by Lisa Mills
“That’s sweet of you.”
“I remember how it was, first few days home from the hospital. Walk me to the door?”
Danielle set the mail aside and followed Janna back to the little entryway. “I’m glad you came by,” she said as Janna slipped her feet back into her shoes. “I could tell Trevor was happy to see a different face. I think he’s a little tired of me.”
Janna gave her an assessing glance. “You look stressed. How are you holding up?”
Danielle turned to straighten a picture hanging on the wall, uncomfortable beneath the scrutiny. “He’s in remission and we’re back home. Things are looking up for us.”
“You guys need anything?”
Money to pay the bills. A project or two to work on. Someone to call Mr. Hartog and listen to his ranting and raving. Danielle didn’t want to talk about the unpleasant stuff she had to face. Janna would probably give her a speech about not trying to do it all alone, and that would lead to another awkward confrontation about God. Janna was a good friend and Danielle didn’t want to drive her away. She understood Janna’s need to believe in some force beyond herself. She just didn’t share her friend’s enthusiasm for religion. “If I think of anything, I’ll call you.”
Janna stared at her a minute longer, as if she knew Danielle was holding back and was debating whether to push. But in the end she shrugged and headed for the door. “Talk to you soon, then.”
“Later,” Danielle breathed. She let Janna out and was closing the door behind her.
Janna turned as she crossed the front walkway. “I’ll be praying for you.”
Danielle’s back went rigid and she braced herself against the unpleasant rush of memories Janna’s comment stirred. How many times had she heard that trite Christian phrase come out of her parents’ mouths, only to hear it followed by a judgment or criticism in the next moment when the subject of their “concern” was out of earshot? How many times had their discussions about who in their church or family needed prayer been used as a convenient excuse to spread gossip and stir rumors?
Janna’s not like them, she told herself. Janna had never judged Danielle for being a single parent. She’d never guilted her for not attending church. And Danielle had never heard a word of gossip come from Janna’s mouth. She knew it wasn’t fair of her to lump Janna in with the hurtful people that she’d encountered in the past. Still, she couldn’t quite feel at ease with her friend’s faith either.
Danielle closed the door and turned back into the living room. Trevor rested against his pillows, eyes drooping as he fought sleep to watch another episode of his favorite cartoon. He seemed content, so she decided to finish taking care of the mail.
Her desk chair squeaked a protest when she sat down. Danielle reached for the stack of bills and thumbed through them, doing a rough calculation of how much money she needed to pay them all, plus cover rent, groceries, prescriptions, and gas. The total in her checkbook fell short. Far short. To get by, she’d need to get a check from Mr. Hartog.
Her body went weak at the thought of calling him. He’d left a string of angry messages on her answering machine. She had yet to return his calls. But she knew she had to speak to him before she sent an invoice. No way around it. Bracing herself, she dialed the number and waited while she was transferred through to him.
“Hartog!”
Just the sound of his gruff voice sent her stomach into a series of dips and swirls. She swallowed hard and hoped her voice would not tremble as she spoke. “This is Danielle Jordan. I’m following up on the messages that you left on my machine.”
“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his words. “You return calls about as well as you meet deadlines.”
She bit her tongue, knowing she had to take her lashes if she wanted to smooth things over. “I apologize for the delay in calling, sir. I was out of town. And I also apologize for the delay in the delivery of the brochures. We all did our best, however, circumstances were such that—”
“I don’t care about circumstances! I made it clear that I had a deadline, and you didn’t meet it. Your failure to get the job done crippled our sales efforts at the trade show, which impacts our bottom line. We lost money because of you. In my opinion, I don’t owe you a dime.”
Panic knifed through her. She’d dedicated three solid weeks of her time to his project, and not just office hours, but evenings and weekends too. Her quote had been low to begin with. She couldn’t afford to let him bully her out of her fee without a fight.
“Mr. Hartog, as I explained to you from the beginning, the time that you allowed for this project was not sufficient. You were lucky you had literature for the show at all. It took a monumental effort to complete the project as quickly as we did.”
“So we’re back to that, huh? It’s my fault?”
“No, I’m simply pointing out that maybe we share the responsibility for this.”
Silence filled the line. She wondered if she’d said something to sway him.
His voice was oily and snake-like when he spoke again. “I agree. We should share it. I had my brochures for fifty percent of the show, I paid you fifty percent of your design fees. We’re even.”
His words unleashed a torrent of fear. “But I put in so many hours and you have a beautiful brochure—”
“You’re lucky I’m willing to pay you the full cost of printing. Fifty percent for your labor. Take it or take nothing. Those are your choices.” The line went dead.
Danielle stared at the phone, sick to her stomach. She’d been counting on that money—all of it—to pay her bills and make a payment on Trevor’s medical expenses. Accepting half her fee would be a crippling blow to her finances.
Could she fight him? She might have legal recourse, but hiring a lawyer would cost money. Even filing a suit herself at the small claims court would require a fee and hours she couldn’t spare. And if Mr. Hartog fought her … well, he might be able to argue his case. She had agreed to the deadline, and the brochures were delivered late. Though the circumstances surrounding the matter were largely beyond her control, the responsibility still fell on her shoulders. She’d agreed to his stipulations, and she hadn’t delivered.
With a sinking sensation hollowing out her middle, she turned on her computer and made up an invoice for the printing costs. She billed Mr. Hartog for the original quote, but the printer had offered her a discount for being late. The difference might be enough to keep her checkbook out of the red. If she didn’t eat. Or drive much. Or run the air conditioning.
Heat simmered in her gut. She should have seen something like this coming and instituted some safeguards to protect herself. The deadline had been next to impossible to meet. She’d known that from the first, but in her eagerness to land such a big project, she’d rushed ahead, hoping optimism and hard work would suffice. She should have insisted the deadline was unreasonable and asked for a signed agreement absolving her of fault if it wasn’t met. Next time she would do that. But next time wasn’t going to help her finances this month.
Figuring it was best to get the dreaded task over with, she pulled out her checkbook and started paying bills from the stack next to her keyboard. She hated handling the family finances, not because she found managing money difficult, but because the balance of her account was never high enough to leave her with a feeling of comfort. They squeezed by with just a few dollars to spare each month. Some months, when unexpected events like car repairs or medical bills took a hungry bite from her bank account, they didn’t quite make ends meet. The credit card balance climbed a little higher.
Danielle slid the last check, along with the phone bill, into an envelope. After sealing it and adding a stamp, she put it with the other mail. She’d managed to pay the phone and the utilities, and she could make the minimum payment due to her credit card. But she didn’t have enough to pay the landlord or make her car payment.
She’d placed a call to her landlords earlier and explained the situation
. They’d been understanding and offered her an extension, but that only delayed the problem. Next month would be worse. The hospital would be calling soon to set up payments, and she didn’t know how her budget would accommodate another bill. The two weeks she had gone without working would hit hard. She wished that she had a laptop that she could take with her so she could work from the hospital. Her desktop was a fine piece of technology, but she hadn’t considered the lack of mobility when she’d purchased it.
She flipped it on and opened her e-mail program. To her relief, she received a few messages from clients who had small jobs for her. One needed business cards for a new salesman. The other wanted an ad laid out for an Internet banner advertisement.
It wasn’t much, but every little bit would help. And she needed all the help she could get.
~ ~ ~
“How’s your math coming, Trev?” Danielle finished moving a load of clean towels from the dryer to a laundry basket. Hefting the basket, she carried it through the kitchen to the dining room table.
Trevor sat at the breakfast bar between the two rooms, giving subtraction problems his undivided attention. “Just finished. Want to check it?” He lifted the paper and held it out to her.
“After I fold towels. What’s next on the list?” He dropped the math worksheet onto the other barstool and reached for the list of assignments he was trying to make up.
“A chart thingie.” He bent over the assignment, his lips moving as he read the instructions to himself.
She smiled and reached for a towel. Trevor had been feeling better every day since they’d returned home. Yesterday, their fourth since leaving the hospital, they were both a little stir crazy from being cooped up inside. Danielle had loaded him into the car and taken him with her as she ran to the bank, the post office, and the school to get his homework assignments. Running errands didn’t exactly qualify as an exciting outing, but it helped ease his restlessness.
And hers. She was accustomed to being busy, to meeting with clients while Trevor was in school, to filling her schedule with the work it took to supply the family’s needs. The sickbed vigil of the last few weeks had forced her into long hours of idleness as she waited and watched. She wanted it that way, of course. She wouldn’t leave Trevor’s side for anything, but the changes, the inactivity—well, it left her too much time to think, too much space in her schedule for worrying and second-guessing. She needed her work to fill up those hours and shield herself from the voice of doubt that lurked in the quiet moments of her life.
“Mommy, what’s your middle name?” Trevor asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“It’s May.”
He turned to look at her, a thoughtful frown putting a wrinkle in his brow. “How do you spell it?”
Grinning, she said each letter slowly, giving him time to write. Finished with the towels, she began folding the washcloths into quarters and stacking them in neat piles by color. When the folding was complete, she gathered them up and headed down the hall to the bathroom closet. A few minutes of arranging left the closet looking tidy and organized.
That job done, she could start dinner. She traced her steps back to the kitchen, considering the options. She could throw together a macaroni casserole, or maybe cook breakfast foods for dinner. They hadn’t done that in a while, and a hearty omelet sounded good to Danielle. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bacon and eggs.
“Mommy, what’s my father’s name?”
Shock jolted through her body like an electrical charge, a wave of weakness following in its wake. The eggs slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, splattering bits of yolk and shell across the kitchen. If the sudden pounding in her head was any indication, her blood pressure had just doubled.
Where had a question like that come from? She glanced Trevor’s direction. He leaned across the breakfast bar, staring down at the mess, his mouth agape.
With her wits too scattered to form a coherent answer, she grabbed a roll of paper towels from the counter and started soaking up the worst of the mess. “I guess we won’t be having eggs for dinner.”
“You want me to help you clean it up?” he asked sweetly.
She loved him for the offer, but thoroughness and efficiency weren’t exactly words she’d use to describe his housekeeping skills. “Thanks, babe, but you need to keep working on your homework. I’ll get this.”
He shrugged and turned back to his papers. “So, what’s my father’s name, Mom?”
Hearing the question a second time didn’t lessen its impact. Thankfully, her hands were busy dabbing at egg slime so she couldn’t drop anything else. She pushed sticky paper towels into a pile and carried the whole wad to the trash can. Wetting a rag and grabbing a spray bottle of multi-purpose cleaner from beneath the sink, she dropped to her knees and attacked the gooey residue on the floor. Careful to keep her tone light, she asked, “Trevor, what are you working on?”
“My teacher says we hafta do a family tree. She sent this picture.” He held up a colorful chart, featuring a tree with blank lines branching off of it, awaiting names of family members.
She stared at the chart, her chest thumping so hard she was afraid it might burst open.
Trevor appeared oblivious to her discomfort as he went on. “The ‘structions say everyone has a mother and a father. Do I got a father?” He cocked his head and stared down at her, the innocence behind the question only adding to its sting.
She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Everyone has a father,” she mumbled.
“How come I never met mine?”
How come? Because he didn’t want us. After eight years, the truth still stung. But she would never let Trevor know the harsh reality if she could shield him from it. “He’s not part of our lives, honey. Not all mommies and daddies live together.” She frowned his way, hoping he would drop the subject and move on.
His eyes were distant, and she could almost see the wheels in his head turning. “Are you divorced?”
Danielle’s hands faltered as she aimed the bottle of spray at another patch of egg bits. She didn’t realize Trevor was aware of grown-up issues like divorce. Of course he’d heard the word on television or from friends, but she didn’t realize he understood the meaning. She scrambled for a suitably vague answer.
“No, Trevor. We were never married.” It shamed her to say the words out loud, especially to Trevor. She desperately wanted his love and respect, and she feared that confessing her youthful sins would lessen his regard for her.
“Did he die?”
His intense scrutiny was too much to bear, so she looked away. “In a way, he did.” She had thought Kevin was different, that he would never hurt her as others had done. He was supposed to be her white knight. Her hero. But in the end, he was just like them. When she realized that he was not coming back to rescue her, her fairy-tale ideals about him had died, and her feelings died with them. He might as well be dead.
Trevor rested his chin in his hand. “I think the kids who have daddies are lucky. Cory’s dad takes him fishing and Ben’s dad builds cars in their garage. I wish I had a dad to do fun stuff with.”
Danielle thought her chest would cave in. Most of Trevor’s friends had fathers, so it was natural he would notice something missing in his life. But she never realized that he felt deprived. She’d done all she could to be everything Trevor needed, but maybe she wasn’t enough.
“A child needs two parents.” Her father’s lectures on the “right” way to live echoed in her head. She hated to think that her parents, for all their judgmental attitudes, might be right.
“Mom, do you think we could get us a dad?”
Tears blurred her vision as she bent over the mess on the floor. Inviting a man into their lives would mean trusting someone enough to let them close … a prospect that frightened her more than words could convey. It would involve risking rejection and pain, and she didn’t know if she had enough faith left in the male gender to put herself in that position. The men i
n her life had shredded her heart and left her scarred. Why would she want to risk that again?
“Trevor, why don’t you set that assignment aside and go on to the next one? We have plenty of time to do that one later.”
He shrugged and pushed the family tree chart away from him. The next item in the stack made him grimace. “Spelling. Yuck!” With a huff, he picked up his pencil and began writing. Danielle went back to scrubbing bits of egg off the cabinets and floor tiles.
Later, after Trevor went to bed, she would put the family tree chart out with the trash and think of a plausible excuse for Trevor’s teacher about why they couldn’t complete that assignment.
Chapter Ten
“Danielle? Danielle, are you home?”
Danielle looked up from the magazine she was reading and turned toward the voice.
Janna appeared at the chain link fence surrounding the back yard, and waved when she saw Danielle. “There you are. I rang the bell a few times and got worried when you didn’t answer.” She slipped through the gate and approached the lounge chair where Danielle sat reading.
“Have a seat. Trevor was restless. I thought some fresh air might help.” She smiled at her son, who was pushing his Tonka trucks through a patch of sandy dirt near the back of the yard. He had color in his cheeks, and with a baseball cap hiding his hairless scalp, he looked almost vibrant and healthy.
Janna dropped into the other chair and propped up her feet. “Nice morning to be outside. Not too hot or humid yet. We’ve had mild weather for May.”
Danielle nodded, wondering where the last month had gone. Trevor’s diagnosis, the whirlwind hospital stay, and the follow-up appointments had dominated their schedule and snatched the days away. They were little more than a blur in her memory. But the doctors had positive reports about Trevor’s progress, and Danielle was hopeful the nightmare would soon be behind them.
