by Marci Bolden
Phil’s irritation doubled in a heartbeat. “What does that mean?”
“Your mom is worried about Jessica. She told you her concerns—which were valid, by the way—and suggested you find someone for Jessica to connect with. She didn’t say a damn word about you getting romantically involved with her.”
“She did. I specifically remember—”
“Her hoping you would but not forcing you to. Your mother didn’t twist your arm until you went on a date with Mallory. Did she?”
Huffing, he shook his head. “No.”
“She wants you to be happy. You and Jessica. And, if I might say, you’ve been happier the last few weeks than I’ve ever seen you. I’m guessing that had everything to do with Mallory O’Connell and not a damn thing to do with your mother.”
Phil frowned. “Fine. I like Mallory, okay? I like her a lot.”
“Why are you saying that like it’s something to be ashamed of? Mallory is great. Jessica thinks the world of her.”
“So does Mom.”
“Is that such a turnoff, Phil? Having someone in your life that your mother likes is such a bad thing?”
He shook his head and sighed. “No. You’re right. This has nothing to do with Mom. It’s…”
“It’s hard to trust someone after you’ve been burned.”
Meeting his father’s eyes again, Phil frowned. “That’s not it.”
“That is it.”
“I have to be careful who Jessica gets attached to.”
“Only if you think that person isn’t worth her getting attached to, Phil.”
The accusation stung, reminding him of what had seemed to hurt Mallory the most—the suggestion that he didn’t think she was worth Jessica’s affections. “What do you mean?”
Sliding from the desk, Harry pulled the extra chair in Phil’s office close enough that when he sat, his elbows resting on his knees, there were just a few inches between the two of them. That close, Phil noticed that the gray in his father’s dark hair had multiplied and the dark rings under his eyes had grown immensely in the last few weeks. The situation with Mira was taking a toll on him. Phil made a mental note to pop in and check on his parents. He’d been so caught up in his own conflicting issues, he’d forgotten his vow to help Kara and Harry out more.
“When I started dating my ex-wife,” Harry said, “her boys were just a little bit younger than Jessica. They still had a lot of anger about their parents’ divorce, and man, they didn’t want me around. I did everything I could to break through to them, Phil. I took them to ball games, I bought them toys, I dropped in with pizza every Friday night, but nothing ever worked. They had so much resentment for me, I could practically breathe it in. Even with all that, the thing that really destroyed our marriage wasn’t that her kids couldn’t accept me but that she never bothered to try to convince them that I was worth accepting. I started to wonder if she felt the same way about me. That maybe I really wasn’t good enough for them.”
“This isn’t the same.”
“Maybe the situations aren’t the same, but the underlying issue is. You don’t think Mallory is good enough for Jessica.”
Harry’s words stabbed at Phil. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“No. Mallory is great. Too great. That’s the problem. She and Jessica accept each other too much.”
“So you’re jealous of their relationship?”
“No.” Raking his fingers through his hair again, he blew out his breath. “There are no guarantees that Mallory is going to stick around, Dad. What if she decides to go back to California? What if she decided she doesn’t want to settle down with me and Jess? What if…”
“What if your relationship ends and Jessica gets caught in the middle?”
“Yes,” he stated firmly. “That’s it. Right there. Jessica lost one mother. I don’t want her to lose another one.”
“Phil, no relationship comes with a guarantee. Mira lost one mother. Lynn can’t hit the road fast enough.”
“That’s probably best for Mira.”
“It is. But what if Kara hits the road, too? You know how she is. The moment she feels tied down, she gets the urge to run. Nothing says tied down quite like having a husband and kid.”
Phil shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know? No one ever really knows what someone else will do. Kara could walk out at any time. I could walk out at any time. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Creasing his forehead, Phil tried to understand what Harry was saying. “Are you guys having problems?”
His dad sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before looking at Phil like he’d totally missed the point. “No. Not today. Probably not tomorrow. But we will sometime, Phil. No relationship is smooth sailing forever. People change, people make mistakes, and people get hurt. Kids get hurt when their parents split. But that doesn’t mean you should never have a relationship, that she should never know what it’s like to have a maternal figure in her life. Mallory is good for her. Mallory makes her feel like she has something she has been missing her entire life. Yeah, Mallory could leave. Tomorrow, next week, or in ten years. She could walk away. But so could you. Actually, it sounds like you already did.”
Phil shook his head. “I’m trying to do what is best for my daughter.”
“I know that. Everyone knows that. You’re doing a great job, Phil. You really are. But sometimes, trying too hard isn’t the best thing. I know your mother regrets that she never let anyone close enough to you to fill that fatherly void for you. She thought she was protecting you, but now she sees that she was just scared of being hurt again. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are following right in her footsteps. You deserved better. So does Jessica. If you can’t let Mallory into your heart, that’s your issue. But she’s already in Jessica’s. It isn’t fair of you to put a wall around her because you want one around you.”
Phil frowned. “She wants us to be a family.”
“I know. She’s told us. You had to see this coming, Phil. If not with Mallory, then Jessica would have wanted it with someone else. She’s aching to have someone she can look to like a mom, Phil. Aching. In her soul. I understand if you can’t give her that, but at least let her have Mallory as a friend.”
“I didn’t say they can’t be friends,” he stated, not caring that he sounded frustrated.
“So make that clear. With Jessica and Mallory. And then you stand by it, Phil. Because once you put those boundaries in place, you can’t change them just because you want to. That’s not fair to anyone.”
He considered his father’s advice before nodding. “I hear you. I do.”
“Good. I’m heading out. We have another appointment with the attorney. Keep an eye on things here.”
“Dad,” he called when Harry stood. “Mom won’t walk out. In case you’re actually worried about that.”
Harry smiled. “Maybe Mallory won’t, either.”
Chapter Twelve
Phil wiped Jessica’s tears. She’d been holed up in her room crying since he got home from work, and it was tearing him apart. Her babysitter said she’d been in her room since she got home from school. She thought something had happened, maybe someone had picked on Jessica, but Phil suspected the same thing was upsetting her that had put him on edge all damn day.
Mallory.
Finally, he’d ignored her insistence that he leave her alone and sat on her bed. “Come on, Punk. You gotta talk to me. What’s going through your head?”
She sniffed as her bottom lip trembled. The movement was subtle, but it was enough to make Phil’s heart crumble. He couldn’t take seeing his little girl miserable. Seeing her cry was like having his soul ripped to shreds.
He ran his hand over her hair and gently patted her back. “Will you please sit up and look at me? Talk to me.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose on the glittery purple sleeve of her My Little Pony shirt as she faced him. Phil opted not to remind he
r not to do that.
“I want Mallory,” she said.
“Jess.” Sighing heavily, he lifted her chin until she looked at him. “I know you do.”
“Is she mad at me?”
“No.” He swallowed. “Not you. Maybe a little bit at me.”
“Why? What did you do?”
He sighed. “I told her I was worried you were getting too attached to her and that maybe she shouldn’t come around for a while.”
Her eyes widened. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Because it’s true.” He nodded toward her pictures. “Look at your drawings.”
Jessica studied her gallery. All the pictures had a dark-haired man holding hands with a dark-haired girl who was holding the hand of a blond woman. Mallory. The woman was Mallory. Even in the pictures where Jessica tried to make her image look like Super Punk, there were pictures of Phil, Mallory, and Lucky in the background. Her drawings used to always be her dad and grandparents.
Jessica sniffed deeply, pulling Phil’s attention from her gallery back to her tear-stained face. “I wished for her to come.”
“What do you mean?”
“My birthday. Every year I wish for a mom. This year she came. She came, and everything was better.” She narrowed her eyes and whispered accusingly, “You ruined it.”
“No, honey. Listen.”
“She was my friend.”
“And she always will be,” Phil said.
“You made her go away.”
“Jessica—”
“Why can’t you just let me have a mom? Everybody has a mom. Even Mira is getting Grandma as her mom. Everybody has a mom but me.”
Phil lifted his hand to stop her rant. “Whoa. Who told you about Mira?”
“I’m not deaf, Daddy. I can hear you guys whispering. I know Grandma and Grandpa are adopting Mira. She’s getting a new family, and it’s not fair. I want a mom, too, but I don’t have one because you let her leave.”
He sat back, startled by her words. He’d never seen Jessica so angry at him before. Sure, she’d had temper tantrums and fits over the last eleven years, but he could actually feel her rage seeping into his pores.
“Jess,” he said gently, “Mallory meant what she said—”
“I don’t mean Mallory. I mean my real mom. Why didn’t you make her stay? Why did you let her leave?”
Once again, her words caught him off guard. “I… Your mom was scared. We’ve talked about this before.”
“You should have made her stay.”
Phil swallowed hard as she started sobbing again. She turned from him and pressed her face in her pillow. He put his hand to her back, but she jerked away from him.
“Leave me alone, Daddy.”
He patted her back one more time before getting up and leaving her to her tears. He didn’t know what else to do.
Mallory hesitated before knocking on Phil’s door. She hadn’t answered his call but had listened to his voice mail. He’d told her how upset Jessica had been all afternoon and begged her to stop by and talk to her. She hadn’t given her actions a second thought as she jumped in her car and headed over. At least not until she was standing there, on the verge of facing him. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she rapped her knuckles against the door, causing Lucky to start barking on the other side.
Phil’s voice was muffled, but he was clearly hushing the dog. He opened the door and seemed to have a hard time meeting Mallory’s gaze.
She scoffed as she pushed by him. Jerk. “Jess in her room?”
“Has been all evening.”
She shrugged out of her jacket and dropped it on the back of the couch as Lucky hobbled over to greet her. She scratched the dog’s ears.
“Look, Mallory—”
Standing upright, she glared at him, sending emotional daggers across the room. “Unless you plan on apologizing to me for being a gigantic ass, save it.”
He shrank a bit before grinning. “I’m sorry I was a gigantic ass.”
She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t actually expected him to apologize.
“All this stuff with Mira’s adoption and Lynn leaving is stirring up things I thought I’d resolved a long time ago. It certainly hasn’t helped that Jessica has become obsessed with finding a mom. It’s not an excuse for how I behaved. Just a reason.”
She nodded. “I’m sure it isn’t easy watching Lynn abandon her responsibilities.”
“Mira’s going to have a lot of insecurities growing up.”
Mallory tilted her head. “We all do, Phil. Whether we have two parents or not. There’s always something that makes us question our worth. Your mom took really good care of you and of Jessica, and she’ll take good care of Mira. What Jessica is going through isn’t a reflection of you or the way you raised her. She’s just fixated on the thing that makes her different from her friends.”
“She has Down syndrome, Mallory. There are dozens of things that make her different from her friends.”
Mallory sighed. “Well, this is the thing that she has chosen to focus on. Maybe because it’s the one thing that can be changed.”
He gave a wry laugh. “Wow. I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“Yeah. I know.” She lowered her face as she took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll still be here for Jessica. I care about her and want to be her friend. But you’re right about us. We need some time and distance for a while.”
He looked hurt. The prick actually looked hurt.
She didn’t back down. “I think it’s best for everyone if we keep our time around each other limited to me picking up Jessica or dropping her off. That should make it clear to her that you and I aren’t more than friends. Okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear.
She headed down the hallway and gently knocked on Jessica’s bedroom door. There was silence on the other side, so she turned the knob slowly and walked in. Her heart ached at the bundle on the bed. “Knock knock.”
Jessica pushed the blankets down, and instead of the big smile Mal was used to, she was met with puffy red eyes and a trembling lip.
“Oh, baby.” She sat on the bed and opened her arms. Jessica was hugging her a moment later.
“Don’t listen to Daddy, Mal. Please. Please don’t go away.”
Hushing her, Mallory held her tight. She hadn’t even realized how much Jessica had become a part of her life until Phil tried to shut her out. She had done her best not to think about the ache inside her, but sitting there holding her, Mallory thought maybe she could finally understand Phil’s concerns. She would never do anything to hurt Jessica, ever, but if she and Phil got into a relationship and it didn’t work out, Jess would be in the middle. There was no way to avoid that.
“Hey, Punk,” she whispered. “Think you can sit up? I need to talk to you about something.”
She lifted her head from Mallory’s shoulder. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Not at all.” Wiping Jessica’s cheeks dry, she offered her a reassuring smile. “Your dad told me some things that you said to Grandma and Grandpa.”
“What things?”
“That someday your dad and I might get married. That we might get a new house. Do you remember saying that stuff?”
She looked down and nodded.
Mallory tucked her hair behind her ear. “You’re not in trouble, Jess. It’s okay to talk about the things that you want. Everybody has things they want. But your dad and I… We’re just friends. Friends don’t get married.”
“Your uncle Paul and Dianna were friends and they got married. I heard Grandma and Dianna talking about him for a long time. Dianna said they were just friends, but Grandma told her they were going to be a couple. And now they’re married. And Annie and Marcus were friends. Now they’re married, too.”
Mallory nodded. “You’re right. About Paul and Dianna and Mom and Marcus. But things are different between your dad and me. We really are just friends.”
Her sho
ulders sagged and she crawled from Mallory’s lap to the pile of pillows. “I know Dad can be a stick in the mud, but he can be fun, too, Mallory.”
“I know that. I think your dad is a lot of fun.”
“He dressed up like Batman,” Jess reminded her.
Mallory smiled at the memory. “Yeah. He did.”
“And he let me keep Lucky.”
“I know. He’s a great dad.”
“He’d be a great husband, too. And you’d be a great wife.”
Yeah. She finally got why Phil was so worried. Jessica really was mapping out the rest of their lives.
“I’m sorry. It’s just not going to happen. I really like your dad, but not like a husband and wife like each other.”
“You don’t love him.”
Mallory shook her head.
“But you could. If you tried.”
Damn it. Her heart was breaking right along with Jessica’s. “Sweetie, people don’t have to try to fall in love with each other. They just do.”
Jess lowered her face. “You’re not going to be my mom?”
“I’m going to be your friend. And if you ever need anything, I’m going to be there for you. That’s kind of like a mom.”
“Not really.”
“That’s the best I can do, Punk. We’ll just have to find a way to make the best work for everybody.”
Jess focused on her pillow, plucking at a string as her face fell into a deep frown. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Have you had dinner yet?”
“No.” Her pout was adorable and heart-wrenching all in one.
Mallory playfully tapped her nose. “Well, we can’t have you going hungry. Should we ask Dad if I can take you to the café?”
“Can he come?”
“I think this should be a girls’ night. You and me and a big pile of rainbow pancakes.”
She nodded, but her usual spunk, her natural happiness, was missing.
Mallory wished she could find a better way to help her understand, but she simply couldn’t. Not when she didn’t fully understand the situation herself.
Hours seemed to have passed from the time Mallory and Jessica had left until headlights turned into his driveway. Phil had gone from pacing the living room to scratching Lucky’s ears to debating whether he should text Mallory to check in. His final attempt at a distraction was sitting with his laptop, trying to focus on work. He was feeling completely uninspired, and the draft proposal was due in two days.
