She opened one eye to peek. Next to her, Joely sat with her head leaned back, eyes closed, and a serene expression on her face. Kate scanned the room searching for anyone else struggling with this meditation stuff. A fiftyish woman dressed in blue scrubs coughed. Two younger women sat side-by-side and occasionally whispered something to each other as if they were still in junior high. The students seemed to represent a variety of ages, but mostly one gender. Female. Why was that?
Were women’s lives more stressful than men’s? Even though most women worked full-time, many studies showed that they still carried the majority of the housework and childrearing duties on their backs. She smiled, thinking about how she and Mitch took turns making dinner. Their marriage was fifty-fifty.
Maybe women were simply more likely to seek help when they felt overwhelmed. Men stuffed it down, or found a release through basketball or golf. . . or another woman.
How was Mitch dealing with their infertility? He didn’t play any sports. But he wasn’t a cheater, either. If anything, he was a workaholic.
At the end of class, Kate couldn’t wait to get home. She wanted to offer Mitch a back rub and encourage him to open up to her. She grabbed her Coach purse (which still looked good on the outside even though its lining had started to fray) and watched Joely sling her macramé bag over her shoulder.
“Kate? Is that you?” a male voice behind her asked.
She turned around and squinted at the man approaching. When recognition struck, the polite smile fell from her face.
Dressed in a T-shirt with an elaborate Chinese dragon on it, Evan walked over and hugged her. “So good to see you.”
She pulled back. “What are you doing here?”
“I come to meditation for a break. I have a two-year-old son and he wears me out.”
She pursed her lips and nodded.
Evan looked at Joely, but when no introductions were made, he returned his attention to Kate. “What about you? Any kids?”
Kate clasped her hands together. She twisted her wedding band. “No.”
“I had no idea how having a kid would totally screw with my life. My wife left us, so now if I want to go anywhere, I have to hire a babysitter. And I hardly ever get a chance to ride my bike anymore.” She knew by “bike” he meant his Kawasaki motorcycle. He’d given her a ride home from work once when her car had broken down.
He pushed his collar-length hair behind his ear. “Everyone tells you that having a kid will give your life meaning. . . .” He shook his head. “You’re so lucky.”
Kate gasped. What had she ever seen in him? She waved. “Well, gotta go.”
“Wait. Let me give you my phone number. And you give me yours. That way we can get together. Talk about the latest Foxworth Follies.”
Unsure of how to say no, she started to write her number. She decided to reverse the last two digits. She took his information even though she could barely wait to leave. Once she and Joely were out of his sight, Kate started ranting. “What a horrible thing to say. ‘You’re lucky you don’t have a kid.’ Arrgh!”
Joely walked with her down the corridor. “Who was that?”
“A teacher I used to work with. Thoughts drop straight from his brain onto his tongue like gum in a gumball machine. At first I found his uncensored honesty riveting, but after a while, I realized he was just insensitive. One time he told me what I love most about Mitch, I would eventually grow to hate.”
“He sounds jealous.”
Kate rushed toward the parking lot and turned to see Joely lagging behind. “Do me a favor. Don’t tell Mitch about Evan.”
CHAPTER SIX
JOELY
Exhausted, Joely tried to wait patiently as Mitch made himself a cup of Earl Grey tea and sat down on the couch. A slight citrus scent wafted out of his Purdue Boilermakers mug.
He smiled, which caused the dimple in his left cheek to appear. “Anna was the star of the class. They put on a little play and most of the kids had one or two lines, but Anna had the lead.”
Joely wished she had remembered to ask Mitch to take his video camera. Anna was now tucked into bed and Joely felt cheated—like they hadn’t spent enough time together that day. “What was the play about?”
The tea bag bobbed up and down as he pulled its string. “The kids were in a diner and didn’t have enough money after ordering sodas to put money in the jukebox. So then one boy started singing and they all jumped up and danced to Elvis songs. It was great.”
Joely frowned. “It’s not fair that the moms couldn’t see.”
“And the aunts,” Kate said.
A moment later he pulled the tea bag out of the hot water and placed it on his saucer. After taking a drink, he set the saucer aside and held onto the mug. “The teacher wanted me to tell you that she wants the school psychologist to do some testing on Anna.”
Joely stiffened her back. “What? Why?”
He signaled with his free hand for her to calm down. “It’s nothing bad. She thinks Anna might be gifted, I guess.”
Excitement tingled in Joely. “Really?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” Kate said. “I’ve always said that girl has the mind of a thirty-year old trapped in a five-year-old’s body. Remember when you told her to go to her room and she said, ‘But it would not be pleasant to be alone in my room’?” She chuckled.
Joely addressed Mitch. “That would be amazing. Anna could go to an Ivy League school or be an astronaut or do anything in the world.”
“Of course she could.” Bringing his cup near, he blew on the tea’s surface. “We already knew that.”
Joely shook her head. They didn’t understand. An image of five pound Anna covered in wires and tubes flashed in her mind. That first day Joely had to reach through an incubator and could only touch her daughter while wearing gloves. “But this is like confirmation that Anna’s premature birth didn’t damage her intellect. She’s really OK. She’s more than OK.”
Kate scooted closer to Joely and patted her arm.
Those kind-hearted NICU nurses had reassured Joely that she had no need to worry about developmental delays. They’d said Anna was stronger and healthier than most of the infants they saw. But she hadn’t quite believed them.
She pulled her eyes shut, determined not to relive the trauma of those first few weeks. Things were so much better now. She didn’t have pleurisy anymore and her daughter was blossoming! She turned to Mitch. “But why did the teacher talk to you about this and not me?”
Shrugging, Mitch jiggled his cup, but did not spill. “She thought I was Anna’s dad.”
There it was again. In the beginning, when she had lived in Mitch and Kate’s house like it was a cocoon, she’d convinced herself that it wouldn’t matter too much. It was like Anna had three loving parents instead of only the one. And Mitch was more than willing to step up whenever Joely asked him. He’d played catch with Anna in the backyard and let her hold the tape measure when he built bookshelves in her room. Now that Anna left the safety of their home for seven hours a day, the lack of a father felt like a pothole they kept hitting over and over again.
And what would happen when Mitch had a child of his own? He would have to split his time between his own flesh and his niece. No doubt, Anna would notice the shift in his priorities.
They sat quietly for a few minutes. Joely stifled a yawn. Her body wasn’t used to going out at night. Even though her meditation class only met once a week, she collapsed on the couch, too tired to drive there most evenings.
Afraid that if she didn’t go now she might not have the energy to climb the stairs to her room, she stood. “Well, thanks for taking her tonight, Mitch. And it was fun having you go with me to meditation class, Kate. I hope you liked it.”
Kate nodded halfheartedly. “It was alright. Until the end anyway.”
# # #
Joely watched Kate tap the toe of her high-heeled pump on the lawyer’s office floor. Thick carpet muffled the sound.
The woman sittin
g at the mahogany desk across from them had her brown hair in a French twist and wore a suit probably custom made to fit her full-figure; it flattered her in a way that clothes that size rarely did. Money could do a lot, Joely suddenly realized. Especially since she had none.
The attorney swallowed and wrote something on a legal pad. “You say Jacob has never seen his daughter or attempted contact in five years?”
Joely nodded. Nobody ever called Jake Jacob.
“Are you one-hundred percent sure that he’s Anna’s father?”
She furrowed her brow. What kind of question was that? “Yes.” She could count the men she’d slept with on one hand, two of which had been when she was a rebellious teen. She knew some people played at sex like it was a game, but she took it seriously.
“Because a paternity test could possibly make all of this go away.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” Joely squinted at two framed diplomas on the wall behind the desk, trying to read where she’d gone to law school. Indiana University. Kate had told her once that IU was one of the top law schools in the nation. Joely tried to take comfort in that. Under the diplomas hung an oil painting of a yacht.
The woman scribbled some notes on her yellow paper. “OK then. Do you have any reason to believe Jacob would be an unfit parent? Drinking? Drugs? A temper?”
“No.” Jake drank in excess on the weekends in college, but so had Joely. He’d even done a scientific experiment to see how many beers he could drink while he was studying and still ace his accounting tests. It turned out, three beers. But now, they both would probably feel tipsy after one. She wouldn’t hold his wild college years against him. That was part of what drew her to him in the first place. Up until then, her life had been anything but fun.
Kate leaned forward. “What about the fact that he always takes the easy way out? He broke their engagement when he found out our mother had lupus.”
Joely repositioned herself in the chair. “I’m the one who called off the wedding. Because he said he didn’t want kids.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Years later he came back into her life—too bad he was married at the time. When Joely got pregnant, he was suddenly devoted to his wife.”
Joely gave Kate a dirty look. She didn’t want her own poor judgment revealed to this stranger. She’d been especially vulnerable six years ago when she and Jake had reconnected. She’d just been diagnosed with lupus and been told the treatment would probably leave her infertile. Jake’s affection had provided a jolt of endorphins right when she needed it most.
She cringed, though, whenever she thought about how selfish they’d both been. When she thought about his wife. It helped that the woman remained nameless and faceless, but still. Deep down, Joely knew the affair was wrong. And yet, out of her mistake came her beautiful daughter, Anna.
Joely glanced at the enormous diamond ring sidled next to the attorney’s wedding band. This lady probably had an adoring husband with whom she went yachting, two perfect kids that she’d planned for and a full-time nanny to help. A cleaning crew probably left the scent of lemon Pledge in the air at her house just as they had here. She and Joely came from two different worlds.
The attorney pressed her back against her oversized leather chair and clicked the button on the end of her pen. “I’m afraid the law is very clear. If he’s Anna’s biological father, he’s never signed away his parental rights, and he poses no threat to her, then there isn’t much you can do.”
Kate stopped tapping her foot. “Seriously? A man can abandon his family and show up whenever the mood strikes him?”
The woman pursed her lips together and nodded.
Joely sighed, resigned.
Her sister, however, grabbed the wooden arms of her chair. “For all we know, Jake is a bank robber or an axe murderer. We don’t have a clue what he has been doing for half a decade!”
“He’s not an axe murderer,” Joely mumbled.
The lawyer focused her cool gray eyes on Joely. “The truth is, I can take your case, but I don’t see any other outcome than Jacob being allowed visitation. Is there any chance he’ll request custody?”
Joely sucked in her breath. “Could he do that?”
“He could, but we’d fight it.”
Joely thought about one of her divorced friends, Kelly. She had cried on Joely’s shoulder the first time her son spent Christmas without her at his father’s. The next year it was her ex-husband’s turn to see their son on his seventh birthday. And her son spent half of the summer with her ex. When she wasn’t at work, Kelly compulsively strung beads for necklaces, bracelets and earrings, just to keep herself occupied. What would Joely do with herself if Anna were gone half of the summer?
Kate stood up. “He doesn’t care about her.”
Joely ached all over. Jake had not only broken her heart, but he’d missed Anna’s first smile, first word, first step—all of it hurt.
The lawyer scanned her notes for a moment. “We could go after Jacob for back child support.” Her finger landed on something she must’ve thought important. “You said he’s an accountant—he should’ve been contributing to the minor’s expenses all along.”
“No, I don’t want anything from him.” Shaking her head, Joely rose to be next to her sister. Kate started to say something about making Jake pay, but Joely cut her off and looked at the lawyer. “Thank you for your time.” She took one last look at the yacht picture.
The attorney stood, smoothed her skirt and shook Joely’s hand. “If anything changes, if he neglects Anna, you let me know.”
Was she supposed to hope for that outcome? This was crazy.
# # #
The rectangular numbers on the alarm clock glowed 12:35 a.m. Joely’s shoulders throbbed, her back hurt. She crawled out of bed and reached under it for the heating pad. Then she heard a noise in the kitchen. Hopefully Anna hadn’t woken up and decided to raid the Oreos in the pantry. Joely crept down the hall, peeked in her daughter’s room and found her sound asleep. Kate must be having one of her midnight snacks. Suddenly Joely realized she was hungry, too, so she slowly made her way downstairs.
Seeing Joely, Mitch cinched the belt of his terry cloth robe tighter. “Can’t sleep?”
“As usual.” Suddenly self-conscious, Joely wished she’d pulled her robe on over her nightgown. Too late now. She took a seat at the kitchen island that Mitch was using as a table.
He held out the box of Ritz crackers toward her. “I understand why you can’t sleep, but I don’t understand why this Jake thing is bothering me so much.”
She unwrapped a row of three crackers from the waxed paper sleeve, but she didn’t take a bite. “You’re upset too?”
He sighed and scratched his five o’clock shadow. “I know Kate thinks Jake needs to leave you and Anna alone. I agree he screwed up, not being there for you when you were pregnant and when Anna was a baby. . .I can’t imagine doing that to Kate.”
No, he would never do that. Kate had known a good man when she saw him. Joely, on the other hand, had fallen for someone who said all the right things, but didn’t necessarily do them.
He paused. “But what if he realizes he screwed up? Does that mean he can’t ever make amends for it?”
Her mouth felt dry. She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think would be best for Anna?”
“That’s what I’ve been worried about. Kate thinks Jake is bad news and she’s right. But he can be really amazing, too. And he’s Anna’s father. I know Anna wishes she had one. . . I mean, you’re great and all—”
He raised his hand to cut her off. “You don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings. I’m her uncle. Jake’s her dad. Anna needs him more than she needs me.”
“But I thought since you do everything a dad does, that she would be fine.” Joely remembered Mitch taking Anna to her first Cubs game, explaining that even though they hardly ever won, it was essential to root for the home team (Foxworth was far too small for its own baseball team). Havin
g faith in a losing team took courage and strength. He told her he could see those traits in her eyes. She had smiled and cheered for the Cubbies until she’d nearly lost her voice.
Mitch stopped eating. “There’s no way I can ever make up for the fact that her dad isn’t around.”
“But you’re a great male influence.”
He rubbed his eyes and waited a beat, never comfortable with praise. “That’s why I gave Anna his address.”
She dropped the crackers on the granite. “You gave her Jake’s address for the Dads’ Night invitation?”
“Yes. Anna came to me and asked if I could help her. I remembered that Kate complained to me once that you kept Jake’s business card in your jewelry box. I didn’t know if he’d come or not. But I thought if there was any chance. . . .”
“What?” Joely pulled her frizzy hair taut as if she were going to put it in a ponytail. Then she let go. “Why did you do that?”
He looked into the distance. “Because I know there was a time when hearing that I’d gotten a girl pregnant would’ve been the worst news in the whole world, but now that I’m older, I almost wish I had. I’d love it if somehow magically I found out I had a long, lost child that I never knew about. Of course it would suck that I’d missed out on the early years, but I want to be a dad so badly.”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
He looked stunned, his eyes and mouth wide. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”
She sprang to her feet. “No, you’re selfish. You were thinking about what you want. Well, I’m the one who gets to decide what’s right for Anna. Now you’ve gone and screwed with our lives and things might not ever be right again.” She picked up her crackers and threw them into the sink, knowing the mess would irk Kate when she saw it. “It’s like you and Kate don’t respect me at all!”
“That’s not true. I understand Jake’s point of view.”
“And I understand the point of view that matters. Because I’m her mother. Her only real parent.”
What Happiness Looks Like (Promises) Page 3