The Good Father

by Diane Chamberlain

  She started to laugh. “Oh, come on,” she said. “If you’re not Robin, what are you doing with Bella?”

  “I…” I was so confused. “Who are you?” I asked. “How do you know Bella? Are you a friend of—” I was going to ask if she was a friend of Robin’s but my brain felt like mush. It was like waking up from a dream and trying to separate the real world from the unreal.

  The passenger window of the red car rolled down and the woman leaned over to speak to the driver. “She says she’s looking for Robin,” she said.

  The driver—a man I couldn’t see well—said something I couldn’t make out.

  “I don’t have a clue,” Savannah said to him. She straightened up, lowering Bella back to the sidewalk. Then she opened the car door and folded the front seat forward. “Hop in,” she said to me. “We’ll help you find Robin.”

  “Great,” I said, sliding into the rear seat. Bella climbed in after me. No car seat, of course, but hopefully we didn’t have far to go. The car smelled of cigarettes and fried food.

  The driver turned to smile at me. He was fortyish and very good-looking, but he held a cigarette in his hand where it rested on the steering wheel and I wished he’d toss it out the window.

  “Hey,” he greeted me, and as if he’d been in on my thoughts, he opened the window a crack and flicked the cigarette into the street. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Erin.” I laughed. “And I’m totally confused. I came here to find Robin and now I find you guys and—” I noticed the gun. A toy? Something he was trying to hand to Bella to entertain her in the car? He was twisted in the front seat now so that he nearly faced me and he was pointing a gun not quite at me over the top of the seat. His eyebrows were raised and he was quiet as he waited for me to react to it. I reached for a door handle, but remembered the car was a two-door. We were trapped.

  “What’s going on?” My voice came out in a whisper.

  “Is Daddy with you?” Bella asked Savannah.

  “No, cutie,” Savannah said. The driver handed the gun to her, then shifted the car into gear and started driving. I put my arm around Bella and tried to pull her close to me, but she was too wound up to cuddle.

  “Why do you have Bella?” she asked me.

  “I’ve been taking care of her while her father’s working.”

  Savannah looked at the driver. “This makes no sense,” she said to him.

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got the kid.”

  “Look,” I said, “please let us out. I don’t know what you—”

  “And you just happen to be in Beaufort, where Robin lives?” The driver’s voice was cynical and mean. He was watching me in the rearview mirror and the eyes I’d thought were attractive a minute ago now looked slitted and cruel. “You’re a friend of hers, right? Just come out with it and tell us where she is if you want to save your own skin. There’s no point in gaming us now.”

  “I don’t know Robin,” I insisted. “Travis left Bella with me in Raleigh and—”

  “In Raleigh?” He sounded as though he didn’t believe me.

  “Yes. He asked me to take care of her for just one night, but he didn’t come back. I knew her mother was in Beaufort, so I came here to try to find her. Please just let us out. This is a big misunderstanding or—”

  I was starting to tremble, but Bella seemed oblivious to the tension in the car. She leaned forward to play with Savannah’s hair where it hung over the front seat, and one thought ran through my mind like a mantra. Keep her safe. Keep her safe. Keep her safe.

  The driver pounded the steering wheel so hard that even Savannah jumped. “Fucking wild goose chase!” he shouted.

  “We have Bella,” Savannah said to him. I could tell she was trying to calm him. Soothe him. I hoped it would work.

  “Once we get the shit from Travis,” the driver said, “he’s dead.”

  “What…shit?” I asked, but I knew. I didn’t live in a bubble. This had to be about drugs. Damn it, Travis.

  Bella started to whimper. I didn’t know if she’d understood the man’s comment about Travis being dead or she’d picked up the angry tone of his voice. Either way, she was now crying and I pulled her toward me. This time she let me hold her. Let me rub her back. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Would you cool it, Roy?” Savannah said. “You’re scaring her.”

  “Don’t you go soft on me,” the man—Roy—said to Savannah, and I watched her draw back, leaning into the passenger-side door a bit. Roy glanced at me in the mirror again. “We can dump her and just keep the kid. This one’s only in the way.”

  I should have felt more afraid than I did. They had a gun. They were talking about getting rid of me. The man behind the wheel was crazy and the woman in front of me was not much better. But I felt steel inside my arms. Inside my chest. I wouldn’t let them separate me from Bella. I pictured the pier. Carolyn vanishing. A gun was nothing compared to that image in my mind. Keep her safe.

  40

  Robin

  The housekeepers were working upstairs, my guests were all out, and I was in the kitchen putting together the casserole for tomorrow��s breakfast. I was content doing that, or as content as I could be, given what I now knew about Dale. I thought of how he wanted me to turn over the day-to-day business of the B and B to Bridget once we were married. I’d agreed to that, even though I didn’t want to, just like I’d agreed to practically every other thing he asked of me. Why did I always go along with his demands? He was so controlling. Every thought of Dale was infuriating to me right now. I chopped onions and peppers with a vengeance, the knife blade slapping against the cutting board in a satisfying rhythm. Why should I give up something that made me happy? Why was it always about what he wanted? Dale had no idea what it meant to be able to truly live every minute of his life. Those meditative things like cooking and straightening up were work to him, while they were a joy to me. We were so, so different. It was over between us. He was not the man I thought he was and definitely not the man I wanted. Now I had to think of how to end our relationship without hurting the rest of the family—and myself—in the process.

  The doorbell rang as I pressed aluminum foil over the top of the casserole. The sound surprised me. I wasn’t expecting any guests to check in that afternoon. I walked into the foyer and through the sidelight I could see a white van parked in front of the house. Had I set up an appointment with a worker and forgotten? I thought of the dripping faucet in the front upstairs guestroom and the shingles that had blown off the roof in the last storm. But I was certain those guys were coming next week.

  I pulled open the door and there he was. Travis. For a moment, neither of us said a word. We stared at each other and I was glad I had a healthy heart; my old heart wouldn’t have held up to the extra beats and the wrenching nostalgia that overwhelmed me. Hundreds of memories. A thousand regrets.

  “Robin,” he said finally, and I heard so much in that word. An ache. An apology? It scared me. Something was wrong. Something with my child. Our child.

  I pressed my fingers to my mouth. “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “I think so.” He stretched a hand toward me and I took it, pulling him inside and wrapping my arms around him. I didn’t know which of us was holding the other tighter. We were silent. I knew in the deepest part of myself that he felt exactly what I felt—love that had taken root when we were kids. Love that had been forced underground. We’d blocked it from our minds and our hearts, but it had never disappeared. Certainly not for me, and I knew by the way he held me, not for him, either. I love you; you love me, I thought. He didn’t need to say the words for me to know it.

  I finally pulled away from him. “There are people here,” I said quietly. “Come with me.” I took his hand and walked with him through the foyer and into my apartment. In the living room, I closed the door behind us, then turned to face him, hand over my mouth again in utter disbelief that Travis Brown was actually standing in fron
t of me. He looked gaunt and tired. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, either.

  “I thought you’d be angry,” he said. “I promised I’d never get in touch, but—”

  “I’m anything but angry,” I said. I grabbed his hands and pulled him over to the sofa. “Tell me everything,” I said as we sat down. “Why you’re here. Where’s my…your daughter. What do you mean, you think she’s okay?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “I screwed up, Robin. I think someone might be bringing her to you. As a matter of fact, I was hoping she might already be here.” He glanced around the room as though I might be hiding her. “You haven’t heard anything?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I said.

  He stood up and started pacing. He was so much thinner than I remembered, but his eyes. Those lashes. As beautiful as ever. “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “Tell me.” I got up myself to check the intercom by my apartment door, making sure it was on so that I’d hear the doorbell if it rang. “Where is she?”

  “With a…this friend. This woman.” He sat down again on the sofa, his hands resting on his knees. “How are you?” he asked, as if testing me to see if I could handle whatever the long story was he had to tell me.

  “I’m fine. I’m good.” I sat on the edge of the chair nearest him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You look…” He shook his head, unsmiling. “You look amazing,” he said. “I’m glad to see that.”

  “Tell me,” I said once more.

  “Bella and I were living with my mother,” he began. “But there was—”

  “Bella is your wife?” I asked.

  “My wife?” He looked confused. “I’m not married. Bella is my daughter. Your daughter.”

  Bella. Beautiful. My daughter had come to life for me in a new way these past few weeks since Hannah’s birth, but now I had a vibrant picture of her in my mind.

  “The daughter you never told me about,” he added, and I heard some anger in his voice.

  “I tried to, Travis, but my father monitored my email and by the time I found out, you were already married.”

  He frowned. “I was never married.”

  “My father said you were. Maybe you were just… Were you living with someone?”

  “He told you I was married? I haven’t even had a girlfriend since Bella was born. Nothing serious, anyway.”

  “My father said…” I let out a sigh, my shoulders sagging. “He lied, Travis. He told me you were married and I should leave you alone. Who knows what else he lied about.”

  “He told me you were furious I tried to get Bella.”

  “I was upset at first, but then I was glad. He died last year. My father.”

  “I know. My mother saw the obituary. My mother died, too, Robin.” He ran his hands through his hair. “That’s what started everything going downhill. We lived with her and she took care of Bella while I worked. I’ve been doing construction.”

  “You wanted to be a marine biologist,” I said. “You were good at science and math. You were—”

  He brushed away my words. “What I’m trying to tell you is that our house in Carolina Beach burned down and my mother was killed.”

  “Oh, no.” I pressed my hands to my cheeks. “Oh, Travis, I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to picture it. I couldn’t imagine the horror. I remembered his mother. “She was always really nice to me,” I said. She had been, and the way she’d treated me had only made me angrier at my father for his coldness to Travis.

  “So then I had no one to watch Bella and I was laid off from my job and…like I said, it’s a long story. But…” He shut his eyes. “I’m ashamed, telling you this. You wanted a good home for your baby. I did really well with her till now, Robin. Honest, I did and nobody could love her more than I do and I have to find her!”

  I moved to the sofa and sat next to him, my hand on his arm. It seemed so natural to touch him. “I believe you,” I said. “But what’s going on now? Where’s this friend? Why is she coming here?”

  “Your father said you didn’t want anything to do with the baby,” he said. “Was that a lie, too?”

  “No, that was true,” I admitted. “By the time she was born, I was so sick that…I don’t even remember a lot of what happened. I loved you, but honestly…your perspective changes when you’re that sick. All I thought about was surviving. Lately, though…” I shook my head. “It’s so strange that you’re here now, because lately, you and the baby are all I can think about.”

  “You don’t want to think about me,” he said. “I’m so messed up, Robin. You’ve got this great house.” He waved his hand through the air to take in my living room. “The person who told me where you lived said you’re engaged to a guy who’s running for mayor.”

  “I hate him right now.”

  “I have nothing,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “I have less than nothing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. A friend…or I thought she was a friend…she told me about a job in Raleigh, but when Bella and I got there, it turned out it was driving a getaway van for a drug deal.”

  I pressed my back against the chair. “Drugs? You were never into drugs. Never—”

  “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I know that sounds lame, but it’s the truth. They told me it was just baby formula and I swallowed the whole story. I was completely broke. I mean completely. Bella and I were living in my van. I finally said I’d do it once. Just to get some money for food and to keep us going while I kept looking for work.”

  “What happened?”

  “Everything went wrong. But here’s the main thing. I met this girl—this really nice woman—in a coffee shop in Raleigh. She’s older…I mean, in her thirties…and she was really good with Bella, so I left Bella with her while I did the job, but when everything went wrong, I couldn’t get back in time to pick her up. The place I was supposed to drop off the drugs…” He rubbed his forehead, looking at the floor. “Ah, shit,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I ended up dumping them. Tossed them in a Dumpster to get them out of my van. It was cocaine in cases of baby formula.”

  “Baby formula?”

  “I dumped them, like I said, and this guy—his name is Roy—he was threatening me. I was afraid of leading him to Bella, so I couldn’t go to the coffee shop where the woman had her. When I finally got there this morning, someone told me she’d gone to Beaufort. The only reason she’d come here, as far as I can figure, is because I told her Bella’s mother—you—lived here.”

  “But does she know my name? How would she find me?”

  “She knows your name is Robin and she has a picture of you.”

  “How could she have a picture of me?”

  “That picture you gave me when we were together. From your sophomore year?” For the first time, he smiled.

  “Why did she have my picture?”

  “Because Bella carried it around with her. She has this little purse and she has that picture of you in it. She knows it’s a picture of her mother.”

  She was so real in my mind now, that little girl. I could see her carrying her purse, taking out the picture of me every once in a while. Looking at it—at the mother she didn’t know. My eyes began to sting and I blinked. “Why does she think I’m not with her?” I asked.

  “She knows you’re sick. Or you were sick. That’s what I’ve always told her. That you love her but are too sick to take care of her.”

  “Oh, Travis, I want to see her! Have you tried calling the woman who has her?”

  He rubbed his palms on his thighs and let out a sigh. “I know this is going to sound terrible, but I don’t have a number for her and she doesn’t have one for me. I don’t even know her last name. All I knew about her was that she was…you know, solid. She’s a pharmacist, but I don’t know where. I had no idea it would turn into this big mess. I had no idea I was putting Bella in danger.” He stood up, pulled his wallet from his back pocket, and handed me a
photograph. I wasn’t ready for the picture. Oh, my God. It was a studio shot, the sort you’d get from one of those places in a mall. Travis sat on a stool with a little girl, maybe two years old, on his knee. He was clean-shaven. Smiling broadly. Nothing like the worried, haunted look he was wearing now. The little girl smiled, too, and they had the same clear gray eyes, but I saw myself in her face. I saw my own childhood pictures. She had the same little rosy coins of color in her cheeks that I’d complained about all my life, except for the years I was so ill. Every part of me—my mind, my body, my heart—longed to hold her. I stared wordlessly at the picture. When I looked up at Travis, he was a blur in front of my eyes. His smile was slow. “I’ve wasted the past four years being angry with you,” he said. He bent over, hands on my shoulders, and kissed my cheek. A sweet little kiss filled with a lifetime of affection. I grabbed one of his hands and held it between both of mine.

  “What do we do?” I asked. “How do we find her?”

  “Maybe I should go into town and look around for them, but I don’t even know what kind of car she drives.”

  “Then stay here,” I said. “Practically everyone knows who I am. If she’s looking for me, she’ll find me.” It was strange. If any other man had told me this story, I would have pulled away from him, bit by bit. Instead I felt myself pull closer to him until I had my arms around him, my cheek pressed to his hair, and I knew that no matter what he’d done, no matter whether he was rich or poor, I belonged with him.

  41

  Erin

  We kept driving around with Bella and me trapped in the backseat of the Mustang, Roy and Savannah talking quietly in the front. Occasionally, Roy raised his voice and Savannah would either snap back at him or shut up. Either way, Roy’s anger sent little lightning strikes through my nerves. He let us out of the car only once and that was to use a restroom. When I told him Bella needed to go, I hoped he’d let us off at a fast food place so there’d be people around and I might be able to alert someone that I needed help, but no luck. Instead, he drove us to a rest area and Savannah walked us into the empty ladies’ room. I thought of grabbing Bella and running, but run where? The building was surrounded by grass on all sides. There was nowhere to hide and I had no phone. Roy’d taken it away from me not long after they first picked us up.