Four Times the Trouble

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “It’s not babyish to cry, is it, Daddy?” Jessie asked, waiting while Jacob opened her granola bar for her.

  “Babies do cry,” Meggie said, using her teeth to rip open her snack.

  First talk, coming up. Jacob poured three glasses of milk, glad he could start with an easy one. “Of course babies cry. It’s their only form of communication. But there are other reasons for crying, too. If you’re sad or lonely or hurt you might cry. There are times when it’s best to get those feelings out, so they don’t bother you anymore. But sometimes people cry just because they don’t control their feelings very well, like if they’re mad or embarrassed or disappointed. If all goes well you learn to express those emotions differently as you grow up.”

  “We’re grown-up, Daddy, aren’t we, you guys?” Allie looked at her sisters, her mouth full of granola bar.

  Jessie and Meggie nodded dutifully. And suddenly Jacob was faced with three sets of solemn brown eyes as the girls waited for his confirmation.

  “Well, darlin’s, grown-ups work before they play, so I guess that means you have to make your beds before you put on your bathing suits. You better hurry up if you want to be outside while it’s still high tide.”

  Jacob smiled at the three identical little faces scowling up at him. His daughters slid from their chairs and left the room, clearly unamused. He rinsed the milk glasses and wiped the crumbs from the table. And two minutes later he was shaking his head in resignation. The noise coming from the triplets’ room was only one level below deafening. They were singing, if you could call it that, the L.A. Lakers “Laker Nation” song at the top of their lungs.

  * * *

  THE OCEAN WAS TOO COLD, in spite of the February heat wave, for any real swimming, but the girls managed to get soaked, anyway. They did a fairly good job of soaking their father, too. Jacob finally retreated to sit well out of reach of their splashing. He watched his daughters play for a while, grinning at their happy squeals as they ran from the waves. All three of them wore fluorescent green, one-piece swimsuits; he remembered when he’d bought them. The girls had complained about the “gross” color. “All the better to see you with, my dears,” he’d growled, and they’d giggled, just like he’d expected them to do. They didn’t need to know how serious he’d been about his reason for the blindingly bright suits.

  Jacob stretched his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands, watching while Allie organized a sand-castle construction crew. Jessie and Meggie played along, apparently content to be her laborers. Man, how he loved them.

  The muscles in his gut tightened as he watched them play together. How did a man tell his daughters that he wasn’t as perfect as they thought he was? That he’d driven his wife away just as he had his parents before her? How did he convince them that their mother loved them, even though she’d left them? Eleanor Wilson had said that the girls thought they were too much trouble, but that wasn’t true. Not to him. Never to him. Somehow he had to convince them of that.

  Jessie darted over, bobbing up and down in front of him. “I have to go.”

  “Be sure to clean your feet before you go in,” he said. He kept one eye on Allie and Meggie at the edge of the ocean while he watched Jessie run up the beach to their cottage. She stepped into the small tub of clean water he kept by the door, wiped one foot on the mat beside the tub and raced into the house. Oh, well, the floor could withstand a few wet footprints.

  “What’s for supper?” Allie asked half an hour later. She plopped down in the sand beside Jacob, playing with the dark hairs on his forearm.

  “Macaroni and cheese, but I want to talk to you guys first. Get your sisters for me, please?”

  “JESSIE! MEGGIE! DADDY WANTS YOU!” Allie hollered.

  Jacob covered his ears. “I could’ve done that myself,” he told Allie, giving her what he hoped was a look of disapproval.

  Jessie ran over and sat on Jacob’s other side, spraying him with sand and seawater as she leaned her arm against his outspread thigh. “Wadja want?” she asked, grinning at him.

  “What?” Meggie asked, bringing up the rear. She sat in front of Jacob, her expression serious.

  “I’ve been thinking, since you guys are so grown-up now and all, that maybe it was time we talked about your mother.”

  His stomach sank when he intercepted the worried looks that passed between his daughters. Ms. Wilson had been right on the mark. The girls’ motherless state was bothering them more than they’d let on to him.

  They stared up at him silently, expectantly.

  “Your mother is a very beautiful woman,” he said, wondering where on earth he was going to go from there. “You guys take after her.”

  Jessie smiled. Allie fiddled with the hair on his arm again. Meggie still stared silently. Jacob would’ve given just about anything to know what they were thinking.

  “She loves all of you very much,” he said, telling the lie without flinching. He’d grown up without the security of his parents’ love. His children weren’t going to suffer the same fate.

  “Then why doesn’t she ever come to see us?” Allie asked, her brows drawn together in a frown.

  “She lives and works very far away from here.”

  “How far?” Meggie asked.

  “All the way across the United States. She’s a senator’s, um, aide, in Washington, D.C.”

  Jessie tapped his leg. “What’s an umaide, Daddy?”

  Jacob took a deep breath. He should have guessed that the girls wouldn’t be satisfied with the vague answers he’d hoped to give them.

  “Aide, Jess. It’s someone who stays close to a senator and helps him with things so that he can do his job better.” At least Jacob hoped Ellen helped Senator Keller in a professional capacity, not a personal one.

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, Al, things like entertaining prominent people and maybe writing important letters. Stuff like that.”

  “Can we go visit her sometime?” Meggie’s small face was virtually expressionless.

  “Maybe sometime. When you get a little older and don’t need a babysitter, in case she has to go out and meet someone important for dinner or something.”

  “Weren’t we important enough, Daddy? Is that why she left us?” Jessie’s big brown eyes were filling with tears. Jacob felt sick, and he floundered for words as he hugged Jessie against his side. Her wet, sand-covered suit grated against his skin, but he couldn’t have cared less about the discomfort.

  “You guys are the most important people I know,” he said, pinning each of them with his “I mean it” stare. “Your mommy didn’t leave you. She left me. I wanted her to be someone she wasn’t. Senator Keller liked her just as she was.”

  “Didn’t you like her at all?”

  Jacob pulled Meggie onto his lap and hugged Allie to his other side. “Of course I liked her, honey. I chose her to be your mommy, didn’t I? But I wanted a different kind of wife than she wanted to be, and I guess I’m just a little too hardheaded sometimes. I wouldn’t give in, and as much as she tried, your mommy couldn’t be happy with me,” Jacob wondered if he was making any sense.

  “You’re not hard in the head, Daddy. You’re the best daddy in the whole world,” Meggie said, laying her cheek against him. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders, tickling his chest.

  “And I love being your daddy more than anything in the world, Meg, but your mommy and I just wanted to live our lives in two different ways. My way made her unhappy. You wouldn’t want her to be unhappy would you?”

  All three girls shook their heads. “Well, I didn’t want to make her unhappy, either. So when Senator Keller asked her to go to Washington and she wanted to go, I told her it was okay with me.”

  “Did you miss her when she was gone?” Jessie’s question was
soft, hesitant.

  “For a while, but I had you guys to keep me company, and we’ve done all right, don’t you think?”

  Meggie sat up. “Did you love Mommy a lot?”

  “Not like I love you three,” he said, though in his heart he didn’t know how he could have loved a woman more than he had Ellen McCormick.

  “Maybe we were bad, Daddy. Maybe we cried too much and she just didn’t want to tell you,” Allie said, her little face dejected.

  “And we probably didn’t pick up our toys, either,” Jessie added.

  “Yeah, and I’ll bet we spilled stuff a lot, ’cause we were only babies then,” Meggie said.

  Impotent rage swept through Jacob as he realized that his words were falling on three sets of deaf ears. The thoughts the girls were expressing were obviously not new to them. And worse, in spite of all he’d said, they still believed them. So how was he supposed to convince them of anything different?

  “You guys were great babies. You loved to eat. And you slept a lot, too, giving us lots of time to keep up with stuff. Your mother used to love to take you out and show you off.” The showing-off part was true. If only Ellen hadn’t been so overwhelmed by getting three babies ready to go and in their car seats all at once.

  “Where did she take us, Daddy?”

  “To the mall. She liked to shop.”

  “Then why didn’t she get a job at the mall and take us there every day? Wouldn’t that have made her happy?”

  I’m blowing it. “Because she couldn’t work all the time, and when she came home to me she would’ve been unhappy. If we’d been madly in love like mommies and daddies should be, then she wouldn’t have left even if we had a whole houseful of kids.”

  “Don’t you love your girlfriends enough, either, Daddy? Is that why you never bring them home?”

  “It’s because of us, Jess,” Meggie said, sounding far more adult than a seven-year-old had any business sounding. “Remember Jennie? She didn’t want to be our mommy, either.”

  “That’s not true!” Jacob said, knowing he was failing miserably, but still finding himself without divine inspiration. The girls had taken his breakup with Jennie, his former on-air partner, hard at the time—she’d been the first woman he’d dated after Ellen left—but he’d had no idea they still remembered her.

  “Yes, it is true, Daddy. Katie Walters’s mother says we’re a handful. She said if she’d had three to take care of all at once, she’d probably have left, too. We heard her tell that to Bobbie’s mommy.”

  Jacob bit back the words that sprang to his lips. Just wait until he saw Katie Walters’s mother.

  “Katie Walters’s mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he said. “Jennie just wasn’t in love with me. That’s why we quit seeing each other. Believe me, it had nothing to do with you guys. Doing for three is just as easy as doing for one. It takes a little longer, that’s all.”

  Allie stood up suddenly. “Can we eat now, Daddy? My stomach’s shocking it’s so hungry.”

  Jacob knew they weren’t finished, not by a long shot, but it was probably best to do these things in small doses. He figured the girls had had enough for now; he knew he had.

  “Last one to the shower has to load the dishwasher,” he called, jumping up to race his daughters to the house.

  Meggie was the first one to reach the outside showerhead he’d installed right after the girls had learned to walk. It had only taken one houseful of sand to convince him he’d either have to rig up some outdoor plumbing or move. Meggie stood under the stinging spray, offering only a token argument when her sisters crowded in on her. Jacob knew she had to have an awful lot on her mind to put up with that without a fuss. He was in for a long haul.

  * * *

  ALLIE ENDED UP having to load the dishwasher, but only after Jacob declared that he didn’t count since he’d made the dinner. At Jacob’s urging, Jessie and Meggie helped their sister by clearing the table and rinsing the dishes. Jacob had the job of storing the leftovers.

  “What’s happening with that play—Cinderella—everyone was so excited about after Christmas?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator.

  Jessie dropped a fork and looked at Allie. Meggie stopped spraying and looked at Allie. Allie stood with a dripping plate in her hand.

  Jacob found a place for the container of macaroni. “Did they call it off or something?”

  “Uh-uh,” Allie finally found her voice. “The trying-out part is this week.”

  “So who’s trying out for what?”

  Jessie and Meggie resumed their duties, glancing furtively at Allie.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Allie said. Her voice was an octave higher than usual.

  “We don’t have costumes, Daddy,” Jessie blurted, then dropped a knife covered with butter in the middle of the floor. Jacob watched as she took a wadded up napkin from the table and smeared the butter over the linoleum. Thank God for washable floors.

  “If you get a part, we’ll get you a costume,” he told her.

  “They have to be homemade, Daddy,” Meggie said. She and Allie exchanged glances.

  “Then we’ll make them.”

  “They have to be sewn,” Allie said.

  “We’ll handle it, girls. Have I ever let you down before?”

  Three heads shook vigorously.

  “Now, what parts are you trying out for?”

  “Cinderella,” Jessie said.

  “And her two evil stepsisters,” Allie and Meggie chorused.

  * * *

  LIGHTS-OUT WAS at eight o’clock sharp. It used to be at seven o’clock, but Daddy had added an hour after they turned seven. They were almost all grown-up now, and everybody knew that staying up late was part of the deal. Allie snuggled under her covers and waited for Daddy to kiss Jessie and Meggie good-night. He’d already done her. He would turn off their light on his way out the door, and then he’d tell them that he was right down the hall if they needed him. She never had figured what he thought they might need him for when they were sleeping, but it was kinda good hearing him say it, anyway.

  “I’m right down the hall if you need me.” The words came just as Allie had known they would.

  “’Night, Daddy,” she said.

  “’Night, Daddy.” Jessie was always next.

  “’Night, Daddy,” Meggie said last, just like every night.

  Allie waited until she heard Daddy’s shower start and then climbed out of bed. She tapped Jessie on the shoulder.

  “What?” Jessie’s eyes looked funny, like she’d been asleep already.

  “Come on.” Allie tugged Jessie up and pulled her over to Meggie’s bed. They always had their meetings on Meggie’s bed.

  Meggie sat up and made room for them.

  “Daddy seemed pretty sad today,” Allie said.

  “Probably because he was talking about Mommy,” Meggie said, picking at the foot of her sleeper.

  “Do you think he’s mad at us for making Mommy leave him?” Jessie asked, her lips all shaky like she was gonna cry. Allie exchanged a glance with Meggie. Daddy would get them for sure if they made Jessie cry.

  “Shh.” Allie scooted over to give Jessie a hug. “You don’t want Daddy to hear us. I don’t think he’s mad at us, but we better really be gooder just in case.” Allie looked at both of her sisters, making sure they were paying close attention to her. “We don’t want to make him mad enough to leave us, too.”

  Meggie and Jessie nodded. Allie patted Jessie’s hair. “And if we’re going to have to do the trying outs, then we’re just gonna have to try not to be too good.”

  Jessie frowned. “But, Allie, it’s okay now. Daddy said he’d make—”

  “Daddy can’t sew, Jess, you know that.”
Meghan frowned at her sister.

  “But he said—”

  “Jessie—” Allie drew out the name like she’d heard Daddy do “—it’s Daddy’s job to say those things.”

  Meggie nodded and after a couple of seconds Jessie did, too. But she didn’t seem convinced.

  Allie hoped her sister wasn’t going to screw things up. She didn’t even want to think about making more trouble for Daddy. She just wanted Daddy to be happy living with her and Jessie and Meggie. She lay back down in her own bed, wishing she hadn’t messed up Daddy’s tuck-in. She wondered if Daddy knew that she’d been wishing for a mother. Feeling guilty and ashamed, she looked across at her sisters. She was afraid her wish might ruin everything.

  * * *

  JACOB STOOD under the shower until the water turned cold, but it did nothing to ease his worries. Ms. Wilson’s suggestion that he find a woman for the girls sounded valid, but he knew in his heart that a woman wasn’t the answer to his problems. He’d already tried that route shortly after Ellen had left him. And all he’d managed to accomplish was to confuse his daughters more. Maybe he’d wanted it too badly. Maybe he’d tried too hard. Or maybe he’d just expected more than anyone could give him. All he knew for sure was that he wasn’t going to expose his girls to the possibility of further rejection. Twice in seven years was already too much, or they wouldn’t be having the problems they were having now.

  Walking into his bedroom, he rummaged in his drawer for a pair of boxer shorts and pulled them on, thinking back to the years of his own growing up. He still had scars from those years, albeit invisible ones. His real mother, a teen-pregnancy statistic, had given him up at birth. And after his adoptive parents divorced and subsequently remarried, they’d each had children of their own. They’d passed him back and forth between them as if they couldn’t get rid of him fast enough.

  Wandering out to the deck off his bedroom, he looked out at a light blinking on the ocean, remembering. The time he’d asked for a first-baseman’s mitt had been one of the worst. He’d been so excited when his Little League coach had given him, a fifth grader, the honor of playing first base. Everyone knew a first baseman was one of the most important players on the defensive team. But when he’d asked his mom for a mitt, she’d told him to wait for his father to get it the following week. And when he’d been with his father, he’d been told that his mother would have to handle that one. As it turned out, the coach had lent him a mitt. He’d only been eleven at the time, but Jacob had felt the humiliation clear to his bones. He’d been barely able to make himself go to practice once his coach knew he wasn’t worth enough to warrant a stupid baseball mitt.