She couldn’t move. It was like an invisible force field molded itself to her body, pinning her in place. “Sure. Go ahead.”
He flipped open the cover and encountered the school picture Athena replaced after showing it around. A grin lit his face, and he laughed under his breath.
“Ah, the famous missing tooth photo.” He turned the page, looked at the photograph, and frowned. “Who’s this?” He held up the book, the photo facing Athena.
“That’s Steve and me when we got married,” she said quietly.
“Oh.” Derek turned the photo back toward him, and shook his head a little bit. “Doesn’t look at all like I’d imagined.”
Athena raised her hands and laced her fingers together behind her neck as she waited for him to turn the page and see the next picture. Her fingers felt like ice against the frantic heat of her neck, and even clasped together they trembled so badly her arms shook with the force of it. Derek turned to the next photo.
“And this must be Christma…..” The word broke off like it was turned off with a switch as he gazed down.
Athena tried to moderate her breathing to stop the whirling in her head. There was no way she could faint. She couldn’t! She waited for him to speak, but he just kept staring at the picture, his eyes wide and shocked.
One hand rose, and he threaded his fingers through his hair. His breath seemed to catch in his throat, and his chest hitched. Soundless words formed on his lips for a moment before he pressed them tightly together.
When Athena saw his fingers clench in his hair, she braced herself for an explosion. But when he spoke, his words were soft and measured.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Yes,” she croaked. “After the tour was over.”
“Does she know?” he asked, still directing his words at the photo he couldn’t seem to stop looking at.
“Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.” Her hands were growing numb, but she couldn’t bring herself to move again. As she watched, hectic patches of color bloomed in Derek’s cheeks, and panic swept her when he very gently placed the little book on the bed. Eyes burning with blue fire met hers, and her breath came to a complete stop.
“You kept my daughter from me for seven years?” With each word his voice increased in volume. “You kept me from my child?” He rose from the bed, fists clenched so tight that every muscle in his arms became as clear cut as if they’d been carved.
“Derek, I…”
“Don’t you dare,” he interrupted in a low growl. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry.” He took a deep, trembling breath, and an expression of deepest pain joined the heat in his gaze. “Jesus Christ, Athena. She…I…” He glanced down at the photo again, his jaw growing taut with what she knew was rage. “You let my daughter grow up thinking her father abandoned her.” That hot, tortured gaze met hers again, and she gasped.
“You let her believe her own father thought so little of her that he never cared enough to be with her, when I would have…” His hands rose to his head again. “Oh, God, I’d have been there for her. I could have…She would have known how much I…” He looked at her again and shook his head, his face a hard mask of anger. “No, Athena. You will not cry. You don’t have the right to cry.”
She blinked away the tears that filled her eyes, her mind performing a desperate search for words that might make this better. But none came. She could only stand there like a useless, reprehensible statue, watching the man she loved fall apart in front of her.
“Nothing you’ve done before even begins to compare to this. She’s my child! I would have been there if I’d known, but you…you…” He turned away from her, breathing hard. With a move so sudden she didn’t see it coming, he grabbed the telephone from the bedside table, ripped it from the wall and hurled it across the room with such force it left a gaping hole in the far wall.
“Goddamn it!” His voice was raw with pain. “She doesn’t even know I’m her father. She doesn’t…” He whirled back to face Athena, eyes blazing. “You’re going to tell her.”
Her head moved in a frantic nod. “Yes, I will. As soon as…”
“No,” he interrupted. “You’re going to tell her now.”
“But…” She caught her breath in what would have been a sob, but he’d told her not to cry. “I can’t tell her something like that over the phone. “ An annoying little voice spoke up in her head to inform her she couldn’t do that anyway since Derek had just ripped the phone from the wall.
“That’s right, you can’t. You’re going to go home and tell my daughter that I’m her father.” He advanced on her, pointing an accusatory finger at her chest. “You’re going to tell her how much I wish I could have been there for her all these years, and you’re going to tell her the reason I wasn’t is because her mother is a manipulative, cruel, lying bitch.” He stopped in front of her, reached out as if to touch her, but drew his hands back in fists. “You are going to take all the responsibility for this fucking horrible mess, and you will do it now.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I…”
“You’d better fucking believe ‘okay,’” he snarled. “You have one week to do it, because the minute my last show ends I’ll be on a flight to Memphis to see my daughter. And if I find out you’ve told her some pretty lies to make yourself look better, I’ll find out, and I’ll set the record straight. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she murmured. There was nothing more to say.
“Good. Now get your shit and get out of my sight.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the knock sounded on the suite’s outer door, Derek ignored it. God only knew how many people witnessed Athena’s rushed exit from the room, and he had no desire to talk about it with anyone. In fact, he was in no condition to talk about anything.
It was a toss-up which was worse, his pain or his anger. At that moment, Anger appeared to be winning, but Pain was coming up fast, gaining with a speed he was powerless to stop. Curiosity about what Elizabeth might be like had just left the starting gate and was lagging behind. He couldn’t even begin to think about his daughter – Jesus, Christ, he had a daughter! – while he was still so shattered by what her mother had done.
Athena. A deep groan was wrenched out of him as Pain put on a burst of speed, overtook Anger, and moved into the lead. Fate was one cruel son of a bitch to let him find her again only to lose her. He’d been happier the past few weeks than he’d ever been, even during the summer when he and Athena first met. Being with her again was better than the roars of adulation from the concert crowds, better than hearing his music on the radio, even better than his first gold record. But that was all over, and the way it ended…
Anger rounded the curve and blew past Pain as Derek thought of the way Athena concealed the fact that he was Elizabeth’s father. He didn’t want to be sorry he’d lost a woman who would keep a man from his child and that child from her father. Thank God he’d decided to wait until the tour was over to ask her again to marry him. He dodged a bullet there.
Another knock on the door sent Anger flying across the finish line, and Derek raised his head, seething.
“Go! Away!”
Not only did his unseen intruder ignore his shouted demand, whoever it was entered the room. Muffled footsteps sounded on the carpet headed for the bedroom, and Derek rose to his feet, determined to rid himself of unwanted company.
“Hey.” Paul stuck his head in the bedroom door. “Where’s Athena? I need her for a bit.”
What was he, Athena’s social secretary? Derek pinned Paul with a heated glare. “She isn’t here, nor will she be. Now go away.”
An irritated frown creased Paul’s forehead. “What do you mean she isn’t here?” He started into the room, but stumbled over the telephone cord at his feet. Irritation changed to bemusement as he studied the mangled instrument, covered with a sprinkling of drywall dust. His eyes traveled up to the hole in the wall before returning to Derek who stood in the middle of the roo
m, fists clenched and jaw tight. Sudden understanding dawned on Paul’s face.
“She told you,” he said quietly.
Betrayal bloomed scalding in Derek’s chest. “You knew?” he roared. “You knew and you didn’t fucking tell me?”
Paul held up his hands in front of him. “I’ve only known a little over a week, and I found out quite by accident. And it wasn’t my place to say anything, mate.”
Refusing to be mollified, Derek turned to the bed and grabbed a pillow. He had to crush something, and a pillow was better than Paul’s face. “Who else knows? Was everyone else privy to the fact that I’m a father but me?”
“As far as I know, no one.”
With an inarticulate growl of rage, Derek hurled the pillow at the window. The soft thump it made as it made contact without inflicting any damage only caused his anger to increase.
“She should have told me sooner. The instant she found out she was pregnant, she should have let me know.”
Paul cleared his throat. “I believe she tried, you know. She rang, but…”
“Yeah, yeah. The whole Tina thing.” With no warning, his rage drained away, leaving him weak and feeling ill. “Paul, I have a daughter.” Moving like an old man, he sat down on the bed and put his face in his hands, an unsuccessful effort to shut out the world.
“I know.” Paul crossed the room, and the bed dipped as he sat beside Derek. “She wanted to tell you, but…”
“Do not defend her.” Though he tried to summon his earlier fury, all he felt was a wave of defeat. “What she did was unforgivable.”
“I’m not defending her,” Paul protested. “I agree; not telling you was wrong, so wrong I can’t even find words for it. I’m just saying I can kind of see what she was going through.”
Trying to see Athena’s side of anything wasn’t on the agenda, and Derek clenched his jaw. “I don’t give a flying fuck, all right? Get out.”
“Listen to me.” Paul’s voice was low and intent. “Haven’t you ever put off doing something difficult? Something so overwhelming that you couldn’t even think of how to start?”
Derek shook his head in mute negation. He didn’t want to hear it, and tried to ignore what Paul was saying. But his friend continued, his words drilling themselves into Derek’s head.
“So you wait, hoping to find the best way to do it. But the longer you wait, the harder it gets. The world rocks right along, and if you finally go ahead and do it – or say it – it’s going to hurt worse than if you’d done it when you should have. Lives are going to be disrupted; people are going to get hurt. By waiting, you’ve made a bigger mess of things than if you’d just gone ahead and gotten it over with.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Derek muttered into his hands. “I’m Elizabeth’s father, and I should have known. I can never forgive Athena for keeping that from me.”
“So you sent her away?”
“Fucking right I did.” A little spark of anger fired up again, and he grabbed hold of it, happy to have the despair pushed back. “I sent her lying, scheming little arse back to Memphis to tell Elizabeth I’m her father. And when I get there next week…”
“Stop right there,” Paul interrupted. “Look, mate; it’s fine to hate what Athena did, but you can’t hate her for doing it.”
He jerked his head up and glared at Paul. “Oh, really? Watch me.”
Paul’s lips firmed into a tight line. “Whatever she did, Derek, she’s still your daughter’s mother. And that little girl loves her mum with all her heart. If you go stomping into her life full of righteous anger, treating her mother like shit, all you’ll do is cause her to pull away from you. She’ll end up hating you for making her mum miserable. Is that what you want?”
This was not what he wanted to hear. “Well, I’m sorry I can’t just waltz in and act like everything is sunshine and fucking roses!”
“I didn’t say you had to. But you are going to have to get it together enough to treat Athena with the respect she’s due for being Elizabeth’s mother.”
“Respect.” He spat out the word as if was offal. “That’s asking too much.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Paul got to his feet and glared down at Derek. “Yeah, you’ve been through hell today, but she’s been going through it for seven years. So she made a mistake, a huge, fucking, horrible mistake. But she did tell you, and now you’re going to have that little girl in your life, the little girl you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Athena.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “I watched you mourn that woman for seven years, I watched you treat her like shit when you found her again, and then I’ve seen you happier the past ten days than I’ve ever seen you. I’m telling you now that if you don’t get past this, you’re going to wreck the rest of your life. Grow up and develop a little bit of empathy, mate, and you can have what you’ve always wanted – a life with Athena, and the bonus of a beautiful little daughter with her.”
“I don’t want a life with Athena.” Each word was bitten off with bitterness and colored with self-hatred, because deep down he knew he was lying. He didn’t want to want her, and he was going to do everything in his power not to want her.
A harsh laugh shook Paul’s shoulders. “Really? Well, you’ve got one whether you want it or not. Go ahead and tell yourself you don’t still love her, but remember this: She’s Elizabeth’s mother, and nothing will ever change that. Whether you like it or not, Athena’s in your life for good now. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make the best of it.”
Derek shook his head slowly. “No. She may be Elizabeth’s mother, but she’ll never be anything more to me.” He straightened his shoulders with resolve. “I’m done with her.”
For a moment Paul stood gazing down on him, then turned on his heel and stomped away, firing one last comment over his shoulder. “Your funeral, mate.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saturday morning dawned clear and bright, and Athena breathed a sigh of relief. It was the day she was going to change Elizabeth’s life forever, and she wanted the little girl to be able to look back on it in later years with positive memories. The dark thunderstorms of the past two days had colored everything with a dreary pall, but the soft spring sunshine was the best backdrop for such an important conversation.
Before beginning breakfast, Athena opened the windows in the living room, and a warm breeze with just the barest hint of humidity wafted in. It would have been even nicer had the breeze been imbued with the sound of birdsong and the scents of grass and flowers. Instead, the cacophony of traffic, voices from downstairs raised in an argument, and someone’s radio blasting out the sappy strains of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” filled the apartment along with a whiff of automobile exhaust and the cloying fragrance of fried food from the diner down the street.
Athena pulled two cereal bowls from the cabinet, dreaming of the day when she and Elizabeth would be out of their rapidly deteriorating neighborhood and into a house of their own. She wouldn’t have to dream too much longer. By the end of the summer, that house would be a reality. She hoped Derek’s anger wouldn’t manifest itself in his not bringing her pay for the three weeks she’d worked for the band. If so, she’d have to wait on Simon to send it to her, and she hoped he’d have enough sense to send it in care of Stax of Wax instead of waiting around to find out her mailing address.
Derek. Just the thought of him chased the thought of three bedrooms and a bath-and-a-half from her mind, and returned it to the conversation she’d be having with Elizabeth. Not wanting to burden the little girl with such news during the school week, she’d waited until they would have the whole day free of distractions to talk it over. And now it was here.
“Elizabeth,” she called out. “I’m about to pour the milk, so you’d better get in here before your cereal gets soggy.”
Footsteps thundered up the hall, and Elizabeth slid on sock feet into the kitchen, narrowly missing the dinette table. “I’m here.”
“I can see that.” Athena sat the bo
wls of cereal on the table. “You want to put off the running into furniture and busting your head open until after we eat?”
“Okay.”
Athena had to smother a grin at Elizabeth’s agreeable tone. She sat down across from her daughter and pushed her cereal around in her bowl while Elizabeth tore into hers like a wolverine.
“’nwegotapartody?” the little girl asked around a mouthful of Captain Crunch.
“I know you didn’t just talk with your mouth full, right?”
Elizabeth gulped down her cereal with an audible swallow. “Sorry, Mama.”
“Mama?” Athena frowned. “What happened to Mommy?”
“Only babies say Mommy,” Elizabeth replied while scooping up another spoonful.
“Who told you that?” asked Athena, already having a pretty good idea.
“Calvin and Carrie. They’re only in kindergarten and they don’t say Mommy.”
“Fine.” As she watched the little girl slurping up her breakfast, Athena could see her in ten years’ time, an angsty teenager worried about boys and cars, and probably not deigning to call Athena anything but “Mo-ther!” Looking at it like that, the graduation from Mommy to Mama wasn’t all that bad. “Anyway, what were you saying with a full mouth?”
“I asked if we can go to the park today.” Vivid blue eyes full of pleading turned Athena’s way. “It’s not raining.”
“We’ll see.”
Elizabeth sighed. “That means no.”
Athena regarded her over the rim of her coffee cup. “It means we’ll see. There’s something important we need to talk about today.”
“I’ve been good.” Pleading turned to anxiousness. “I did all my school work and I didn’t talk in class and I didn’t break anything at Aunt Andi’s and I didn’t even hit Calvin when he called me a baby. You can ask.”
Raising the coffee cup to her mouth, Athena smothered another smile, and took a moment to let her amusement subside. “I know you were good. Aunt Andi and Uncle Walt kept me updated while I was gone. It’s something else we need to talk about.” Her eyes narrowed as Elizabeth raised the cereal bowl to her mouth and drank the milk from it. “Shit,” she muttered as she got to her feet. “I forgot your orange juice.”
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