Father Found

by Judith Arnold

  “No, of course not. I hope we can get this put together sometime this week, though. I’d hate to give the Gazette the opportunity to change its mind.”

  “Tomorrow,” Allison promised. “If we don’t have any crises upstairs in neonatal, I could come back around lunchtime.”

  “Anytime between noon and one should be fine,” Katsakis told her. “Let my secretary know on your way out.”

  “Okay. And thank you. I’m very glad the hospital is backing the program.”

  “The hospital is very glad you’re running this program for the city in our name,” he said, rising from his chair when she did and reaching across the desk to shake her hand. Allison gave him her most winning smile as she backed out of his office. Not until she’d shut the door behind her did she drop the cheerful facade.

  She felt disoriented, out of sorts, troubled by Jamie’s power play. She ought to give him the benefit of the doubt and find out if he was behind the newspaper’s largess before she condemned him for meddling. But she trusted her suspicions more than she trusted him.

  She was going to have to decide what to do. The Daddy School was more important than her pride. It might even be more important than her relationship with Jamie. She was going to have to explain to him that he wasn’t going to win any points by pulling strings for her after she’d explicitly asked him not to.

  She confirmed the following day’s appointment with the secretary, then left the suite of offices that housed Human Resources. Out in the hallway, she eyed first the bank of elevators that would transport her back upstairs to the neonatal unit, and then, just beyond the elevators, a public telephone alcove.

  If she had Jamie’s phone number handy, she could call him.

  But she didn’t have the number with her and she didn’t have time to phone Directory Assistance and get it. The maternity ward was hopping today. Allison was needed upstairs.

  She would see Jamie tonight at the Daddy School. After class, they could go to what Allison had come to think of as “their” place, the coffee shop across the street from the YMCA, and Allison would give him a piece of her mind. Unlike him, she didn’t sneak around. If she wanted to help someone, she did it openly. And if someone asked her not to help, she respected that person’s wishes.

  Jamie wanted her respect? Well, he could earn it by showing a little respect for her.

  HE GOT AS FAR as the YMCA…and then kept driving.

  The evening was clear, the sky a fading, cloudless blue. The postworkday city was muted, almost restful. The YMCA building loomed ahead, a solid mass of dark red brick. Inside that building, in the room at the end of the hall, Allison was waiting for him.

  He couldn’t go.

  The Range Rover gulped the city streets, strained at the red lights and zoomed at the green ones. Next to him, Samantha sat calmly in her seat. Hot summer air gusted through the open window and fluffed her hair. She didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy experimenting with her hands, shoving one finger and then another into her mouth. The pink polish had almost vanished from her nails. Jamie didn’t want to think about where it had gone. Was he going to discover pink stuff in her diaper the next time he changed her?

  How many more times would he change her before she was no longer his?

  He turned left, heading out of the downtown area. After a few blocks the tall office buildings were replaced by strip malls, gas stations and supermarkets. A few more blocks, and commercial buildings gave way to garden apartments, condominium complexes and modest private homes.

  He paid little attention to his surroundings. He had too much to think about.

  All he had to do was fill a test tube with his blood, and forensic scientists would take it from there. They would run their tests and determine once and for all whether or not he was Samantha’s father.

  If he wasn’t, he would lose her. Which was as it should be. After all, why should he, a happy, footloose bachelor, be raising a child who wasn’t even his?

  But if he was her father…he still might lose her. If he was one parent and Luanne was the other, they had equal claims on Samantha. His claim might be a bit stronger, because he had never abandoned the baby. But then, Luanne’s might be stronger because she was the mother, and mothers were traditionally the number-one parent.

  He continued cruising away from the heart of the city, past houses on larger lots, spread farther apart. Past a golf course. Past a pond and a small orchard. Samantha closed her eyes and he felt no compunction to rouse her and point out the beauty of the western Connecticut countryside.

  What kind of father was he, really? So far, in the couple of weeks he’d had Sammy, it had been a lark. Granted, she’d been sick, she’d screwed up his hot date with Allison, she’d spit up on him and awakened him with her screams. But he’d gamely kept going, washing when she barfed on him, adapting his social life to her demands. Yet had he ever truly felt that this was the life he was meant to live? Had he ever seriously contemplated that he could be enduring screwed-up dates and vomit and screaming fits for the next decade?

  He didn’t know.

  Maybe he should have attended his class at the YMCA. If he’d seen Allison, been in the same room with her and listened to her explain how to be a father, making it sound plausible, he would believe himself capable of it. Allison seemed to consider fatherhood a role anyone—even Jamie McCoy—could master. Everything Allison said was reasonable. Everything was possible.

  Which was exactly why he hadn’t gone. Whenever he was near her, he did believe that he could do it. She enhanced the possibilities, embodied them, encouraged them. Her conviction, her morality, her beauty and her incredible stability were enough to give him more faith in his abilities than he deserved. She imbued her students with the confidence they would need to get through the next eighteen years as daddies.

  He couldn’t let her influence his decision about Samantha. He couldn’t let himself be distracted by his lover’s green eyes, by her voluptuous hair, by the way he’d felt sleeping with her, and waking up to her, and joining his body to hers.

  The Piersons could give Samantha a two-parent family. Jamie could never do that—unless he married quickly. Unless he married someone like Allison who could do everything for Sam that Jamie hadn’t yet figured out how to do.

  They were miles out of town, now, in the bucolic region surrounding Arlington. A dairy farm spread to the west, several cows with blotchy black-and-white hides munching lazily on grass in a fenced-in meadow. Jamie kept driving, following the sinuous road up a hill. At its peak, he was treated to a panorama of gentle rolling mountains, lush greenery, woods, small farms and scattered houses. His windshield framed a breathtaking vista, but Samantha couldn’t care less. She had started to snore, a sure sign that she’d fallen asleep with three fingers in her mouth.

  Why should he fight to keep her? Had she ever really been his? Not by plan. Not by hope. It was purely a fluke that he’d found her on his porch.

  Sighing, he reached for the cellular phone in the glove compartment. He dug his wallet from his hip pocket and searched for Russo’s card. Russo wouldn’t be at his desk at this hour, but Jamie didn’t care. All he wanted was to leave a message, something he wouldn’t be able to retrieve, something permanent, something he couldn’t deny.

  He punched in the button, waited, and got a nightshift desk sergeant. “John Russo isn’t in, is he?”

  “No,” the sergeant reported. “You want his voice mail?”

  “Sure.” Jamie waited while the call was connected to the computerized message system. His gaze remained on Samantha. She moved her legs as she sucked on her fingers, but she was definitely asleep. She was so small, so pretty. So oblivious to the route her life was about to take.

  “Hi,” he said into John’s voice mail. “This is Jamie McCoy, “ he said. “I’m calling to ask you to set up a meeting with the Piersons. I believe we’ve got some business to discuss.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “YOU LOOK LIKE HELL” Samantha’
s grandmother said, peering out through the screen door at him. “I remembered you as being a handsome man. I must be mistaken.”

  “You’re not mistaken,” Jamie muttered. “I feel like hell and I’ve been through hell, so I probably look like it, too. Is Allison home?”

  Samantha’s grandmother lifted her hand to squint at her wristwatch. She had a TV remote control in her hand. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yes,” he said, tugging at the tie knotted around his neck like a noose. It was too warm for a necktie, but he’d felt obliged to dress for the occasion. “It’s six-thirty Thursday night. I stopped by the hospital, but she had already left. I really need to see her. It’s important.” The understatement of the century.

  The elder Ms. Winslow shook her head and pursed her lips in disapproval. “You’re not her favorite person in the world, you know,” she chided.

  “Yes, I do know. But I really need to see her.”

  “You’ve gotten yourself in trouble, haven’t you. Don’t tell me you’ve knocked someone else up.”

  “No, I haven’t.” He struggled not to lose his composure. His problems were not Allison’s grandmother’s problems. For that matter, they weren’t Allison’s problems, either. They were all his, and he intended to do whatever he could to fix them. But without Allison by his side assuring him that he was on the right track, that he wasn’t digging himself even deeper into a hole, that he could accomplish what he had to and accomplishing it wouldn’t destroy him…

  He needed her, damn it!

  “I’m sure she’s angry that I haven’t called her, but—”

  “Haven’t called her? You played hooky from class. She’s going to flunk you.”

  Cripes. He’d managed to wheedle a 7:00 p.m. appointment with his attorney, Dennis Murphy, but Dennis wasn’t going to wait past 7:05. He had told Jamie he was expecting his kids for the weekend and he wanted to spend the evening stocking up on junk food for them.

  But Jamie had pleaded, he’d begged, he’d groveled—his pride was beyond salvaging, and he didn’t care. And Dennis had succumbed. “Seven,” he’d said. “Don’t make me wait.”

  Jamie didn’t think he could survive his appointment with Dennis, let alone the actuality of what he was attempting, unless he had Allison holding his hand, cheering him on, assuring him he was going to make it. So, after pleading, begging and groveling for Dennis Murphy, he was now at Allison’s house. Pleading, begging and groveling.

  “Well,” her grandmother reported, “she isn’t here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She went out for dinner.”

  Oh, swell. As if his life wasn’t horrible enough. Allison was on a date with someone else. Probably someone who didn’t drag a puking baby along to the restaurant for the sole purpose of ruining her dress. Someone who knew what he was doing. Someone who didn’t try to do the right thing, realize too late that he’d done the most absolutely wrong thing and then try to backtrack and undo everything he’d done.

  “With her best friend, Molly Saunders,” her grandmother added belatedly.

  Jamie inhaled and attempted to exert mind control over his rising blood pressure. “Can you tell me where they went? I’ve got to find Allison.”

  “What will happen if you don’t?”

  Forget about his blood pressure. He was running out of time. “Life as we know it will end,” he said.

  “Oh. Well, you should have said so. They went to Dominic’s. It’s an Italian place—”

  “I know it,” he said, already hurtling down the front walk. “Thanks!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  He dove into the top-down Miata without bothering to open the door. He was revving the engine before he had his seat belt on. He tore away from the curb, heedlessly breaking speed limits throughout the quiet residential neighborhood until he reached the modest Italian café across the street from the fourplex cinema which always seemed to be showing at least one movie that featured buildings blowing up or aliens invading the earth—or, if Jamie got lucky and Hollywood heard his prayers, both.

  He screeched to a halt in a handicapped parking space, vaulted out of the car and sprinted into the restaurant. Like a magnet, he was drawn to Allison’s table, knowing intuitively where she was before he spotted her.

  She had her back to him. He saw the cascade of red-tinged curls down her back, the slight hunch of her shoulders, the white of her slacks and blouse. She must have met her friend straight after work, he thought, his heart beating faster because he was in the same room with her, and stronger because now that he’d found her he could almost allow himself to believe things might somehow work out.

  The woman across the table from her, facing him as he stood in the doorway, was a pixieish woman with a heart-shaped face and straight dark hair. She must have seen him staring at their table, because she frowned, leaned toward Allison and said something. By the time Allison turned in her chair, Jamie was half the distance to the table.

  Allison’s jaw dropped. Her eyes flashed with fury, and she opened her mouth to speak. He could guess from her expression that he didn’t want to hear what she had to say, so he didn’t give her a chance to say it.

  “Allison, I need you. It’s awful. I can’t believe how awful it is. Please—you can hate me later, but I need you right now.” Sheesh. He’d used the word need more in the past ten minutes than he had in his entire life. The pathetic part was, he’d meant it every time.

  “You look like hell,” she said. “That’s a nice tie, though.”

  “I’ve lost Samantha,” he said.

  Her jaw dropped. So did her friend’s. Allison rose to her feet, gripping the edge of the table as if afraid she would teeter and fall. “You lost her? Oh, my God! How could you lose her?”

  He sighed. “The Piersons—Luanne and her husband—requested custody, and I…” God help him, he was going to cry, right in the middle of an Italian restaurant where—he slowly realized—every single diner was gawking at him. He was going to break down and cry. Jamie McCoy, the ultimate guy, was going to weep in front of all these strangers with red sauce on their chins.

  The hell with them. The only person who mattered right now was Allison. He didn’t give a damn if she saw him crying. “I thought it would be better for her to go where she could have two parents,” he concluded lamely.

  Allison struggled to close her mouth. The color had drained from her face. “What do you mean, two parents?”

  “Luanne’s husband claimed he was the father. They made their case before a social worker here in town. They brought a lawyer with them. The lawyer had an affidavit stating that Luanne had been under treatment for depression.”

  “What are you saying?” Allison gaped at him as if he were speaking Farsi.

  “They made a case for custody. I thought it was a good one. Hugh Pierson said he was the father— he said Luanne had been pregnant when I met her. Without a blood test, I couldn’t prove otherwise. But I thought—Hell, even with a blood test, Luanne was Sammy’s mother, and maybe Sammy belonged with her mother. And maybe Sammy wasn’t even mine. Allison—I don’t know if she’s mine. All I know is, I want her back.” Another tear slid down his cheek. He ignored it.

  Allison glanced at her friend. “Go,” her friend said simply.

  Without another word, Allison grabbed her purse and hurried out of the restaurant ahead of Jamie. “You need a lawyer,” she said as they headed for his car.

  “I’ve got a lawyer. He’s waiting for me at his office right now.”

  She nodded and yanked open the passenger door of his car, not bothering to wait for him to open it for her. “And you need a blood test.”

  “I’m scared about that, Allison. What if it turns out I’m really not Sammy’s father? I’ll lose her for good.”

  “You’ve already lost her,” Allison reminded him. Not a comforting thought, but she was only speaking the truth. “On the chance that the blood test will strengthen your case—”

  “I know.” H
e cranked the engine until it roared, then skidded out of the parking lot and pointed the sports car toward downtown. “I’m not sure how to go about getting this blood test. Can you help me with that? I know I haven’t got the right to ask anything of you, but—”

  “Jamie.” He saw her hands fisting against her white cotton trousers. “This isn’t about who has the right to ask anyone for anything.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s about.” He took a corner so sharply the inner tires practically left the asphalt. “It’s about what’s right, who has rights—and it’s about asking you for something. I know you probably hate me, but I’m on my knees here. I’m begging.”

  She sighed and held her hair out of her face as the wind lashed it. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Do you hate me?” He braced himself for her reply. If he knew anything about Allison, it was that she would answer honestly.

  What he heard was another sigh, shattered by the wind blasting past the windshield and into their faces. “No,” she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her over the roar of the engine. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Okay. We can work out the rest later.” They’d reached the office building that housed Dennis’s office, just a block away from the Gazette building— a block away from the YMCA where he’d skipped class on Monday. “I’m sorry I didn’t go to the Daddy School this week,” he remembered to say. “That was the evening I was doing the most idiotic thing of my life—deciding that Samantha would be better off with the Piersons.”

  “It wasn’t idiotic,” Allison told him.

  “Of course it was!” He punctuated his self-loathing by leaving rubber as he veered into the first space he found in the underground parking lot beneath the office building. “It’s because of that idiotic decision that I lost her.”

  “You made that decision because you thought it would be best for her,” Allison consoled him. “That’s not idiotic. It might have been the wrong choice, but you made it for the most loving reason in the world. You wanted what was best for your daughter.”