Single with Children

by Arlene James

  She gasped and drew herself up so rigidly he feared that she might fall off her impossibly high shoes. But Sheila was a master of hauteur. She swung around and made for the door, snatching up her treasures as she went. “I should have known it was useless. You’re closing ranks around him from sheer habit, it seems. Well, let me tell you something—you’re on your own this time. The rest of the family will not flock to Jake’s defense after this, and Nate knows it! I just hope to God that he gets control of the company before it’s too late, before Jake drives us all into the poorhouse!”

  She stormed out even more forcefully than she’d blown in, but Adam’s concern was not for the door hinges. It wasn’t even for his mother. This time, for once, his concern was all for his father.

  Laura watched Adam push his food around his plate. The children had finished their dinners long ago and been excused, but Adam seemed hardly to have noticed. Laura sat quietly for some time, but then she couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Not hungry?”

  Adam looked up, as if surprised to find her there. “Oh, uh, sure. I mean, uh, no. Sorry.” He sighed and pushed away his plate. “It’s not the food. I guess we just had too big a lunch at Mother’s today.”

  As she rose to begin clearing the table, she refrained from pointing out that the kids had eaten like lumberjacks, despite “Grandmommy’s” lavish luncheon. Instead she said, “Well, Beverly insists on coming in tomorrow to cook her famous rack of lamb. Save your appetite for that. I think she believes I’ve been feeding you bean sprouts and tofu.”

  He nodded distractedly, as if he hadn’t heard a thing she’d said. She left the room in silence, genuinely concerned. Something was bothering him, something that must have happened this afternoon, at his mother’s. She shook her head. These Fortunes were a hard lot to figure. Their family relationships seemed unusually complicated. But it was really none of her business. Still, he seemed awfully concerned about something.

  She loaded the dishes in the washer, straightened up the kitchen, laid out tomorrow’s breakfast things and played a rousing game of dominoes with the boys. There were no rules, it seemed—other than the one about having to perform a silly little dance after every play—and therefore no winner, but it was fun anyway. Adam stared right through them, seemingly oblivious. The only time he seemed to come out of it was when Wendy crawled up in his lap to say good-night.

  “Thank you, Daddy, for taking us to see Grandmommy today.”

  “Hm? Oh, you’re welcome.”

  “Can we go again tomorrow, Daddy?”

  “What? Tomorrow? No, I don’t think so, but Grandmommy said something about luncheon on Sunday.”

  “Will Granddad be there?”

  A spasm of something very nearly like pain flashed across Adam’s face. “Um, I don’t know, honey. Maybe. We’ll see, okay?”

  “’Kay. Night, Daddy.”

  “Good night, Wendy.”

  He gave her a shoulder-crunching hug, and she started to slide off his lap, but just as she got to his knees, she stopped and leaned far back, her legs thrust out straight and her hands grasping the arms of his chair in order to balance herself. Without a word, she looked up at him and puckered up, smacking her lips. There was no mistaking what she wanted. Adam looked faintly shocked, but then he lowered his head and kissed his daughter loudly on the mouth. Wendy swung up and hopped down, running to the doorway, where she waited shyly for her brothers to take their turns. She knows, Laura thought. She knows he’s upset.

  Robbie looked as if he’d gag if his father did more than pat him affectionately on the shoulder. Adam leaned forward and did just that, then got a fierce hug as his reward. One arm hooked around his father’s neck, Robbie squeezed so hard that his feet left the ground. Adam laughed, making a gurgling sound that prompted Laura to pry Robbie off him before he passed out. Ryan played the clown, wagging his tongue and crossing his eyes as he launched himself onto Adam’s lap, both arms thrown around Adam’s solid torso. Almost before Adam could hug him back, Ryan was gone, zigzagging toward the door, but then he stopped and turned back. Looking perplexed by the idea that had just seized him, he ran to Adam and fired a kiss at his chin. Adam caught him up and squeezed him hard. He wiggled free and ran out of the room, Robbie hot on his heels. Wendy waited for Laura, her eyes large and soft. Laura took her hand and led her away, telling her with a smile how proud she was of her.

  The children were unusually subdued after that, and Laura suspected it had as much to do with the growing bond with their father as with their day at their grandmother’s house. She followed their example, keeping her voice low and soft, her movements gentle and soothing, as she prepared them for bed. They looked settled in for a long night of heavy sleep when she left them.

  She hesitated for a moment at the door of her own room. Sometimes she chose to spend these final hours of the day in her room, with a good book, but not tonight. Instead, she walked back to the den, finding Adam standing over a silent television, staring at a blank screen. She took a seat on the couch, slipping off her shoes and drawing up her legs beneath her. “Want to talk about it?”

  He hunched his shoulders, his smile self-deprecating. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, walking back to his chair. “No matter how…inadequate a father may be, his kid can’t seem to help… I don’t know.” He shook his head, dropping down into his chair.

  “They love you, Adam,” she told him softly, and he smiled, nodding his head.

  “Yeah, I know. I love them, too, more than I realized.”

  “But you’re not just a father, are you?” she said intuitively. “You’re also a son.”

  He leaned forward and clasped his hands together, his elbows braced against his thighs. “Something’s wrong,” he said in a near whisper. “Something’s not right.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know! I’ve never understood anything about Jake Fortune in my whole life, but…”

  She copied his position and said, “Why don’t you tell me about it?” And he did, beginning with his father’s dedication to the family business, despite his personal ambitions, and about his own refusal to fall into the same trap. He talked about feeling abandoned as a boy, about his father’s preoccupation with what he perceived as his duty to the family at large. He even spoke about his uncle Nathaniel’s envy of his older brother, about his parents’ marriage and Jake’s expertise in handling the constant crises that came with running an international conglomerate. He talked about Kate and Ben, and the problems, as he saw them, with the cosmetic company. And he told her, too, about Monica Malone, and about Jake selling her family stock. “So the family want answers,” he finally summed up, “and if he doesn’t tell them what they want to hear, Nathaniel’s poised to take over, encouraged, no doubt, by the queen of greed, dear old Auntie Sheila.”

  “And you’re afraid that he won’t give them the answers they want?” she queried gently.

  Adam spread his hands. “He hasn’t so far, and for the life of me, I can’t imagine why. For that matter, I can’t imagine what he could say. It just doesn’t make any sense, selling stock to Monica Malone, of all people, with the company hanging in the balance like this.” He shook his head. “All he does is avoid the issue, and that’s what’s at the root of this separation. I mean, he’s always told Mom everything. Whatever his shortcomings as a father, that marriage seemed rock-solid—until now. And now… I just don’t know.”

  “You could always ask him,” Laura suggested lightly. “Or…you could just try to trust him.”

  “I’m the last person he would confide in,” Adam admitted, passing a hand over his face. “And I don’t think my trust matters to him one way or another.”

  Oh, that was a sad, sad thought. Laura cocked her head. “So what’s left then, Adam?”

  “I don’t know. Just being thankful I’m not like him, I guess.”

  “Aren’t you?” she asked gently.

  He frowned. “What do you mean? I’ve stayed out of the family business expressly to av
oid the mistakes he’s made.”

  Laura bit her lip. Should she risk pointing out again that he, too, had let career and other considerations keep him apart from his own children, that there were other ways to abandon a child than simply not coming home for dinner? On the other hand, what did she have to lose? She glanced at the photo albums stacked on the top of the coffee table, then slid off the couch onto her knees, in front of them. “I want to show you something.”

  She separated the two albums and flipped them open. “You told me that your wife put together one of these, didn’t you?”

  “The newer one.”

  “And the other was left to you by your grandmother?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why? I mean, have you thought that the two might be connected in some way?”

  He got up and walked around the table to take a seat on the sofa next to her. He leaned forward, scanning the two albums. She knew the moment he realized what those two photo albums had in common. “Oh, my God,” he said, his hands flipping through the pages.

  Laura knew exactly what he was seeing. The mundane family moments, the outings, the little celebrations, and in every one the father was missing, his father and then him. They might have been identical sets, but for the old-fashioned clothing and hairstyles and the faded coloring of the older photos. They were eerily similar, he and his sisters together with their mother, Diana and Wendy and the boys, but no Jake, and no adult Adam, at least not pictured together with his family. And the reason was very simple—he hadn’t been there. Just as Jake hadn’t been there, neither had Adam, at least not before Diana’s death forced him to be.

  She saw that his hands were trembling, and she gathered them into her own. “Don’t you see, Adam?” she said softly. “Like you, he didn’t mean to be preoccupied. He was only trying to do what he felt he must.”

  “I never saw it before,” he whispered. “I always blamed Diana. I didn’t feel that I had any choice. I was only…trying to do what I felt I must.” He pulled his hands from hers and covered his face.

  “There’s more, Adam, if you’ll just think of it, another way to understand your father through your own experience.”

  He sighed and cleared his throat. His eyes were suspiciously fluid when he lowered his hands, blinking. “What would that be, Laura?”

  “You love your children, Adam,” she pointed out, smiling. “You’ve always loved them.”

  “Yes,” he said, and then the harsh lines of his face softened and smoothed as he carried the parallel thesis to its logical conclusion. “Oh. Yes.” The thought obviously pleased him.

  “Whether they know it or not, you’ll always try to do what’s best for them, won’t you?”

  He nodded, smiling gratefully, and his large, strong hand skimmed her jaw and curled around her chin before his arms came around her in a friendly, affectionate hug. “How’d you get so smart, little Miss Laura?”

  She shook her head, pulling away to sit back on her heels. “Oh, no, it’s not that,” she said. “I’ve done some awfully stupid things, Adam. I’d be ashamed to tell you…. I’m just that kid with her nose pressed up against the window, looking in. It’s just easier to see the whole room from where I’m sitting.”

  He tapped the end of her nose. “I’m glad you picked my window, then.”

  She smiled wistfully and said no more. He’d never know how badly she wanted to come inside, just once, to blend into that room full of family, to see it from his side for a change. But that would never be, not as long as Doyal was out there looking for her. She knew in her heart of hearts that it could end only one way. She couldn’t run forever. Doyal Moody would catch her sooner or later, but she would run again before she let him catch her here, and she would take with her the memory of something special, even if it was only a look shared through a cold glass window with a man she could never call her own.

  Six

  Adam smiled down at his children, finding delight in their expectant faces, the result of his latest attempt to prove that he loved them and wanted to spend time with them.

  “Well,” he said, drawing out the anticipation, “how about a matinee?” The whoops he’d expected did not gush forth. He looked to Laura for help. Her mouth quirked in a quickly hidden smile.

  “Your father wants to take you to a movie this afternoon,” she explained.

  Still no whoops, just gasps and young eyes rounded in surprise. He gulped, no longer certain of the path he’d chosen. “It—it’s an animated feature.” Three pairs of big eyes merely blinked.

  Laura’s aid came uninvited this time, but it was no less appreciated. She simply said the title of the movie, one that had been advertised repeatedly on national television for some weeks, and Adam got his whoops at last. Robbie was so impressed that he scrambled up on the couch and started jumping up and down. Adam thought of scolding him, but then he reminded himself that celebration was just what he’d wanted. He opted for saving the furniture by simply scooping the exuberant little body into his arms. Robbie immediately wrapped his arms around Adam’s neck and tried to strangle him with glee. Ryan threw himself at Adam’s legs and promptly began to jump up and down on his feet, nearly crippling him. Laura lifted him away, her hands beneath his arms, and pointed him toward the door before peeling Robbie off and sending him in the same direction, with a firm admonition to them both to use the potty, wash up and comb their hair. They sped away with all the appropriate sound effects, squealing tires, revving engines and so forth, Laura calling out that she would be along shortly to assist.

  It was only then that Adam realized his daughter was standing at his side, wringing her little hands, her big golden eyes brimming with tears, that fat bottom lip trembling wrenchingly. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Wendy?”

  The little wretch burst into sobs, big hoo-hoo-hoos that shook her sturdy body pitifully. Adam went down on his knees and pulled her against his chest, casting beseeching looks at Laura, only to find tears spilling from her eyes, too. He flattened his lips in confusion and disgust. Laura laughed and wiped at her cheeks, then bent forward and whispered in his ear, “She’s female, Adam, and we are known to cry when happy.”

  Happy. Adam closed his eyes and held his daughter close. When he opened them again, Laura was gone. He lifted and backed himself into a chair, pulling Wendy onto his lap. With an awkward pat, he tried his best to calm her. “Here now, Princess. It’s only a movie.”

  She sniffed and wiped her nose on his shoulder. “I know, Daddy, but I wanted to go so much, and Laura only said, ‘We’ll see.’” She lifted her face and instructed him solemnly, “That means no.”

  He chuckled and rubbed her back. “Sometimes it does, and sometimes it means ‘I don’t know yet.’”

  “Oh.” She rubbed her eyes with both fists, and then she stopped and looked up expectantly. “Then why don’t you say, ‘I don’t know yet’?”

  Adam’s brows shot up in surprise. “Jeepers, Wendy, I don’t know!”

  She fell against him, laughing brightly. “You’re so funny, Daddy!” Then she grew still and turned her small face up to his and whispered, “I love you, Daddy.”

  Adam’s heart swelled so that it nearly choked him. He swallowed it down and tucked his daughter’s silky head into the crook of his shoulder. “I love you, too, honey.” He was glad that Laura had left the room. He’d have hated to give away a closely held secret of his sex, namely that men, too, sometimes cried when very, very happy.

  That tentative, brand-new happiness gave way to personal disappointment a little while later, when Laura stubbornly refused to join them in attending the movie.

  “This should be your afternoon with the children,” she told him, “and I much prefer having some time to myself. Go on now. No one’s going to miss me.”

  I will, he thought, surprising himself. He wanted to bite his tongue when he heard himself saying, “I want you to come.”

  For a moment, pleasure blossomed in her eyes, but
then wariness replaced it, and she literally stepped back. “Not this time.”

  He felt an overwhelming urge to shake her. “You know you want to.”

  She shook her head, dropping her gaze. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t. Please, Adam.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Laura,” he snapped, “what are you afraid of?” But he knew what she feared. Him. She knew that she was driving him crazy, and she was putting distance between them because of it. He couldn’t blame her, but he couldn’t like it, either. What did she think he was going to do, force himself on her? He was hurt. She ought to know better than that by now. No matter how beautiful she was, no matter how much he wanted to touch her, he would never force himself on a woman who didn’t want him. And he could only conclude that she didn’t want him. From the panicked look on her face, he could only conclude that she obviously didn’t want anything to do with him. Fine. So her only concern was for his children. That was, after all, what he paid her for. He zipped his coat and followed his children out into the garage, as angry with himself as with her.

  He was angry with her. Laura told herself that it shouldn’t matter. He had tried so hard lately to be attentive to the children, and that was what mattered. The movie had evidently been a great success. She had never seen such closeness and interaction between him and the children. The twins had practically reenacted the whole movie for her, looking to their father for confirmation at every step along the way, and Wendy was doting on him, hanging on the arm of his chair and giggling flirtatiously as he coached the boys in their antics. Laura was thrilled—and worried. Did he suspect that she was hiding out here? Why else would he have demanded to know what she was afraid of? Would he send her packing the moment the children were safely out of hearing? She couldn’t keep her hands from shaking while she waited through dinner, the usual evening activities, baths and bedtime rituals for a moment alone with him.