Daddy Lessons

by Carolyne Aarsen

  The tension in Dan’s shoulders released. “Great. I appreciate that. I will pay you, though. At least as much as you’re making at the school.”

  Hailey gently stroked Natasha’s hair. Dan was surprised to see a slight tremor in her fingers. “Did you want me to start tomorrow?” she asked.

  “That would be best.”

  Hailey pulled in a long, slow breath, then turned back to him. “Are you sure about this?”

  Her direct question accentuated his own concerns but he knew he had no choice.

  “I have to be,” was all he could say to her.

  Her eyes held his and in her expression he saw all the misgivings he also had entertained.

  It would work, he told himself. A lot had happened between then and now. They were different people now.

  Besides, it was only for a while. Once Natasha had eased back into regular classroom life, he wouldn’t need Hailey’s help anymore.

  And once the school year was over, Hailey would be leaving Hartley Creek anyway.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to be tutoring Dan’s girl?” Shannon closed a cupboard door in her kitchen and set a bowl beside the stove. “That won’t be awkward?” Hailey’s sister tossed her long, wavy hair away from her face as she dumped a pan of green beans into the bowl. Then she reached past Hailey for the nutmeg.

  Hailey blew out a sigh as she carved up the chicken for the dinner she and Shannon were preparing for Nana in Shannon’s apartment. “Hopefully not. I mean we’re both adults. Besides, when he married Lydia he made it clear he had moved on.”

  “But still—”

  “Have you heard anything more from Naomi?” Hailey didn’t want to talk about her and Dan’s past. She had shed enough tears over Dan’s decisions and Shannon had been witness to most of them. Hailey had her own life now and Dan wasn’t a part of it. “Last I talked to her, the oncologist said Billy had maybe another month?”

  Shannon shook her head. “Poor Naomi. When she and Billy got engaged, who could have imagined this would happen?”

  “Do you think she’ll be back for Carter and Emma’s wedding?”

  “I hope so.” Shannon frowned as she sprinkled nutmeg over the bowl of steaming beans. “Our poor sister has had to deal with so much, it would be good for her to be around family.”

  “Hopefully Garret will be done with that engineering job in Dubai by then.”

  “I hope so too. I’m looking forward to having everyone back for a while.”

  “What do you mean, for a while?” Nana Beck’s quiet voice interrupted the sisters’ conversation. She settled herself in the folding chair beside the plastic table that took up one corner of Shannon’s minuscule kitchen.

  “You know I have a teaching job in Calgary come September,” Hailey said, laying a drumstick on the plate she was filling up.

  “I still don’t believe you can’t find a job closer to home,” Nana complained.

  Hailey gave her grandmother a placating smile. “Calgary is only a three-hour drive away. I’ll be back to visit.”

  Nana smoothed back her gray hair. “At least I’ve got three of my grandchildren together for now. And Carter seems so happy now that he and Emma are making their wedding plans.”

  “Yeah. Lucky Carter.” Hailey felt truly happy for her cousin, but Dan’s return to town reminded her of her own might-have-beens.

  “You’ll find someone, don’t worry,” Nana assured her, as if she could read her granddaughter’s mind. “Maybe in Calgary. Or maybe here. Now that Dan Morrow is back. You two were such a sweet couple.”

  Hailey caught Shannon’s sympathetic glance at their grandmother’s lack of subtlety. Her sister, more than anyone, knew exactly how much Dan’s desertion had hurt her.

  “Lots of other fish in the sea, Nana,” Shannon said. “And sometimes you need to try another sea.”

  Nana Beck sighed at that. “Well, I keep praying for all you grandchildren. That you will all make better choices than my daughters did. That you will make the kind of choice your great-great-grandfather August Beck did.”

  Shannon walked over to their grandmother and dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “That means a lot to us, Nana.” She gave her grandmother the bowl of beans. “Why don’t you put this on the table in the dining room and when Hailey is finished butchering that chicken, we can eat.”

  “I’ve got things under control,” Hailey protested, even as she struggled to cut the breast away from the bone.

  Shannon put her hand on Hailey’s shoulder and gave her a knowing look. “I sure hope so, little sister.”

  Hailey caught the questioning subtext in her sister’s comment and looked away.

  She sure hoped she had things under control. Seeing Dan every day would create a challenge to keeping her heart whole.

  But she had to. She just had to keep thinking of leaving Hartley Creek and starting over in a new job in a new city. It was the only way she would get through the next few months.

  Hailey shifted her backpack on her shoulder, then took the first steps up the flight of wooden stairs hugging the brick wall at the back of Hartley Creek Hardware Store. A cutting winter wind whistled around her ears and through the open zipper of her down-filled jacket. She wrested the sides of her coat together, as memories emerged with each step up the stairs.

  When she and Dan were dating they would take turns doing homework at each other’s place. When her mother was gone, which was frequently, Hailey would come to Dan’s place. They would sit beside each other, papers spread over the table, a plate of fresh-baked cookies in front of them.

  Mostly, though, she and Dan would just hold hands under the table and whisper to each other. They would make up scenarios and weave plans.

  Dan would become a partner with his father in the store. Hailey would work at the ski hill until the kids came.

  Hailey’s steps faltered as she made her way up the stairs, her hand clinging to the wooden rail.

  Okay, Lord. I know doing this will bring up many memories, but that’s long over. Done. We were just kids then. We’ve both moved on to different places. We’re both different people. Please help me remember that.

  She waited a moment, as if to give the prayer time to wing its way upward, then she followed it up the rest of the stairs. She rapped on the door, then hugged her coat around her, glancing over her shoulder at the mountains surrounding the town.

  From here she could barely make out the The Shadow Woman. The contours of her face and body would show up better in the latter part of summer and even more clearly from just the right spot on Carter’s ranch, the old family place.

  Melancholy drifted through her. By August, she would be leaving Hartley Creek.

  The creak of the door opening made her turn around.

  Once again, Dan stood in front of her. She caught the piney scent of his aftershave, the same one he always wore. The kind she had bought him when he’d started shaving.

  His hair, still damp from the shower, curled a bit. He wore it shorter than he used to but the look suited his strong features and deep-set eyes.

  “Hey,” was all he said, adding a curt nod. “Natasha will be right out. She’s cleaning up her bedroom.”

  He stepped aside for Hailey to come in and as she looked around the apartment, she felt the brush of nostalgia. Her eyes flitted over the gray recliner, the overstuffed green couch and love seat, all facing the television perched on a worn wooden stand. Beyond that, through the arched doorway to the dining room, she saw the same heavy wooden table and matching chairs with their padded brocade seats.

  The same pictures still hung on the walls, the same knick-knacks filled the bookshelf along one wall of the living room.

  “Looks like your parents still live here,” she said, dropping her backpa
ck on the metal table in the front hallway and removing her jacket.

  “Mom and Dad wanted a fresh start when they moved out,” Dan said, reaching for her coat. “They took only a few things to the new house.”

  As Dan took her coat, their fingers brushed. Just a light touch, inconsequential in any other circumstance, with any other person. Trouble was, Dan wasn’t just any other person.

  Just as she had at church yesterday, she jerked her hand back, wrapping it around the other. “You probably want to get back to work.” Thankfully, her voice sounded brisk and businesslike, betraying none of the emotions that arose in his presence.

  “Mom and Patricia have been downstairs for half an hour already,” Dan said as he hung her coat up in the cupboard beside the door. “I need to get going.”

  Hailey nodded as she picked up her backpack with the assignments Megan had planned for Natasha. “I imagine the dining room is the best place to work.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Dan shifted his feet, his hands in the front pockets of his pants, and Hailey wondered if the same memories of their past slipped through his mind. “I just want to tell you I appreciate you coming here. I know it keeps you from helping Megan.”

  “I’m sure Natasha will be back at school in no time,” Hailey said with a breeziness she didn’t quite feel. “So Megan won’t be without my help for long.”

  “I hope so. I’ll get Natasha.” Dan took a step back and then headed down the long, narrow hallway just off the living room.

  She ambled over the worn carpet, then through the arched doorway to the dining room. The table was cleared off and she set her knapsack down on its polished wooden surface. Hailey zipped open the knapsack, glancing around as she pulled out her papers and books. The glass-fronted armoire in the dining room still held the same plates, teacups and serving bowls. Why had Mrs. Morrow left so much behind?

  Then Hailey’s eyes fell on the row of school photographs marching along the facing wall.

  Pictures of Dan ranged from a pudgy, freckle-faced kindergartner with a gap-toothed grin to the serious senior. Already in grade twelve he showed a hint of the man he had now become, with his deep-set eyes and strong chin.

  Hailey was surprised at the little lift his pictures gave her. At the memories they evoked.

  She turned her attention to the row of pictures below Dan’s. Austin’s narrow features grinned back at her from the school photos, his blue eyes sparkling with the mischief that typified his outlook on life, the complete opposite of his older, more serious brother.

  But Austin’s series ended with a photograph from grade eleven. The year he died. Regret for might-have-beens twisted her stomach, then she turned, putting the pictures behind her.

  “Miss Deacon, you came.” The bright voice of Natasha banished the memory. As the little girl bounded into the room, her brown hair bounced behind her.

  Today Natasha wore a lime-green T-shirt tucked into torn blue jeans. A pair of sparkly yellow angel wings completed the look.

  Obviously the little girl had chosen some of her own clothes today.

  “Wow. Don’t you look spiffy,” Hailey said, trying not to smile too hard at her ensemble.

  “These are my favorite wings,” Natasha announced as she lifted the wand in her hand and performed an awkward twirl, almost knocking over a plant stand in the process.

  “Natasha, please, no dancing in the house,” Dan said, catching the rocking houseplant and setting it out of reach of her wings. “I’d like you to go take off your fairy wings.”

  Quick as a flash Natasha’s good mood morphed into a sullen glare. “I like my wings and you said I couldn’t wear them to school. But this isn’t school.”

  “This is like school,” Dan said, kneeling down in front of her. “And I want you to behave for Miss Deacon.”

  Natasha caught the end of her hair and twirled it around her finger, her attention on the books on the table and not on what her father was saying. “Are those mine?” she asked.

  “Yes. They are.” Hailey glanced at her watch. “And it’s almost time for us to start.”

  “But first the fairy wings come off,” Dan insisted.

  “I want to keep them on,” she protested, wiggling away from him.

  Dan cradled her face in his hands and turned her to face him. “Sorry, honey, but now it’s time for school, not time for pretending. Now I have to go to work and you have to stay up here, but I’ll be back at lunchtime, okay?”

  Natasha pouted but then it seemed the fight went out of her. “Okay, Daddy. But you’ll be right downstairs, won’t you?”

  Dan nodded, tucking a tangle of hair behind her ear. Then he brushed a gentle kiss over her forehead. “Love you, munchkin,” he said as he slipped the wings off her shoulders.

  “Love you, punchkin,” she repeated with a giggle.

  Dan set the wings aside and smoothed her hair again, smiling at her, the love for his daughter softening his features.

  Hailey swallowed as she watched the scene between them. She always knew Dan would make a good father.

  Her heart twisted a moment with old sorrow and old regrets and a flurry of other questions. Why had Dan married Lydia? Why had he moved on so quickly from her to another woman?

  She pressed her eyes shut a moment, as if to close her mind to the past.

  It was none of her business, she reminded herself.

  And it was a bleak reminder that what she and Dan had was dead and gone.

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t want to do math now. I hate math.” Natasha pushed her chair away from the table, the wooden legs screeching over the worn linoleum. She folded her arms over her chest as she pushed out her lower lip.

  For the past hour Hailey had been working with Natasha on math problems and all they had to show for the time were some princess doodles on the bottom of the page and one measly solved problem. Which made Hailey wonder how much homeschooling Lydia had done.

  “Don’t say hate. Say instead that you don’t like math,” Hailey corrected, picking up the pencil Natasha had tossed on the table. “We want to save the word hate for really big things.”

  Natasha shot her a puzzled glance. “What big things?”

  Hailey held the pencil out to Natasha, waiting for her to take it. “Big things like sin and killing and saying bad things about God.”

  Natasha pursed her lips, as if pondering this, then tossed her brown hair over her shoulder and took the pencil from Hailey.

  “My mommy said there’s no such thing as God,” Natasha said, doodling a princess in one corner of the paper.

  Hailey wasn’t sure what to say as she watched Natasha add a crown to the princess’s head. She didn’t want to disparage Natasha’s memory of her mother, but she was fairly sure Dan disagreed with Lydia’s beliefs. He’d always had a strong faith in God. At least he had until the day of Austin’s death.

  Natasha wiggled a bit, then put her pencil down. “I have to go the bathroom,” she said, slipping off her chair before Hailey could stop her.

  Hailey let her go. Finding routine would take time with a little girl who didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word.

  As Hailey gathered up the pencils Natasha had scattered over the table, her eyes were drawn to the pictures on the wall of Austin and Dan.

  She drew in a long, slow breath, stifling the painful memories resurrected by Austin’s face. So easily she remembered the day Austin died.

  The three of them, Dan, Hailey and Austin, had been snowboarding together. Hailey had gotten separated from Dan and Austin in the lineup for the chairlift and, by the time she got to the top of the hill, only Dan was waiting for her. He told her that Austin had gone off on his own.

  Dan and Hailey had spent most of the afternoon
on the runs at the top of the mountain, and they got to the bottom only to find out that Austin had gone out of bounds on a black diamond run and had gone over a rocky ledge.

  He had died instantly.

  And right after that Dan and Hailey’s relationship had fallen apart.

  “I’m done,” Natasha announced, coming back to the room.

  The little girl’s voice broke into the thoughts flashing through Hailey’s mind. She pulled her hands over her face as if wiping them away. She needed to get out of this apartment and the memories it evoked. And from the way Natasha had been struggling to concentrate the past hour, she needed to go out too.

  Hailey made a quick decision.

  “You know what we’re going to do?” Hailey asked, gathering up the papers and the pencils. “We’re going to do some schoolwork downstairs.”

  Natasha jumped up eagerly, then frowned. “My daddy said he doesn’t want me in the store. He said I make problems.”

  “I’ll be with you.” Hailey picked up a folder and slipped the papers inside.

  “But my daddy—” Natasha protested again.

  “I’ll talk to your daddy and help him to understand,” Hailey said with more assurance than she felt.

  All morning the little girl had been unable to concentrate on even the simplest problems. Maybe a different method of teaching was in order. And Hailey had just the idea of how this was to be done.

  “First I have to put on my wings,” Natasha said.

  Hailey didn’t bother to stop her. One step at a time, she reminded herself.

  A few moments later, wings firmly in place, she and Natasha were headed down the narrow stairs inside the apartment leading to the store below.

  “We have to be quiet,” Hailey whispered. “We don’t want your daddy to get angry with us.”

  Hailey pushed open the door and was greeted by the buzz of conversation and the chiming of the cash register as Dan’s mother rang up another sale.

  The wooden floor creaked under her feet as she and Natasha crept toward the bins at the back of the store, where Hailey knew they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. She couldn’t see Patricia or Dan. So far, so good.