. He was even impressed with himself tonight. “I worried she was going to lose it when I mentioned eating the eggs.”

  “Do you think Michelangelo or Gauguin would have handled it any better if you suggested eating their artwork?”

  “Probably not,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really appreciated you being here. I feel so out of my element when I do arts and crafts or try to play pretend with her.”

  Haley stepped to the sink and poured the liquids down the drain, avoiding getting the dye on the white porcelain. “You shouldn’t worry about doing those things. You did just fine. I’m sure you always do, even if you’re uncomfortable with the activities.”

  As she rinsed each of the glasses, Haley handed them to Matthew, who loaded them in the dishwasher.

  “It’s easy for you,” he said as he loaded the final glass. “You’re a natural with Elizabeth. Even when you’re playing pretend with her, it doesn’t look like an act.”

  “It’s not an act.” She turned her head to look at him with a confused expression on her face, and then, as if she thought she understood, she stiffened. “Those of us who aren’t quite grown-ups find it easy to relate to kids.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Her lips pressed into a line, Haley shut off the water, all the while looking at him with her side vision.

  “What I meant was,” he began, trying again. “Oh, learn to take a compliment, will you?”

  “I will when I hear one. That one sounded pretty backhanded to me.”

  “Only if you chose to hear it that way.”

  “Are you trying to convince me or the judge?”

  Her sardonic comment made him smile. “Both, of course. Attorneys like to win all arguments, whether we’re paid for them or not.”

  That she didn’t even chuckle told him he was losing this argument at an alarming pace. Even if he’d never called her a child, he’d told her she didn’t have any structure in her life. Once he’d even slipped and called her a “girl,” but that probably had more to do with him seeing the Haley he remembered than the one he knew now. Suddenly, the things he’d said and thought seemed unfair.

  “I’m sorry. I really was trying to compliment you.” He turned to face her so she could see he wasn’t kidding. “I didn’t intend to include any veiled barbs about your maturity, though I can see how you might suspect me.” He glanced at the floor and then back up at her. “I was pretty hard on you.”

  For a few seconds, she didn’t answer. Instead, she reached in the drawer to the left of the sink for a washcloth, rinsed it and wiped down the kitchen counters. “You’re just as hard on yourself,” she said finally.

  Matthew took her comment as acceptance of his apology. Instead of waiting for her to change her mind, he took out the teakettle and filled it with water in an unspoken invitation for her to join him. After he put it on the stove, he turned back, lifting an eyebrow in question. Her tiny nod pleased him far more than it should have.

  While she moved to the table to clean, he took out cups and a box of herbal tea.

  “You’ve always expected so much of yourself in everything you do.” Haley returned to the table.

  It took Matthew a moment to realize she’d continued with the point she’d started to make earlier.

  “I guess I have,” he admitted. Dunking tea bags into two mugs of hot water, he carried them and some napkins over to the table and sat.

  “What you don’t realize,” she continued as she bobbed her tea bag, “is that Elizabeth doesn’t expect you to be the perfect parent.”

  “I know that, but—”

  “Do you? Really?” She removed her tea bag and rested it on the napkin.

  He looked at her, not at all certain that he did know. What was he really afraid of, that Elizabeth would announce to everyone that he’d failed to meet her needs? She was four years old. She still ranked eating ice cream or playing preschool board games right up there with shopping for a new toy.

  “If you’re not sure,” Haley began, “I want to clarify for you that she doesn’t expect perfection. You’re the only one who does. You’re her hero. She’s thrilled when you play with her or do activities with her. Just look at the happy dance she does when you come home from work.”

  Matthew nodded. Her argument was sound, even if he was having a hard time accepting it. Vulnerability didn’t sit well with him, either. He felt most comfortable when he was in control of his life, and now he felt like a rowboat adrift in a squall.

  “I just don’t want anyone to fail her again,” he said with a frustrated sigh.

  “You understand that you can’t shield her from that, don’t you? Whether it’s a classmate, coworker, future boyfriend or even a fiancé,” she paused long enough to smile over at him, “people are bound to fail her or disappoint her. Even a great dad like you doesn’t have the power to protect his child from that pain.”

  “Isn’t it enough that she lost her mother?”

  “It’s a lot to handle.”

  Matthew studied her for several seconds. Yes, this was the same Haley Scott he’d known since she took her first steps, and yet it wasn’t. She was still young, but she seemed like an old soul living in that youthful form, seasoned by life and yet not broken by it.

  “When did you get so wise?” he asked her finally.

  “When my life changed in the time it took to read a ‘Dear Jane’ letter.”

  “Probably long before that,” he couldn’t help saying.

  During all the time Matthew had been getting to know Haley again, he’d been impressed by her restraint in not asking about his failed marriage. She hadn’t even asked on the night when he’d nearly spilled his guts all on his own. Maybe her mother had warned her that the subject was off-limits, or maybe her own wounds were too fresh for her to wish to share anyone else’s
. He’d never wanted to give all the gory details, anyway.

  But now he found he wanted to share it with her, to let her see that others had faced unimaginable pain and had come out the other side, if not whole, then at least patched up.

  “Why haven’t you ever asked me about Stacey?”

  “It wasn’t my business.”

  “That’s fair. I probably would have told you that if you’d asked.”

  “I know. Anyway, I appreciated you not forcing me to talk about Tom right after the breakup, and I wanted to return the favor. I figured you would talk about it when you were ready.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “So you don’t want to know?”

  “I want to know.”

  Haley tried not to look too eager. She’d been waiting a long time to hear this story, at least the part of it only Matthew could relate, and she didn’t want him to reconsider telling her.

  For several long seconds, he said nothing. He took on a faraway expression, as if he had to relive it all in order to discuss it. She almost told him she didn’t want to know after all. She didn’t want to make him experience that pain again just so she could know his story.

  “Do you realize that you’re the only member of the Scott family who didn’t attend my wedding? Even your dad was there.”

  Okay, this wasn’t the way she would have broached the subject, but then it wasn’t her story to tell.

  “I guess I did know that.” She remembered coming up with an elaborate but true excuse so she didn’t have to attend the event with her family. There were limits on how much humiliation a person could withstand, and that wedding would have put her over her threshold.

  “I remember noticing that you weren’t there, and I felt badly that you didn’t come.”

  “Really? You noticed? You didn’t hear about it from your mother or brothers later?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to ask why he’d felt badly, just as he didn’t ask her why she hadn’t come. They both knew why. It probably had sounded like a lame excuse then because it felt even sillier now. What had happened between them had been so far under the bridge that it could have traveled to the ocean by then, and still she hadn’t been able to face him. She’d never considered that he would have been aware of her absence, let alone been bothered by it.

  “No, I noticed.” He nodded as if to affirm what he’d said. “It’s strange the things you focus on at your wedding. Like people who crash the reception or people who RSVP and then don’t show up. Never the important things like whether you should be getting married at all.”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. Maybe her near-marriage offered her a little experience to draw on, but it wasn’t enough to have something profound to say. Instead, she sipped her tea and waited. If nothing else, she could give him a listening ear.

  “I never even realized she wasn’t happy,” Matthew blurted.

  Trying not to show her surprise, Haley reached for her napkin and blotted her lips. Though she expected the rest of his story to come out in fits and starts, after he had started, he rushed on as if he needed to get it all out at once.

  “Elizabeth had been only six months old. I was still in awe of the whole parenting thing, amazed by this perfect little person.” He paused long enough to brush his hands through his hair. “Anyway, Stacey probably gave signals that things weren’t right, but I never saw them. One day she was just gone.

  “Her note said that she needed to find herself, as if she was lost or something. She said she didn’t want to be a mother. Never had.”

  “How could she say something like that? She was a mother!” Haley blinked, stopping herself before she said more. Still, fury on behalf of Matthew and that sweet little child flowed through her veins. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know this woman, and I’ve become her judge and jury.”

  She shook her head as the anger refused to fade. “Didn’t she realize how blessed she was?”

  For a few seconds, Matthew only watched her, and then he smiled. “Are you sure you want to hear the rest of this? Your blood pressure might not be able to take it.”

  “I can handle it,” she said, frowning. He was kidding her; she recognized that. But he also seemed pleased to have her as a champion.

  “Well, I didn’t hear from Stacey until six months later. That contact came in the form of divorce papers. She didn’t even come to the hearing. She didn’t ask for any of our possessions or any visitation with Elizabeth.” He shrugged. “My attorney told me it was the most civil divorce she’d ever handled. Stacey just wanted out.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “In an ugly nutshell, I guess it is.”

  That couldn’t be all when there was so much more she wanted to know. Did he still miss his former wife? Did he still love her, even after all she’d done and all this time had passed? It had only been a few weeks for her, and yet she no longer knew what she thought about Tom. What did that say about the feelings she’d had for him in the first place?

  When she looked up from her hands, Matthew was watching her, as if he expected her to have some sort of reaction. Was he thinking she would pity him now? Why would he ever think that? He’d coped so well and was doing an amazing job of parenting Elizabeth all on his own. He’d handled the situation so much better than she would have if she’d been the one left to fend for herself and a child.

  “It’s not the kind of story I should share if I ever plan to date again, is it? It doesn’t make me come off sounding like a pillar of strength or anything.”

  He laughed at his joke that was anything but funny, but Haley didn’t join him. For one thing, he had no idea how appealing a handsome single dad could be to single women. If while he was growing up he’d watched any TV sitcoms instead of always cramming his nose in a book, he would know that.

  “There’s nothing you want to say?” he prompted again.

  Of course, there was. Only Haley wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it. He’d admitted a lot to her today, but there were other things he hadn’t said. This might not be the time to prod him for more, but she sensed there would never be a good time.

  “Did it seem like déjà vu when your wife left you?”

  His gaze narrowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “What do you mean?” he asked, though it was apparent he understood what she was asking.

  “Not too long ago, you said that you’d wanted your life to turn out differently than someone else’s. You meant your mother’s life, right?” She waited for an answer, but from his hard stare, she sensed she wouldn’t get it. He hadn’t invited her into this part of his story, and she could see that he resented the intrusion. Still, she ignored the warning bells, hoping it would help him to talk about the past.

  “I was little when your dad left, but I have memories of some of it,” she continued. She could still remember Elliot Warren, the lanky man who seemed friendly enough when he was around but who often didn’t show up to family events. “The divorce was hardest on you, wasn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He’d answered her question with another question rather than to deny what she’d said was true. She noted it, but she didn’t call him on it. “Your mom leaned on you an awful lot, even before the divorce, but that first time we saw you guys afterward, she did it even more.”

  “You remember that?” He waited until her nod before he continued. “She called me the ‘man of the house.’ I was fourteen years old. Nowhere near a man.”

  “You had to grow up fast.”

  He made an affirmative sound in his throat.

  “Do you hear from your dad at all?”

  “I received a card when I graduated from law school. Not even a card when I was married or when Elizabeth was born.”

  Haley nodded. Having had such warm memories of her own father, she couldn’t imagine the empty place that kind of parental absence could create.

  “You didn’t want Elizabeth to ever know pain like you felt af
ter your father’s desertion.” The last she didn’t even pose as a question. She knew it was true.

  “A lot of good all my plans did. History repeated itself, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”

  Haley’s heart squeezed at his words. She could only imagine how powerless Matthew had felt in both situations. Even as a boy, he’d always been compassionate toward any weakness in others, but he couldn’t tolerate it in himself. “You couldn’t be held responsible for what your ex did any more than you could for your father’s actions. They made their own choices, and they have to deal with the consequences.”

  “With Stacey, I should have known better. I should have—”

  Haley shook her head to cut off his argument. “Would you really have done anything differently? You loved her, right? So you still would have married her. The rest…just happened.”

  He appeared to ruminate on her words, weighing their merit. “I wouldn’t take it back, I guess. I got Elizabeth out of the bargain, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”

  “Me, neither.”

  She smiled at him. Despite all the personal information he’d shared, Matthew smiled back. No matter what their differences on other subjects, they could always agree on his daughter.

  “Well, I, for one, think you’ve done a great job,” Haley said. “First, with your brothers and then with Elizabeth. You’ve been both mom and dad to her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Haley expected the compliment to embarrass Matthew, but she never expected him to frown and shake his head that way. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you met my brothers? Would you claim a role in helping to raise those Neanderthals?”

  “I guess not when you put it that way.”

  When Matthew finally stopped chuckling, he looked at her directly, his gaze warm. “But thanks for saying that. It means a lot.”

  Her cheeks warmed under his stare. He’d been pleased with her praise after all. “You’re welcome. I meant every word.”

  They both had been resting their forearms on the table, and Matthew leaned forward on his as if he had something important to say. But then he pulled back and stood up quickly, gathering their cups and carrying them to the sink. Suddenly, Haley felt a tingling at the back of her neck. Had he been about to kiss her? No, she must have misunderstood. He would never do that.