The Good Father

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She was in a children’s hospital. She didn’t know any other children but Cody.

  A nurse was waiting for her when Ella got off the elevator. “We have an adult female. We tried to get her to the hospital,” the young woman said, referring to the Santa Raquel general hospital, as the children’s hospital couldn’t treat adults except in cases of severe emergency, “but she wouldn’t budge until she saw you. Dr. Johnson has her in triage, just until we get her out of here. She just walked in off the street, and she’s got a baby...”

  Chloe?

  At a run now, beside the other woman, Ella made it to the examining room first. She pushed inside.

  Horror immediately followed relief. It wasn’t Chloe.

  The woman was Nora Burbank. One eye swollen shut. Her mouth misshapen. Her nose obviously broken. But she clutched her son to her and wouldn’t let go.

  “You need to take him to The Lemonade Stand.” The words were obviously difficult for Nora to speak, but clear for all to hear. “Please. I’m asking you to babysit him for me. Just for tonight.”

  “What happened, Nora?” Ella took the baby, but didn’t break eye contact with his mother.

  “Who did this to you?”

  She wanted it on record. With Jason and the other hospital staff present as witnesses.

  “Ted did. But I saved him,” she said, looking at her baby. “I saved Henry, Ella. Ted didn’t touch him.”

  The baby put his finger in Ella’s mouth. And when she grinned at him, he grinned back.

  “Okay,” she said, making an instant decision. “I’ll take him home with me. I’ll babysit him. But I’m also going to call the High Risk team, and you’re going to let these people get you in an ambulance and straight to the hospital.”

  Nora nodded. “I’ll go. I just need you to keep Henry. I saved him. I’m a good mom. And I want to live at The Lemonade Stand until I can get us back on our feet.”

  Ella had some phone calls to make. Detective Sanchez first, to get Ted Burbank in custody. Their child protective services delegate. Lila McDaniels. But first, she put an arm around Nora, kissed the woman’s head and told her that she was, indeed, a good mother.

  She waited until the ambulance arrived. Unwilling to take Henry out of his mother’s sight until she had to go. And then made one last promise.

  “He’ll be waiting for you,” she said.

  And knew that she’d do whatever it took to see that it happened.

  So much for second chances. Ted Burbank be damned.

  * * *

  BRETT WAS IN bed in a hotel room in Wisconsin Tuesday night when he read the report. Nora Burbank had been treated and released into the care of Lynn Bishop, the nurse practitioner at The Lemonade Stand. Her son, Henry, was with her. Both were in protective custody. Meaning that until Ted Burbank was found, Santa Raquel police were stationed at the Stand, guarding Nora’s cottage. Off-duty police. Volunteering their time in four-hour shifts.

  Ella’s name was on the case.

  He read it all.

  And noticed one thing more than anything else.

  Throughout the entire episode, High Risk team member, Nurse Ella Ackerman, had been accompanied and aided by Dr. Jason Everly.

  Brett wanted to hate the man.

  But couldn’t.

  He didn’t hear from Ella, not that he’d expected to.

  But as soon as he was back in town at the end of that week, he went to his mother’s house. Lights were on. House lights, not the timer ones. She was in there.

  He texted her to let her know he was out front.

  No response.

  Out of his car, leaning back against it in case she looked out, he waited. And half an hour later, texted her again.

  I have to see you. To talk to you.

  This time, his phone buzzed a text. Brett’s hands were sweating as he opened the message.

  Go.

  Why couldn’t she ask if something was wrong? Wonder, at least?

  I’m not feeling well.

  His fingers flew over the tiny keys, and his thumb punched Send. It was bunk. And shamed him. But he needed her, dammit. She was the only one who would understand.

  You’re fine. I saw you leaning against your car.

  So she was watching him through the window.

  Ella’s seeing someone. A doctor, he typed.

  I hadn’t heard.

  Why should she have? Did she think a date would come through on a High Risk team report? She was just blowing him off. And he knew it.

  I’m struggling with it. Don’t know what to do.

  He was a powerful businessman. Known and respected across the nation. And here he was, standing outside his mother’s house, feeling lost and unsure of himself.

  Dammit. He was what he was, incapable of having a normal relationship, in part because of her. She’d raised him in that home...

  No. Brett climbed back in his car as his thoughts deteriorated. He didn’t blame his mother for anything his father had done. Or for keeping them in that home. She’d stayed because as long as she was there, his father looked for jobs and eventually found work. Those jobs had not only eventually provided the insurance that paid for Livia to have the best care, but it had also allowed his mother to be a stay-at-home mom, there to care for Livia 24/7. And not once had his father inflicted his violence on Livia. Not once. His mom had stayed for Livia. And Brett would have done the same.

  He turned the key in the ignition. And his phone buzzed.

  Would you marry her again if you could?

  He read the question twice.

  No.

  His answer to her was unequivocal. She’d understand that, too.

  Because it hadn’t just been his father who’d broken the vow to keep violence out of their home. She’d broken it, too.

  Then you have to let her go.

  Just as his mother had let him go.

  Because she was afraid she’d take her anger out on him again.

  As she had the last day he’d seen her. The day of Livia’s funeral.

  The day any hope of a happy life for him had ended.

  He just hadn’t known it yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  BRETT HADN’T HEARD from Ella at all since he’d told her that nothing had changed.

  Nor had he tried contacting her, other than a brief call to finalize Jeff and Chloe’s meeting plans.

  As his mother had said, he had to let her go.

  And still he hoped, as he flew into LA and drove home to Santa Raquel the following Thursday in time to meet Jeff at his place, that when Chloe showed, Ella would be with her.

  “What time did she say she’d be here?” Jeff paced from the living room to the formal dining room and back again, his heels sounding on the hardwood floor with each step. Still in black pants and a white dress shirt with small black pinstripes, he’d taken off his tie.

  And looked...wrinkled.

  Jeff knew the designated time. But Brett told him again anyway. “Seven.” After dinner at the Stand, but Jeff didn’t know that, of course.

  Chloe was a couple minutes late.

  “She could be caught in traffic,” Jeff said now. “You know what LA traffic is like at rush hour.”

  He did know. He drove in it a lot. And commiserated with his friend. More than Jeff knew. Loving a woman you couldn’t have—for whatever reason—was difficult.

  “She’s bringing Cody with her, right?”

  “That’s what she said.” Or rather what Ella had said when she’d spoken with him briefly to finalize meeting plans. He hadn’t actually spoken to Chloe. “She wants you to see him.”

  He knew the mistake of his words as Jeff swung around, a look of horror on his face. “I thought...hoped...with Thanksgiving coming up and all...but if she’s bringing him so he can see me, that would imply that she’s not planning to come home.” He flopped down on the couch. “Where he’d see me every day.”

  “You don’t know that,” Brett said. But he’d drawn the sam
e conclusion. “Could be she didn’t want to leave him wherever he’s staying. Could be that she wants to ask for just a little more time.”

  All Ella had told him was that Chloe needed to speak to Jeff.

  A car turned in, coming up his drive. Ella’s car.

  Was she with them?

  “You sure we can talk in your bedroom?” Jeff stood, dangling his hands at his sides, rubbing them together and dropping them again, as though he didn’t know what to do with them.

  “When you’re ready, I’ll take Cody into the living room, turn on the TV while you two talk. There’s a conversation alcove in the suite, and you’ll have privacy there.”

  It was the only place he could think of where the couple could talk without being overheard. The walls in his house weren’t well insulated, and sound traveled through the old register ducts.

  And the fact that there was a bed in the room, if they needed it...well, he’d changed the sheets.

  * * *

  ELLA DIDN’T SHOW. After playing with his dad for half an hour or so, Cody had fallen asleep on the blanket Brett had laid on the wool rug in the family room, watching a Blu-ray about a dog named Blue. Something Chloe had brought with her.

  Jeff and Chloe had been in the bedroom for over an hour. With the little one asleep, Brett could concentrate on his agenda for the next morning’s meeting in Phoenix—a fifty-page booklet of motions—and research every item on it.

  He was more than a quarter of the way through when he thought he heard his bedroom door opening.

  The knob was old—had a bit of a squeak to it. Saving his work, he set his laptop on the coffee table, turned off the television and reached to eject the disc so that he could pack up the bag Chloe had brought with Cody’s things in it. The boy had fallen asleep before he’d had the graham cracker snack his mother had brought for him.

  A snap and he turned. Had that been the door closing again? He heard a thump and, disc forgotten, Brett moved across the family room, through the kitchen to the hall leading back to the master suite. “Let me go, Jeff.”

  Brett heard the words as he started down the hall. Chloe’s tone was firm. Not frightened.

  “Chloe, wait! Just give me a second. I listened to you. I heard everything you had to say. I just want you to understand my perspective...”

  A fair request. Brett stopped. Thinking he’d turn and go back to work.

  “I listened to you, Jeff. For over half an hour. I understand that you think this is all me—but who, when he says he wants to reconcile, calls his wife a stupid bitch?”

  What? Had he heard that right? Moving forward, Brett stood outside the door, his hand on the knob.

  “I know, that was completely wrong,” Jeff said in a tone that told Brett his friend was truly sorry. “I apologized. It’s just...you have no idea how hard it’s been with you gone and me not knowing where you are. Not being able to see you or Cody. My son is learning new words, and I don’t even understand them because I’m not there...”

  “And telling me I’m not very bright just because I don’t agree with your take on our problems?”

  “Frustration, Chloe. You know I don’t mean it. Hell, you’re smarter than I am by far, and we both know it.”

  Nerves tense, heart pounding, Brett slipped into old habits, zeroing in on the mundane. The thoughts and words that were least threatening.

  Jeff had been an average student. Chloe had excelled. But that only made one a better student than the other...

  “And it’s not like you’ve never lost your cool, or said things you aren’t proud of,” Jeff said.

  Brett’s shoulders relaxed. Maybe he should go...

  “I’ve never called you an effin’ liar.” Chloe stumbled over the words.

  “Would you just stop?” A new tone had entered Jeff’s voice. A tone Brett had never heard before. One that kept him standing at the door. “Why do you have to go on and on and on? It’s like you remember every bad thing I’ve ever done!”

  “I’m only talking about the past hour, Jeff. You’ve threatened to divorce me if I don’t come home. To have me charged with fraud for saying that our home is my address when I’m not living there.”

  “Stop!”

  Brett heard the word just as Chloe screamed out, “Jeff!” and Brett burst through the door.

  Jeff had been closest to him and the force with which Brett pushed into the room knocked him back, stopping him just before his raised hand made contact with his wife’s face.

  Like a slow-motion movie, everyone just stood there. Frozen.

  Jeff’s hand suspended, Chloe ducking and Brett breathing fire.

  In the next second, or countless seconds later, Jeff’s hand fell slowly to his side. Brett could feel every inch of the descent. Chloe, crying, ran from the room.

  And Brett...couldn’t leave.

  The look of horror, of utter terror, on his friend’s face held Brett in place.

  “Oh, my God, what have I done?” Hands over his head, Jeff fell to the bed. Rocking back and forth. “What have I done? Oh, God, what have I done?”

  Brett couldn’t comfort him. If he hadn’t come in when he did, Jeff would have hit his wife.

  That wasn’t okay. Jeff wasn’t okay. His marriage could very well be over.

  The man rocked. His body shook, and Brett knew he was crying.

  And remembered a night more than fifteen years earlier. He’d been a freshman college student, had had a call from his father who was in jail, wanting him to bail him out. He hadn’t done it. For his mother’s sake.

  His father had been crying, too. Asking for Brett’s help. He’d turned his back. On his own father.

  But he’d called his mother. Thinking she’d be thankful enough that she’d start talking to him again. Let him back in her life.

  She hadn’t responded.

  He’d just lost his sister, and that night he knew he’d lost both of his parents, as well.

  He’d started to cry. Jeff had come in. Brett had pretended to be asleep. Praying that Jeff would either go to bed or get what he’d come in for and leave.

  It turned out that he’d come in for Brett. Because he’d known that Brett had refused to help his father. He’d known, even though Brett hadn’t said so, that leaving his father in jail—no matter how much the asshole had deserved it—made Brett feel dirty.

  Jeff hadn’t asked Brett to go get drunk. He hadn’t made a joke or shrugged off the situation. He’d laid a hand on Brett’s shoulder. Told him he’d get through it. And he’d sat with him for the rest of the night, listening to the horror stories of the previous eight years of Brett’s life.

  Moving slowly, worrying about Chloe, wishing Ella was there, Brett approached the bed. Sat down. Put his hand on Jeff’s shoulder.

  “You need help, man,” he said. “You gotta get help.”

  Jeff stilled. He quit crying. But he didn’t meet Brett’s gaze. “The tension...it just gets... I tell myself everything will be fine. I remind myself that everyone else works and raises a family. That my challenges aren’t the end of the world. That there are others so much worse off. Others who handle so much more. I think of the good times. And still...the tension builds.”

  Brett wasn’t a counselor. As Ella had said that night on the boat—he paid others to do the work.

  “What causes the tension?” he asked because Jeff seemed to need to talk.

  Shrugging, Jeff shook his head.

  “Is it money?”

  “Maybe. I’m definitely more irritable when stocks are down.”

  Not uncommon after a bad day at work.

  “Look at me,” Brett said.

  Jeff slowly turned his head. But he didn’t hold Brett’s gaze for long. Clearly his shame was too great.

  “Jeff?”

  The other man turned his head again. “Are drugs involved?”

  “No.”

  “And there’s no pressing debt? Are you gambling?”

  “No! Of course not! If I knew I had a pr
oblem, don’t you think I’d tell you? Tell myself, for God’s sake? I’m losing the only thing in the world I care about!”

  “Okay. Okay.” Stereotypes, profiling, weren’t going to help here. Because the answers weren’t always easy.

  Weren’t always clear or neat or clean.

  “So when did it start? What caused you to lash out the first time? How long has it been building?”

  Jeff sat for a long time. Brett heard the front door open and close. Hoped to God that Chloe was going straight to The Lemonade Stand. Or to Ella, who would take her there.

  He needed to call Ella. To warn her.

  “You know...” Jeff sat up a little straighter. “I’ll tell you exactly when it started,” he said. “It was after Cody was born. Chloe was really struggling with her postpartum depression. I had to take time off work to stay home with her and take care of the baby. She’d follow me from room to room. Lie on the floor beside my desk when I was trying to get my work done. I get paid on commission, and I see money going out the door right and left, my marriage is pretty much empty and now I’ve got this tiny little human being who needs me 24/7. It’s like there wasn’t enough of me to go around...”

  Reminded of how he felt when Ella had handed him the home pregnancy test results when he’d come through the door all those years before, Brett wished he couldn’t relate.

  But he could.

  “I wasn’t ever going to be able to do enough,” Jeff was saying. “I couldn’t provide enough. If Chloe wasn’t going to be able to contribute, I’d need a cleaning person, a babysitter, and I had to start a college fund, too. The pressure was always there, pushing me harder and harder.”

  “But things got better. Chloe got better.”

  “I know. That’s why I didn’t think we had a problem. Everything was fine.” Jeff hung his head. “Or I thought it was.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve got some anger built up over it all.” Brett said the only thing that made sense to him.

  “I know that every time the stocks go down now, even when I know the recovery is going to follow, I get that same feeling I had right after Cody was born. Like I’m strangling, and there’s nothing I can do...”