But some families were more important than others.
As they left the city limits, Main Street became a highway, two lanes, winding, not heavily traveled this early in the evening. In a few more hours traffic would pick up on all the roads as people headed home from their Thanksgiving celebrations. Tomorrow some of them would go to work, while most would go shopping. It would be a busy day in Houston, and probably in New Hope, too. He wondered if Faith’s shop would be busy, if there was much demand for expensive baby clothes and fancy toys. With Christmas coming up, he imagined there was. Doting relatives liked—and could often afford—the best.
“Have you lived all your life in New Hope?”
“Except for the first three and a half weeks. I spent those in Dallas.”
“And your grandparents live in Fort Worth.”
“That’s where they were living when they threw my mother out. I don’t know whether they’re still there.”
She spoke casually, as if parents abandoning their teenage daughter because she got into trouble was an everyday occurrence. Unfortunately, he knew from the job that it did happen all too often. Sometimes the kids really were problems-unmanageable, out of control, violent or self-destructive. Sometimes, though, it was the parents who were the problem. Which was the case with the Harpers?
“Do you know their names? Have you ever tried to find them?”
“Yes, I know their names. No, I’ve never tried to locate them. I’ve never even called Information.” She had turned her head away from him, but he saw the reflection of her taut little smile in the window.
“I was under the impression that family was important to you.”
“They’re not my family. They wanted nothing to do with my mother when she was pregnant. They wanted nothing to do with me when I was born.” She faced front again, then turned slightly toward him. “Great-aunt Lydia called them periodically and told them what was going on in my life, but they were never interested. As far as they were concerned, they had no daughter, and if they had no daughter, then they couldn’t possibly have a granddaughter.”
For a moment he tried to think of anything he might do that would cause his parents to disown him, but not a single act came to mind. In their view, love could overcome anything. Every mistake could be made right. Nothing was unforgivable. He couldn’t comprehend parents who could remove their child from their lives simply for making a mistake, for being careless—hell, for being a teenager. He knew such people existed, but they were so far outside the realm of his experience with his own and his friends’ parents that he couldn’t understand them.
“You know, it’s been a long time. People change as they get older. They become more forgiving, easier to get along with. Maybe if you called them —”
The cold, steady look she gave him stopped him midsentence. “What have my baby and I done that requires forgiveness?”
Chastened by that look, he directed his gaze to the highway in front of him. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “I just meant—”
“I know what you meant. Maybe they can forgive my mother. Maybe she can forgive them. But I have no place in my life for them. Amelia Rose has no place for them. All she needs is me.”
He was beginning to understand the importance this baby held for her. Not only was she getting a child, whom she obviously wanted and already loved, but she was also getting a family. It would be a very small, very close family, possibly with no room for anyone else. Faith was possessive. She’d waited much longer than nine months for this baby. “My baby,” she’d said. His, too, he wanted to point out. Amelia Rose was his daughter every bit as much as Faith’s—except in love. Nothing her mother could do could change the fact that she was half Russo. Her Italian heritage would likely be dominant over Faith’s fairer skin, her lighter hair, her blue eyes. The Russo personality would probably smother Faith’s quieter, shyer characteristics. Nature would eventually come to the fore. Put Amelia Rose in the midst of the Russo family and she would know instinctively that she belonged.
But that exception—the love—kept him quiet. Faith had been in love with her baby probably from the instant her subconscious mind realized she was pregnant, while he was in love with neither of them. While he, to his great shame, would be much happier if they vanished from his life, leaving not even a hint of a suggestion of a memory that they’d ever been a part of it.
But that would be too easy, and life, he knew well, was rarely easy. In fact, thanks to Faith, Amelia Rose and his own incredible carelessness, he suspected that his life was never going to be easy again.
The restaurant was a matter of fate rather than choice: it was the first one on a long boulevard of restaurants open for dinner. Nick had offered to find something else, but Faith had declined. She liked Chinese well enough. Besides, she figured that the sooner they ate, the sooner he would take her back to New Hope, and the sooner she could retreat into the peace and privacy of her house. The sooner she could be alone. The sooner she wouldn’t have to look at him and occasionally find herself wondering why things couldn’t be different. Everyone she knew was married or getting married. Practically all of them had babies of their own or stepchildren or adopted kids that they adored. Why was she still alone? Why couldn’t she get married and have babies? Why hadn’t she found someone to love, someone who would love her, too? Why did she have to be different?
She had thought — nine months ago when she was stupid and foolish—that Nick might actually be that someone. He’d been everything she’d ever wanted in a man, and he had a big family, and, where no other man she’d been out with before had managed, he had created the magic. In those few sweet hours, she had believed that she’d found Mr. Right. Instead, he’d been Mr. Not-in-a-Million-Years.
But he’d given her something better than his love, commitment and devotion. He’d given her Amelia Rose, a treasure far more precious than any man’s love could ever be. Faith was usually satisfied with that, but she still occasionally suffered little attacks of greed. Other women had husbands to love them and babies to love. What was wrong with her that she got only one but not the other?
Before she could get too blue, the waitress set platters of food in front of them, refilled their glasses, offered chopsticks, then left. Faith picked up her fork and speared a piece of chicken as Nick slid his chopsticks from their paper wrapper. “Does New Hope have a Chinese restaurant?”
She nodded. “Chinatown. It’s a couple of blocks from the shop.”
“I like Chinese. And Vietnamese. Korean. Greek. Middle Eastern.”
“And Italian?” she asked dryly. She couldn’t imagine anyone who had ever sampled Antonio Russo’s cooking not liking it. Apparently, Nick couldn’t either, because he laughed.
“Pop’s a great cook, but Mom’s even better. He cooks for the whole town, but she cooks for the family. When I first went to college, I didn’t know how to eat a meal that didn’t include pasta, olive oil or cheese.”
“Your father always hoped that one of you would want to follow him into the restaurant business.”
A little of the good humor disappeared from his face. “I know. I cook occasionally, but I couldn’t face doing it for a living. It’s a tough business.”
“And being a cop isn’t tough?”
In the space of an instant, the grin returned. “It’s fun. I like my job. I can’t remember ever waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘Oh, God, I have to go to work today.’”
“Then you’re a lucky man.” She was lucky, too. She liked her job, liked attending to all the details of running a business, even if the dealing-with-customers part wasn’t always easy. But she could give it up if other opportunities presented themselves — like being a stay-at-home mother and wife, which was never going to happen. If she hadn’t met the right man yet, when everything was in her favor, what were the odds of meeting him after Amelia Rose was born? How many men wanted to take responsibility for another man’s child? How many men wouldn’t mind the whispers or the gossip that w
as sure to pop up just when everyone thought it was forgotten?
Besides, she wouldn’t have time for a man after Amelia Rose was born. Beginning a romance, building a relationship, falling in love and getting married were all time-consuming processes, and she would be too busy being the perfect mother to bother. She would devote herself to ensuring that her foolish mistake nine months ago didn’t come back to haunt her daughter. She would be the best mother, the best father — the best everything — a child could ever want. She would surround her baby with such love, such happiness, that Amelia Rose would never notice that something was missing.
“I always have been lucky,” Nick said, drawing her attention back to him.
“Until yesterday,” she noted pointedly, then corrected herself. “Until nine months ago.”
“Careful there. You’re coming close to admitting that I’m her father.” His warning was soft and teasing, but it seemed ominous to Faith. He was a threat to her—to her peace of mind, to her future and, most especially, to her daughter.
What if he persisted in this? What if he insisted not only on claiming paternity but on actually being a father to Amelia Rose? And what if someday down the line, he decided that he liked being a father, that he wanted to do it on a full-time basis? What if he offered their daughter the option of going to live with him? How hard a decision could it be: stay with the mother who ran a clothing store for babies, whose idea of a pleasant evening was curling up on the couch with a book, who had nothing to offer but love, or go live with the father she was sure to adore, the father who lived in a big city and held an exciting job and could provide her with a family the size of some small towns, every single one of whom was sure to adore her?
“I’m not admitting anything,” she said coolly, twisting noodles around and around on her fork but never lifting it to her mouth. “You have no obligation to my daughter.”
“I’m getting that feeling again,” he remarked. “You’re not a very good liar, are you?”
“Lying is the work of the devil.”
“From the Bible or Great-aunt Lydia?”
She smiled just a little. “Probably both.”
“What was she like?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious.”
“You’re curious about a lot of things.”
With a grin, he shrugged. “I’m a cop, and I’m Italian. I can’t help being nosy. Tell me about her.”
She studied him a moment, then mimicked his shrug. “She was a sweet old lady—very loving, very well liked, much admired. If I couldn’t be with my mother, I couldn’t have asked for a better home to be raised in. She was kind, generous, caring.” The slow sharpening of his gaze made her uncomfortable, but she tried to ignore it, fiddling instead with her napkin as she went on. “She never made me feel like a burden or an imposition. She did her best to give me a normal, happy, healthy environment to grow up in. She was a wonderful woman. I only wish—”
Finally, under the full weight of his stare, she broke off. He knew she was lying—knew it—and he suspected the worst. Shifting uneasily, her gaze locked on her plate, she mumbled words she hadn’t intended to say, words that had provided scant comfort when she growing up. “She never hit me.”
“How long did you live with her?” His voice was cold, distant, sounding more like a stranger than the man she had spent the better part of the afternoon with.
“She died when I was twenty-one.”
“You lived with this woman for twenty-one years, and the best thing you can say about her is that she never physically abused you?”
Shame burned her face. She should have given a closer version of the truth. She should have admitted that Lydia hadn’t been an easy woman to live with, but, hey, it hadn’t been easy for a fifty-seven-year-old woman to take in a three-week-old infant, either. She could have told him that she didn’t want to talk about Lydia, could have changed the subject to something less important, less personal.
She hadn’t wanted him to know what her upbringing was like. She didn’t want to give him cause to wonder about her emotional fitness to raise his child, didn’t want to tell him anything that might bring to mind subjects like custody and Amelia Rose’s best interests.
She especially didn’t want him to pity her: All her life all her friends had felt sorry for her. She had been the only kid in first grade, and second and third, who didn’t live with both a mother and a father. She’d been the kid who couldn’t play outside after school, the one who couldn’t go to their birthday parties, the one who had never had a birthday party of her own until she turned twenty-two. She’d worn plain, modest dresses when everyone else was in shorts or jeans. She’d had long, feminine curls when all the other girls had short, stylish haircuts. She hadn’t known how to play, hadn’t been permitted to get dirty, had never slept over at a friend’s house or had a friend spend the night with her. She hadn’t been allowed to date until she was eighteen, hadn’t been kissed until she was nineteen and hadn’t dared venture beyond that until she was twenty-five.
If she were a man like Nick Russo, she would certainly never pick herself as a good candidate to be the mother of his child.
“Faith —”
Carefully laying her fork on the plate, she pushed it back a few inches. “I really need to be getting home soon,” she said, trying to ignore the quaver in her voice. She half expected him to argue—he seemed to find it so easy—but instead he laid the chopsticks aside and maneuvered his wallet from his hip pocket. Part of her felt guilty for not letting him finish his meal, but, heavens, he was going home to the Russos. If he was still hungry, Luisa would feed him and be happy to do it.
They sat in silence until the waitress took the check, then brought back Nick’s change. He left a tip, then, with nothing more than an impatient gesture, suggested that they leave.
They were back in New Hope, passing the shop on Main Street, before he broke the silence. “Do you think you’re the only person to grow up in a bad home with a bad guardian?” he asked quietly, then answered for her. “Because you’re not. A lot of people come from dysfunctional families. A lot of kids are raised by people who see them as nothing more than an ordeal to endure until they can get rid of them. Believe me, I see a lot of them at work. It’s unfortunate, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed,” she lied. “Lydia did the best she could, which was better than my mother could do, better than my grandmother would do.” It wasn’t Faith’s fault that the old woman’s best wasn’t enough. It wasn’t Faith’s fault that Lydia had never been able to see her as the result of Sally’s sin and not somehow the partner in it, as a child in need of love and affection as well as stern guidance and strict discipline. It certainly wasn’t her fault that life had disappointed Lydia, had turned her into a sour, unforgiving, bitter old woman unable to find pleasure or joy in anything.
None of it was her fault, but it was her shame. She was ashamed that her father hadn’t wanted her, her mother hadn’t loved her, and her great-aunt had only tolerated her. It was her fear that maybe something had been so wrong with her that the people who were supposed to love and treasure her couldn’t. Maybe whatever it was, was still wrong. Maybe even Amelia Rose would find it impossible to love her.
Or maybe Nick wouldn’t give her the chance to try. Maybe he would assert his paternal rights and take her away from Faith. Maybe he had someone back home in Houston he thought would make a better mother. Maybe he would figure that no mother at all would be better than one who’d grown up the way Faith had, who even as a child had somehow alienated everyone, had caused her parents and grandparents to abandon her.
Taking a deep breath, she waited until he turned onto her street, until only a few blocks remained, before she spoke again. “Things will be different for Amelia Rose. She’ll know that she was always wanted, from the very beginning. She’ll know that, for the last nine months and for the rest of my life, she has been and always will be the most im
portant thing in my life. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he said flatly, but she wasn’t sure she believed him.
He passed the house, then turned into the driveway and brought the truck to a stop right in front of the steps. She unbuckled the seat belt and unlocked the door as he reached for the key in the ignition. “No,” she said, startling both herself and, she suspected, him by laying her hand on his. “Don’t come in with me.”
“Just to check—”
“This is New Hope, not Houston. The house is locked up, and the lights are on. If anything suspicious had happened, one of my neighbors would have noticed. Trust me.” She managed a faint smile that quickly disappeared. “Thank you for dinner. I’m sorry it wasn’t a more pleasant evening.”
“We’ll try again sometime.”
With a shake of her head, she opened the door. “No, I don’t think so.” Holding on to the door, she ignored the step and slid to the ground. With the familiar, uneven brick surface under her feet, she turned back and looked at him for a moment. He didn’t look any too pleased with the way the evening had turned out... and yet, in the dim light of the cab, there was a hint of uncomfortable relief. He looked as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t quite sure what. She knew exactly what she wanted—what she had—to say.
She said the words, closed the door and climbed the steps to the veranda. It took only a moment to find her keys in her purse, a moment to slide the right one into the lock and turn it, and yet another to stand there, eyes closed, while her last words echoed silently around her. They were short, not too sweet, and if she let them, they could break her heart.
Goodbye, Nick.
Not, “Good night.” Not, “See you later.” Not even, “See you again.” Goodbye. For the last time. For all time.
Discovered: Daddy Page 8
