Father Found

by Judith Arnold

  Allison had considered finding an apartment for herself once she’d completed her nursing degree, but she’d decided against it. She didn’t like the idea of her grandmother living alone. And she was used to the modest, cozy Cape-Cod-style house where she’d grown up. She knew the home’s quirks and charms. She knew exactly which dials to adjust when the furnace took too long to click on and where to hit the window frame in the first-floor bathroom when humidity caused the sash to swell and stick. She knew which floorboards squeaked, which stairs creaked. She knew the idiosyncrasies of the garage door and the coolest corner in the cellar. She’d planted the daffodils along the front walk and climbed the crab apple tree in the backyard.

  Besides, she adored Grammy, even if the old woman was headstrong and outspoken. And no one else would take as good care of her as Allison did—at least, not without letting her know she was being taken care of. And Grammy would never tolerate the knowledge that she was being taken care of.

  Her grandmother was already halfway across the living room, the remote control in one hand and her cane in the other. Despite the limp caused by her arthritis, she was a vibrant, beautiful woman. Her hair, mostly silver, still held hints of auburn, and her eyes were so sharp she rarely needed the eyeglasses she wore on a silver chain around her neck. She was tall and slender, her cheeks so smooth she was often asked who did her face-lift. “Mother Nature,” she would answer. “God was the attending nurse.”

  “I don’t need help,” she snapped at Allison now, though she happily relinquished the remote control en route to the kitchen. “Molly, tell her it’s about time she went on a date.”

  “That’s exactly what I did tell her,” Molly assured Grammy. “I told her that just because her first date in eons—your words,” she reminded Allison, “happens to be a guy who couldn’t keep his pants zipped nine months ago doesn’t mean he won’t keep his pants zipped this weekend. Unless, of course, she doesn’t want them zipped.”

  “Oh, please,” Allison complained, placing the remote control on the table beside Grammy’s favorite easy chair and returning to the kitchen. “People make mistakes. I’m trying not to hold anything against him.”

  “Good policy,” Molly teased. “I wouldn’t hold anything against him, either. Unless, of course, you want his pants unzipped.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grammy asked. “Did his trousers break?”

  “He’s one of Allison’s Daddy School students,” Molly explained. “He fathered an out-of-wedlock child.”

  “Well, at least he isn’t shooting blanks,” Grammy remarked phlegmatically. “Be careful, Allie. Make him marry you first.”

  Allison tried not to let their jokes rattle her. “Stop it, both of you,” she demanded, unable to keep a straight face. “If you don’t stop, I might have to poison you both.”

  “Poisoning is uncalled for,” Grammy said, trudging to the counter and adding a splash of whisky to her iced tea. “I don’t care if this fellow is an immoral, profligate swine. You don’t have to fall in love with him. Just go out on Saturday night, order the most expensive dish on the menu and then the hell with him.”

  Molly roared with laughter as she carried the salad bowl and the cruet of dressing to the table. Try as she might to pretend indignation, Allison couldn’t prevent herself from smiling as she pulled the tray of lasagna from the oven. While she cut and served the lasagna, Molly uncorked a bottle of wine for her and Allison.

  “I’ll tell you, Molly,” Grammy confided, “if Allison doesn’t start putting more effort into her social life, I’m going to run an ad for her in the personals.”

  “Don’t do me any favors, Gram,” Allison muttered.

  “I’ll put one in for you, too, Molly. I don’t understand it—the two most beautiful graduates of Arlington High School are still single in their late twenties.”

  “Everyone’s still single in their late twenties these days,” Molly explained, too cheerful to take offense at anything Grammy said. “The parents who send their kids to my school are all in their midthirties.”

  “They have to be in their midthirties to afford the tuition you charge,” Grammy teased. “In the good old days, when parents worked, they sent their kids to a neighbor. Nowadays they pay, what, eight thousand dollars a year so their kids can be taken care of by strangers.”

  “My staff and I aren’t strangers,” Molly argued. “We’re trained child care professionals.”

  “‘Child care professionals,’” Grammy scoffed. “Fancy name for what we used to call a baby-sitter.”

  “Eat your dinner, Grammy,” Allison suggested with a grin. “Stop picking on Molly.”

  “Would you rather I picked on you?” Grammy asked, then laughed at herself. “Tell us some more about this young man, other than the fact that he fathered an out-of-wedlock baby. What does he do for a living?”

  “He writes a newspaper column.”

  “About what?”

  “Men.”

  “Plenty of material to work with, there,” Grammy observed.

  “He’s really funny,” Molly chimed in. “I read his ‘Guy Stuff’ column every week.”

  “What have you learned from it?” asked Grammy.

  Molly grinned. “For one thing, it’s helped to clarify why the two most beautiful graduates of Arlington High School are still single in their late twenties. Most men our age haven’t grown up yet.”

  “And he admits this in print? Well, he must be a fool, proclaiming the truth so bluntly.” Grammy turned back to Allison. “What else do you know about him?”

  “Not much,” she confessed.

  “You must know what he looks like.”

  Allison sighed. What Jamie McCoy looked like was a big problem. Feature for feature, he wasn’t exactly movie star handsome. Yet he appealed to her in ways she wasn’t used to. At the oddest times she found herself going dreamy at a memory of his eyes, glinting with color and laughter, or the sturdy breadth of his shoulders, or the awkward tenderness of his large, endearingly clumsy hands as he held his baby. They were hands that would not be clumsy with a woman. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew.

  “He’s okay looking,” she allowed, then felt her cheeks grow warm. Evidently she was blushing, because Molly and Grammy snorted in a chorus of disbelief. “All right. He’s good-looking,” she corrected herself. “But his looks don’t matter. This isn’t going to turn into a blazing love affair. Grammy had the right idea—I’ll order something very expensive for dinner and then I’ll never see him again.”

  “You’ll see him on Monday in Daddy School,” Molly reminded her.

  “Which is another good reason I should never have said yes to a date with him. I’m his teacher.”

  “Meaning, what?” Molly asked. “If he doesn’t put out, you’ll give him an F?”

  “Oh, stop!” Allison felt her cheeks burn even hotter. “The way things are going, we’ll all be lucky if I can finish up this Daddy School program before Arlington Memorial pulls the plug. Margaret says the hospital doesn’t want to fund me anymore.”

  Molly paused with her wineglass halfway to her mouth and scowled. “Fund you? What’s the big deal? They’re paying the YMCA some puny amount to rent the room.”

  “And they’re paying me a small stipend,” Allison said. “They gave me a paid week last month to put the curriculum together. And I’ve asked for supplies—some photocopied instruction sheets and some dolls, diapers and bottles for hands-on training. All in all, the hospital’s kicked in a few thousand dollars.”

  “That much, huh.” Molly scowled. “Gee, do you think they can spare it?”

  “They don’t have to give you any money,” Grammy interjected. “Go to the pharmaceutical companies. Those folks pay for everything. At least they did in my day.”

  “They give the hospital freebies,” Allison agreed. “But then it’s up to the hospital whether or not to share the goodies with me. Arlington Memorial doesn’t want to. They say the Daddy School isn’t serv
ing the hospital’s target market. Daddies don’t give birth, after all.” She picked at her salad and sighed. Maybe, if she hadn’t been so addled about the news that the hospital wanted to stop supporting the Daddy School, she would have had the presence of mind to say no when Jamie McCoy asked her out to dinner—and if she weren’t so addled about her date, she might be able to think clearly about the funding problem. But for some reason, now that Jamie had landed on her mental scale, her equilibrium was way off. She couldn’t seem to get her thoughts back into the proper balance.

  “That’s ridiculous. The hospital’s being shortsighted,” Molly fumed. “If fathers don’t learn proper child care, babies are going to get sick.”

  “Which would mean more business for Arlington Memorial,” Grammy added. “That’s all they care about—making money. Forget all this nonsense about a revolution in health care. Bottom line—it’s all about money.”

  “It would be such a shame if the program fell through,” Allison lamented. A breeze tugged at the yellow gingham curtains framing the open window above the sink. She glanced at Grammy to make sure she wasn’t getting a chill, then stabbed a chunk of lasagna with her fork. “Silly me. I had thoughts of expanding the Daddy School.”

  “If you’re silly, I’m twice as silly. I had the same idea,” Molly admitted.

  Surprised, Allison frowned at her friend. “You did?”

  “The other day, this father came in to pick up his two-year-old from the Young Toddlers group at the preschool. He told me his wife was in Michigan on family business and he was soloing with the kid. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was totally lost. I was helping him pack up Matthew’s things and the father was saying, ‘Look, he’s got paint on his arm. Do I have to give him a bath? I don’t know how to give him a bath. I’ve never given him one before.’”

  “How could this father not know how to give a two-year-old a bath?” Allison shook her head.

  “Obviously Matthew’s mother has been supervising all the baths for two years. Just because babies grow into toddlers doesn’t mean their dads are ready to take over.” She took a sip of wine. “Anyway, after Matthew and his father left, I got to thinking that the Daddy School needs a class for fathers of older kids. It could be kind of a postgraduate program.”

  Allison lowered her fork and studied her friend on the far side of the circular pine table. Molly’s heart-shaped face shone; her eyes radiated intelligence and enthusiasm. Of course there should be a class in the Daddy School designed for fathers like the one Molly had just described!

  But it wasn’t going to happen, not without adequate funding and support from the hospital. “What a lovely notion,” she murmured glumly. “I’d love to set up a class for fathers of older kids—and you could teach it. All we need is for someone to die and leave us a ton of money.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Grammy said. “I have no intention of dying, not even for your school.”

  Allison smiled, but she wasn’t happy. “It breaks my heart to think the program will end. I know my students are getting a lot from it.”

  “And one of those students may be getting more than he bargained for,” Grammy added. “Where is he taking you for dinner, anyway? And what are you going to wear?”

  There they were, back to Jamie McCoy. Allison had almost welcomed the opportunity to fret over the future of her new-father classes, since it distracted her from thoughts of her impending date.

  But even if she, Molly and Grammy spent the rest of dinner talking about the Daddy School’s looming funding crisis, Jamie McCoy would have occupied an implacable region of her mind, just as he had ever since he’d entered her classroom four days ago. No matter where she’d been or what she’d been doing, he’d always been there, like a shadow, following her, silent but real.

  Why fight it? Her grandmother and her best friend seemed hell-bent on analyzing her wardrobe. “Her closet contains way too much white,” Grammy carped, but after all, as a nurse, Allison tended to wear white a great deal of the time. She listened as they bandied about unsolicited suggestions: how to style her hair for the big date, which earrings to wear, whether her black sheath was too dressy, her green dress too short Grammy advised her to wear flat shoes even if Jamie was sufficiently taller than her. “Men love to tower over their women,” Grammy explained. “It deludes them into thinking they have some power in the relationship.”

  “I’m going to wear comfortable shoes,” Allison declared. “And I was figuring on nice slacks and a cotton sweater. He didn’t say we were going anywhere fancy.”

  “The man is a syndicated columnist. He’s got to be rolling in dough.” Molly snapped her fingers. “Hey, maybe you could get him to underwrite the Daddy School.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! I haven’t even gone out with him and you want me to hit him up for money?”

  “He’ll probably be hitting you up for something, too,” Grammy predicted. “Be cagey, Allison. Make sure you get more than you give.” And then she and Molly were off again, plotting, scheming. Should Allison play the femme fatale or the centered earth mother? They opined that either way would work as long as she didn’t act like a nurse. She was used to taking care of everyone else, but on Saturday night, she was going to have to let him take care of her. She should forget about his performance in school and concentrate on his performance as an escort, a host, a man. This was going to be an adult outing. Allison had better make the most of it. And forget about wearing slacks. Either the black sheath or the green, they resolved.

  She listened to their loving admonitions, filling in the blanks. Yes, she had a tendency to take care of everyone. Yes, Saturday night would be an adult outing.

  And yes, Allison should make the most of it—because heaven knew, dates with men like Jamie McCoy didn’t happen very often in her life. She wasn’t going to forget what he’d been up to nine months ago—that would be impossible. But she might as well enjoy a night out on the town with a tall, attractive man with laughter and the devil in his eyes.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you aren’t coming?” Jamie raged into the telephone.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McCoy,” Sara Doolan singsonged, sounding not the least bit sorry. “But, see, I broke curfew last night and my mom says I’m grounded tonight? Like, my boyfriend’s car broke down and we couldn’t get home? And now my mom’s so PO’ed, and she’s grounded me?”

  Why did the girl phrase every statement to come out sounding like a question? Was he supposed to answer her? Was he supposed to express sympathy because she’d stayed out half the night with her boyfriend in his broken car?

  “So, like, anyway, so I can’t baby-sit for you, Mr. McCoy. Because I’m like grounded?”

  He had spent countless hours and phone calls trying to round up a baby-sitter. He hadn’t realized that baby-sitters had to be booked months in advance. It had been nothing short of a miracle that Sara Doolan, the friend of a niece of his accountant, had been available to watch Samantha while he and Allison went out for dinner.

  Typical of miracles, this one evaporated in the harsh glare of reality. He was supposed to pick up Allison in twenty minutes, and Sara Doolan was grounded for the rest of her life. She ought to count her blessings. Right now, Jamie wanted to wring her neck.

  But he couldn’t drive all the way across town to the Doolan house for the meager pleasure of throttling Sara. He had to locate another baby-sitter, fast.

  “Do you have any friends who might be available?” he asked, obviously desperate. Given what a ninny Sara was, he shouldn’t be asking her for recommendations.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McCoy, but all my friends? They’re either already baby-sitting or, like, they’ve got boyfriends? Or they’re grounded, too.”

  No surprise there. Why wouldn’t Sara surround herself with friends as useless as she was?

  Samantha belted out a five-alarm howl before Jamie could think of a tactful way to tell Sara exactly what he thought of her and all her grounded friends. “Thanks, anyway,” he said, quickly
disconnecting the call and racing through the house to get Samantha out of her crib.

  She was soaking. She must have peed enough to fill the Great Lakes. Her clothing was wet, her sheet was wet, her blanket was wet and her hair was wet, although Jamie assumed that was due to sweating and crying. A boy might be able to contrive a way. to pee on his own head, but girls would likely find such a feat anatomically impossible.

  Cringing, he lowered the side rail of her crib and popped open the microscopic snaps on her outfit. He peeled the soggy fabric off her skin, then lifted her, holding her damp body as far as possible from himself so he wouldn’t get her mess on his clean white shirt and khaki slacks. He hustled her across the hall to the bathroom, placed her in the plastic tub he’d bought after witnessing Allison’s maternity ward seminar on bathing infants, and ran a damp wash cloth over Samantha while she squirmed and bawled.

  “Ever hear the expression ‘When it rains, it pours’?” he asked her, figuring he would win daddy points by talking to her. “Well, Sammy, you poured. We’re talking monsoons, sweetie. Macrowhiz. I’ll bet you cut about three pounds in fluids in the past five minutes. We could call it Samantha McCoy’s Weight Loss Strategy.”

  Samantha responded to the sponge bath by turning down the decibel level. She did her mewing kitten impersonation, followed by an aria of gurgling, then pawed his sleeve with her wet hand, leaving a splotch of moisture on the cotton. At least it was only water. It wouldn’t leave a stain.

  A day ago, the process of getting her dried, diapered and dressed would have taken him a good ten minutes. But repeated practice at the 3-D routine had enabled him to shave a good four minutes off his time. He actually took pride in his diapering technique—all in the wrists, he’d learned—although he had to admit that deft diapering was a mighty peculiar thing for someone like him to be proud of.

  While wrestling with the stupid little snaps of her clean pj’s, he glimpsed his watch—6:18. The restaurant reservation was for seven. Talk about racing against the clock—no thirty-year-old childless woman had ever felt the pressure he was feeling right now.