by Arlene James
Yes, she was going to Africa. No doubt it was for the best. Maybe by the time she got back, she would have this relationship between her father and Kate in better perspective. She hoped so. She honestly hoped so.
Putting on a smile, she walked around the table and into the center of the kitchen. Going up on tiptoe, she placed a kiss on her father’s bristly cheek. “I’ll be over again tomorrow. Maybe by that time we’ll know when the services will be. Try to rest.”
He nodded mutely, his arm still about Kate’s waist. Kendra tried not to mind. “Good night,” she said softly and turned away. By the time she had moved through the dining area and the living room to the front door, tears were spilling down her cheeks again. Poor Daddy, she thought. He’s going to miss Nathan and Candace so very much. More, she feared, than he would miss her. Determinedly, she pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She would be back, and things would be better between them. Meanwhile, they would both miss Nathan and Candace, and so would the others. Poor Daddy. Poor baby. Poor Parker. And poor Kendra...poor unneeded Kendra.
* * *
“Are you sure?” Edward asked yet again.
Parker tamped down his irritation and nodded. “She’s my niece, and I told you, we discussed this not a month ago, Nathan, Candace and I. It’s what they wanted, whether they put it down on paper or not. They wanted me to take care of her, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“It’s not going to be easy, old buddy,” Edward pointed out. “You don’t know anything about babies.”
“Neither did Nathan until he had one,” Parker countered stubbornly.
“But you’re not Nathan,” Edward reminded him gently. “Have you thought of what you’ll be giving up if you take an infant? The parties, the women, the freedom...”
“Don’t be absurd,” Parker said lightly. “So I have to keep more regular hours, be more discreet. You’re talking like I’ll have to join a monastery and take a vow of chastity! It won’t be that bad. Besides, what else can I do? I promised my brother that if anything happened to him, I’d take care of his little girl—and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Edward sighed. “All right, if that’s the way you want it.”
“It’s not the way I want it,” Parker said. “It’s just the way it is.”
“I understand,” Edward told him, “and I must say, Parker, I admire you for this.”
“Don’t,” Parker said. “Don’t admire me, just help me.”
Edward nodded. “I’ll check on the will tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’d advise you to get in there and take physical custody of the child.”
“Right,” Parker said, but still he sat there in Edward’s car, immobilized by the pain of loss. It seemed to him that he ought to be bleeding, that he ought to have gaping wounds all over his body. He could not quite believe that he was physically whole. With pain like this, he ought to have lost at least a leg or an arm, and yet he felt strangely numb. But he had to go in there. He had to face Mrs. Hoft. He had to face that little baby who didn’t even know, who couldn’t even grasp the awful fact that her parents were dead. But what terrified him most was facing a life without his brother and sister-in-law, going on alone. Alone, except for Darla. And Edward thought that was the way he wanted it. Oh, Nathan, he thought, how can I do it without you? But he would. No matter what he had to do, he wouldn’t let down his brother, not in this. He took a deep breath and got out of the car.
Mrs. Hoft answered the doorbell on the first ring, dabbing at her eyes with a rumpled tissue. The look on her face, however, announced her disappointment and disapproval quite loudly. Parker squared his shoulders.
“I’ve come for the baby,” he said. Then he added, “My lawyer is waiting in the car.”
Mrs. Hoft raised her sagging chin. “I told you over the phone, Mr. Sugarman, that I’m not convinced this is the best thing. I’ve called Mrs. Pendleton, and she agrees with me.”
Parker grimaced. Sandra Pendleton was one of the most disagreeable persons he had ever met. Not only was she arrogant and overbearing, she clearly thought herself superior to mere mortals and a genuine intellectual. Even Candace had considered her own sister something of a kook, but somehow she managed to maintain a reputable standing with her colleagues, not to mention quite a following among laymen, thanks to her books on “complete” parenting. Sandra liked to say that her methods were a combination of “intellectual and cultural immersion coupled with the natural evolution of perspective,” whatever that meant. To Parker, it was all pretty much a bunch of gobbledygook, and his brother and sister-in-law had shared his opinion wholeheartedly. Sandra Pendleton was going to raise his niece, his sole surviving family member, only over his dead body. He fixed Mrs. Hoft with a baleful glare.
“You had no right to do that, Mrs. Hoft. Nathan and Candace made their wishes in the matter quite clear. They wanted me to care for their daughter, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But, Mr. Sugarman,” she cried, “you’re a single man. You don’t know anything about taking care of infants.”
“I can learn.”
“But in the meantime, that delicate babe’s—”
“Going to be where she should be,” he insisted flatly. “With me. Now stand aside, Mrs. Hoft, or be prepared to watch from the floor while I collect my niece.”
“Sir, I think you should wait until Mrs. Pendleton gets here. Maybe she can make you understnd what you’re proposing to undertake!”
He shook his head at that, his patience exhausted. With a sweep of his arm, he moved her safely aside and stepped though the door. The house was small and unsophisticated. He required only a moment to get his bearings. Confidently, he strode across the living room and down a narrow hall. The first door he tried led to a cramped bathroom. The second revealed a sewing room. The third contained a crib in addition to an old-fashioned bookcase bed. He walked softly to the crib and peered down at the small bundle of pink resting on its stomach. She was sleeping, her face turned away from him, and he knew instinctively that he ought to try to move her without waking her up, but the task seemed suddenly beyond his capability, and he felt a moment of genuine panic. Then the bundle moved.
An elbow, clearly distinguishable, lifted upward beneath the soft blanket. A muffled squwaking emitted, and the bundle elongated. A tiny yellow stocking appeared from beneath the edge of the pink blanket, then withdrew. Finally, two tiny fists pushed out to flank the dark, silky head on either side and the supple little back arched to lift protruding buttocks upward. She was waking, all on her own. Gently Parker pulled away the blanket and turned the little one over with hands that seemed absurdly large. Darla yawned and stretched her supple body into a curve before settling down once more. She looked around her, fixed her big, dark eyes on his face and blinked a couple of times as if clearing her vision. Instantly, a smile parted her rosebud mouth. She knew him! And well she should.
He’d been taken with the little imp from the moment her proud father had presented her to her uncle clad only in a stocking cap, an undershirt, and an oversize disposable diaper. She’d been red as a beet and freshly bathed from the rigors of her journey into the world. Her face was wrinkled, her hair plastered down, her eyes vacant, her mouth seeking anything at all to latch on to, and Parker had thought her beautiful, a veritable fairy princess to have the whole of creation laid at her feet, a miracle. He’d been afraid to touch her and hungry to do so all at the same time, envious of the easy, proprietary manner in which her father had held her in his cupped hands.
She had changed since then, almost alarmingly so. She was less creature, and more person now, all creamy skin, sparkling eyes and coos. She had grown, too, more than doubling her weight, which wasn’t saying much considering she’d weighed in originally at five pounds and five ounces. She was truly beautiful now, a genuine pixie, with silky ink-black hair, enormous dark eyes and a rosebud mouth. She giggled and flirted and generally enthralled all who fell within her sphere and according to her mom, had also
developed some other less enchanting habits. But Parker had seen none of those. To him, she was a fairy child, an angel without wings—and his now, his alone.
“Oh, princess,” he said, bowing his head to lay his cheek against her tiny face and hide his tears, “I don’t know how we’re going to go on without them, but somehow we will. I promise. Somehow we’ll go on—together.”
Chapter Two
Diaper bag, carrier/car seat, toy box, extra clothing, blankets, pacifier, stocking cap... Parker frantically went over the list in his head, terrified he would forget something important as he juggled baby, paraphernalia and mushrooming doubts.
He was halfway across the living room, Mrs. Hoft clucking and fluttering around him like a nervous, doomsaying chicken too fat for the hen yard, when it occurred to him that he didn’t have so much as a bottle amongst all his burdens, and time was slipping away, bringing Sandra Pendleton ever closer. He really didn’t feel up to taking on Sandra just yet, and who could blame him? His brother and sister-in-law were laid out on slabs in the morgue, bruised and scraped and utterly lifeless, foreign objects, never again to laugh or cry or love. Never again to make him feel as if he were a part of a genuine family, as if he belonged somewhere and to someone. As if he were needed, valued, made with a purpose in mind.
Who were going to be his cohorts in fun now? Who would laugh at his jokes and scold him enviously for his exploits? He had been a big brother for nearly as long as he could remember, but how could he be that now when he no longer had a sibling to be older to? It was not that he felt that the baby could fulfill any of his needs, for he did not. Rather, it seemed to him that the baby herself was all need, which only he could address. Perhaps he was no more next-of-kin than Sandra Pendleton, but he was the one chosen by her parents to care for her. He was the one they had told, not more than a month ago, to love her and care for her as his own if the worst should happen. And the worst had happened, the very worst.
The baby had begun to fuss now, and he clasped her infant seat tighter in an effort not to jostle her as he negotiated the living room. He’d have to forget the bottles for now. Getting her out of here before Sandra Pendleton arrived was more important. God forbid that his fairy princess should be left to that woman’s ministrations. He could stop and buy bottles and formula on the way home. Home. Lord, where was he going to put her? He didn’t have a nursery. He didn’t have a baby bed. He didn’t even have a bib! But he wouldn’t think of that now. He didn’t dare. He was already shaking fit to fall apart, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Nathan and Candace had depended on him. Baby Darla, whether she knew it or not, depended on him, because he was all that stood between her and the resident kook, because he loved her with a fierceness that had surprised him from the beginning, because he was family, they were family and nothing and no one was going to take that away from him.
He didn’t think what this would mean to his life-style, to his finances, to his emotions, to his house. He only thought of getting Darla safely away, of fulfilling his responsibilities to her and to a dead brother and sister-in-law, of keeping himself intact by centering his attentions and energies on something other than his overwhelming loss. He only thought of salvaging something of his family, of somehow going on, of shielding the innocent, tiny person in his arms from the same pain that was threatening to tear him apart.
He made it out the door and very nearly all the way down the walk before the Pendletons’ trademark minibus came puttering around the corner. The contraption slid to a stop, and Sandra Pendleton bailed out, leaving her husband behind the wheel and her brood staring out the windows with avid curiosity. She was wearing a cowl-neck sweater beneath a denim jumper with a dropped waistline and a skirt that ended mere inches above her ankles. A lightweight fringed shawl had been slung about her shoulders, and her brown hair hung down her back in a thick, loose plait. On her feet were heavy sandals and pale blue socks. As an apparent concession to the chilly early October weather, she had tied a triangular scarf over her ears. She approached Parker with an outstretched hand.
“Give me the baby, Parker. You obviously don’t know what you’re doing just now.”
“The hell I don’t.” He grasped the baby seat tighter, put his head down and kept walking.
Sandra clutched her shawl about her and hurried after him, speaking rapidly in a terribly reasonable tone of voice. “You’ve had a terrible shock, Parker. You’ve doubtlessly been up all night long, and you aren’t thinking clearly. If you were, you’d see that you’re totally unsuitable to play guardian to an infant.”
“My brother and your sister didn’t seem to think so,” he retorted, yanking the back door of Edward’s sedan open. “They told me that I was to act as her guardian, Sandra.” He stuffed the baby and gear onto the seat and slapped the seat belt around them. “They told me, at all costs, to keep her out of your hands.”
She smirked at him when he turned around, the door closed firmly behind him. “Oh, I know what they thought of my practice,” she said lightly, “but they’d have changed their minds within a year or so. Of course, it might have been too late by then, but they would have seen, eventually, how far superior my patients are to the average child.”
“Patients?” Parker scoffed. “What patients? You only practice on your own children.”
“And reach countless thousands of others through my books.”
“Well, count Darla out,” he said flatly. “She’s not going to be another of your experiments.”
“My methods have been proven quite effective by any number of—”
“Your methods mean nothing to me,” he interrupted sternly. “The promises I made my brother and his wife mean something to me. That little girl means something to me. You’ve got enough trained monkeys of your own. You don’t need to incorporate someone else’s child into the act. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do.” With that, he got into the car and closed the door, but Sandra Pendleton was not to be put off so easily.
She bent at the waist and thrust her freckled face close to the tinted window, shouting through the glass. “This isn’t the end of this, Parker. I have as much right to that child as you do. What’s more, I have all the expertise required to care for her, and you have none!”
“Start the car,” he told Edward, who obediently did as instructed. Deliberately, Parker depressed the button that lowered the window. “You may think you’re better suited to care for little Darla than I am,” he said to Sandra Pendleton, “but I have one thing you can never have. I have my brother’s blessing. In fact, it was his express wish that I care for his child in the event of his death—his wish and his wife’s.”
“Maybe so,” Sandra said, “but I won’t believe it until I see it, and even then I’ll fight you. I will not abandon that child to such as you, Parker Sugarman, not even on your very best day.”
Parker calmed the pounding of his heart and lifted a hand, palm stretched out flat, to point in Edward’s direction. “Sandra,” he said smoothly, “meet my lawyer, Edward White. I think you’ll be wanting to get in touch with him.”
Edward smiled and dropped the transmission down into Drive. “Anytime, Mrs. Pendleton,” he said cheerily. “Anytime.”
Sandra narrowed her eyes at both of them as if memorizing their faces so she could identify them in court. Then she nodded curtly and stepped back. The car pulled away from the curb, and Parker put up the window, aware only then that the baby was fussing steadily. Edward’s smile had dissolved into a frown of doubt, and Parker felt himself beginning to tremble again, but determination made him look forward.
“Get me to a drugstore,” he said, “and for God’s sake, Edward, find me a piece of paper with Nathan’s name on it and his wishes clearly spelled out for all to see. I won’t give her up. I’ll never give her up.”
Edward opened his mouth as if to comment, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. Parker pushed away the dozen or so niggling doubts that were plaguing his peace of mind and
twisted around in his seat to pat at the baby ineffectually.
By the time they reached the nearest drugstore, Darla was howling. Parker knew she was probably hungry, but he didn’t have so much as an empty bottle to offer her. The only thing he could think to do was to plug her up with the pacifier, but his sweet little angel took one good pull, realized she’d been duped and spit that thing right back at him, screeching like a banshee. He was shocked to see it bounce off the bottom of her car seat and tumble onto the floor mat. More shocking still was the obvious anger that twisted that cherubic face into a red mask of outrage. She looked positively murderous, enraged, and Parker was surprised to find that he was hurt, literally wounded. It wasn’t rational, of course, and he knew that, but he was doing the best he could, after all, and doing it while holding himself together by the most tenuous of means. And she was a four-month-old baby who had come to expect having her meals delivered on schedule. As the car drew to the curb, Parker reached into the back seat to stroke her distorted face.
“All right, sweetheart. I understand, and I’ll hurry.”
“You’d better,” Ed murmured, “or we’ll both be screaming.”
Parker gave him a droll look and got out of the car. He all but ran into the store and up to the counter, then practically accosted the teenage girl working there. “Give me everything I need to take care of a baby,” he demanded.
She blinked at him and turned away to speak to an older woman stocking vitamins on a low shelf. Groaning, the woman got up off her knees and indicated that he should follow. The array of baby care items was overwhelming. There were eight different brands of formula, twice as many types of diapers, half as many kinds of nipples and pacifiers, not to mention specially designed dishes and flatware, medicine dispensers, toys, clothes, even something called “bumper pads.” Did babies have bumpers? he wondered. Upon second thought, he reasoned that Darla undoubtedly had everything she needed at home, at Nathan’s. What he really needed now was something to feed her and something to feed her with, but which of the many items offered would be the right ones?