by Iris Parker
If I waited any longer to tell him, no one—not even Dominick—could reasonably overlook it. I would clearly, unquestionably, be in the wrong. He'd have every right to be furious with me.
But it would also give him more time with Ali. Time he still needed to settle into his role of being a father, to develop a relationship with her that had nothing to do with me. To form the kind of bond that would survive him deciding he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me.
Even if I lost him, she wouldn't.
If I told him everything today, he would forgive me…probably. But was it really a chance that I was willing to take? Could I justify gambling with my daughter's happiness just to salvage my own, even if I was almost certain that I would win?
I didn't know. I needed to think about it.
Actually, that was a lie. I didn't need to think about it. It's just that I had nothing to do but think. The arena tour continued, seeming to take forever, and so the question circled my mind again and again. Every time, though, my eventual answer was the same.
No.
I couldn't do that to Ali, no matter how much I wanted to be with Dominick.
I had no choice but to continue my silence, giving Dom and Ali the time they needed. I didn't delude myself that I was somehow justified here. I wasn't—deceiving Dom over something so major was the worst thing I'd ever done, or hopefully ever would do. But the only other option was to put my own happiness ahead of my daughter's, and that was even worse.
The endless cycle of angst and internal monologue only ended when I felt a hand on my shoulder, making me yelp quietly in surprise.
"Are you okay?" Dominick asked.
No, not at all, I wanted to say. But I knew that I couldn't. If I answered honestly, then he'd ask why. If he asked why, I would break down and tell him.
"I'm fine," I said after a pause. "Sorry, what's going on?"
"I asked where you wanted to go for lunch," Dominick said, his green and blue eyes filled with concern. "Are you sure you're okay?"
I suppressed a shudder. This was going to be harder than I thought—Dominick made me so happy, and every instinct I had was screaming at me to confess. For the time being, my only option was to simply ignore the problem until…well, it's not like it was going to go away.
Ignore the problem until it exploded in my face, perhaps? I couldn't let that happen, either. I needed a date, a timeline to tell him.
Two weeks. That sounded good. I'd do my best to ignore the problem for two weeks, and then tell him afterwards. No more delays, no more excuses.
"Yeah, sorry," I answered. "I'm just tired. And hungry. Where did you want to eat?" I asked.
"I know a great little greasy spoon place nearby. Kind of trashy and cheap, but pretty good. Sometimes the team will hit it up after a long day of practice."
"Greasy spoons? Ewww," Ali said. "That doesn't sound good at all!"
"Trust me," Dominick said with a laugh. "It's delicious. They fry everything!"
Ali wrinkled her nose, still unconvinced.
So did Chanterelle, I realized, noticing that she'd followed us out into the parking lot. "Uh…I guess this is my cue to leave, huh," she said a bit sadly.
"Do you need money for a cab?" Dominick asked.
"No, it's fine. There's a bus stop nearby that runs to my apartment," she explained with a shrug. "It was nice to meet you all. Especially you, Ali," she said after an awkward pause, bending down to give Ali a hug.
I felt a little bad for her. She seemed like a good kid—or young woman, anyway—and more than a bit lonely. Part of me wanted to suggest she stay longer, at least until she turned to walk away on clacking stiletto heels.
That's when I noticed that the back of her dress was even more revealing than the front, most of it open to the air and exposed. As nice as she had seemed, I just wasn't sure that it was a great idea for Ali to spend a lot of time around her.
"Mom?" Ali whispered at me, interrupting my thoughts.
"Yes?" I answered.
"Why does she have a tattoo on her lower back? She can't even see it there!"
I blinked several times, processing the question. This was not a conversation I wanted to have with my daughter, especially today. It would be difficult even at the best of times, and right now I was mentally and emotionally exhausted.
Still, I'd never been one to just brush off Ali's questions with you'll understand when you're older. If I began now, it would only make her even more interested and curious.
"It's…a tradition," I said finally, hoping to make the subject sound as boring as possible by making it overly academic. "A cultural tradition."
"Oh," Ali answered quietly, her eyebrows scrunched together in thought as she deciphered the arcane sentence. "So it's a…what did you call it? A rite of passage? Like those people you told me about who get tattoos all over their face?"
"Er…in a manner of speaking, I suppose," I said, worried that my plan about to backfire spectacularly.
"But they get those when a boy becomes a man, right? Why do you think Chanterelle got hers? To tell people she's a woman?"
"I, uh—yes. I suppose you could say that," I said, my eyes shooting towards Dominick's to silently plead for help.
"So," Dominick said, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. "I've been thinking. Maybe greasy food isn't the answer. Who wants ice cream instead?"
"Oooh!" Ali cooed. "I do! I do!" she said, bouncing on her heels. Just like that, her questions about the tattoo and its meaning had been forgotten.
"Thank you," I silently mouthed to Dominick. He gave me a subtle nod in reply.
When I'd gotten pregnant with Ali, I'd had absolutely no idea who the donor really was. At the time, I didn't care much either—as long as she was healthy, it didn't seem to matter. But now he was here, it and suddenly did matter…and I couldn't have asked for a better man.
Despite everything, I smiled. Even though it was just dumb luck on my part, I felt ridiculously proud that Dominick was Ali's father.
Dominick
I looked in the mirror, rethinking my choice of clothes yet again. Jeans were my usual go-to outfit, true. They were convenient and sturdy, easy to match with, relaxed but not too relaxed. Usually, they worked well for me.
And of course, I also enjoyed a well-tailored suit, or even a tuxedo when the occasion called for it. But did the occasion call for it? This felt massively different. No matter what I picked, it felt entirely wrong. Everything was either too formal or too casual, depending entirely on what I was wearing at the moment.
When Helena had suggested I meet with Charlie, I'd been quite happy about it. She was accepting me more and more into her family, and meeting her dad was a clear sign of both trust and faith. He was important not just to Helena, but to Ali as well, and I was quite excited to finally meet the man.
At least until the little voice in my head started to twist things around, of course. I'd spent so much of my adult life living in the public eye, a jock who hit things with a stick for a living and slept with a new woman every night. That part of me was in the past now, but could I convince Mr. Bramford of that? It was his daughter and granddaughter I was dealing with, and the man had every right to be suspicious.
Hell, even I was suspicious. I had no desire to go back to that life, but the image of myself as a white-picket-fence family man still seemed new and shocking. The only person who seemed to completely accept that I had changed for good was Alton, and to him, it was a bad thing.
Shaking my head, I got rid of the jeans and grabbed a pair of beige cotton pants, pairing it with a white shirt and pale green tie.
Better safe than sorry,
I checked the time, and gobbled down a sesame bagel with cream cheese. It wasn't much, but I was in a hurry—and too nervous to eat much, anyway. The fact that I'd soon be speaking to the patriarch of the Bramford family filled me with both relief and gut-wrenching dread, leading to a queasy feeling in my stomach.
Rushing out of
my apartment, I pushed a button to summon the elevator up to the top floor. Tapping my foot impatiently, I checked my watch and was surprised to find that I actually wasn't late after all. I had lost all sense of time, and it seemed to be passing both quickly and with an excruciating slowness.
The next thing I knew, I was pulling into Charlie's driveway.
"It's Dominick!" Ali cried as I got out of the car. A second later the front door flew open and she bounced out onto the porch.
"Hello young lady," I said, bending down to hug her. Her excitement helped brace me for the inevitable gauging that I knew would soon happen. When I looked back up, however, I realized that the two of us were alone.
Charlie was nowhere to be found.
"Come in," Helena's voice called from deeper into the house. "I'm busy right now, but Ali can show you my dad's workshop. Right, honey?"
Ali nodded and smiled at me, her small hand grabbing a few of my fingers with enthusiasm. A few seconds later, we were climbing down a flight of stairs.
Helena had told me about her father's fascination with engineering and building, but it hadn't prepared me for the sight of Charlie Bramford's basement. The whole area had been transformed into an inventor's den, every space converted to serve some purpose or another.
There was an architect's table, complete with overflowing plans. Rows and rows of shelves lined the walls, filled with screws and bolts and random hunks of metal whose purpose I couldn't begin to guess. Wood and miscellaneous fabrics were scattered across every surface, along with a good half-dozen air compressors and circular saws.
"And Helena was afraid of a sander?" I asked myself quietly, eyeing a stack of power tools sitting on a bench in the corner. Charlie Bramford was standing next to them, his unruly white hair sticking out from an old, tattered Bruins cap as he worked with great focus.
"Come in, Mr. Henderson," he said, not looking up from his work. "I'm almost done here. Would you mind coming here, actually? I could use an extra pair of hands. Or two. Is Ali with you?"
I looked down at Ali, who was smiling brightly. The two of us walked up to her grandfather, and without him looking back at us, he pointed to a rogue rivet. "Hold that down, would you?" he asked me, then started to give Ali instructions for another job. She nodded along eagerly, a wild sparkle in her eyes.
"Sure," I said, pressing down on the bit of metal. "Uh, what exactly are we doing?"
"You know, son, I'm not entirely sure yet. But it'll come to me sooner or later, it always does when I'm building."
"Or in your dreams," Ali added.
"That too. But let's not mention that outside of this room. I'm not quite sure your mother would understand…."
Ali chuckled, and I wondered if the instructions had been for her benefit or my own. I looked down at the rivet, stunned, and more than a little confused about what exactly was going on here.
Charlie was a tall man, large enough that I had to assume Helena's small size must've been inherited from her mother. He was wearing old, dark blue sweat pants, and a weathered t-shirt that might've been red once upon a time. The Bruins cap, which was barely enough to contain his uncombed mane of hair, sported a very old logo for the team.
It was that exact moment I realized there was no way my beige pants or white shirt were going to survive the afternoon of, as Ali called it, building things. I didn't really mind the inevitable stains they were certain to get, but I did feel more than a little ridiculous at just how overdressed I was.
I made a mental note to chuck the tie as soon as I had my hands free again.
Neckwear and power tools rarely mixed.
An hour later, Ali had left and I still wasn't sure that Charlie had actually looked at me yet. Rummaging through drawers and tinkering with the large assortment of materials on his workbench had all his attention—not me. Interpreting that as a good sign, I felt myself beginning to relax. He didn't seem to hate me, at least.
When he did finally look at me, it just was to explain several of his inventions. The plans he had for them, tweaks they needed along the way, even the properties of the materials he used when building them. Based on his stories, I got the impression that the hobby wasn't exactly paying for itself, even after filing numerous patents and even coming up with a few marketable products.
"Do you remember Billy Mays?" Charlie had asked at one point.
"Yes. You mean he sold some of your stuff?" I responded, somewhere between horrified and genuinely impressed.
"No," Charlie answered sadly. "But I had always intended to write him a letter about it."
"Oh," I said quietly, unsure of how else to respond. Charlie didn't seem to talk very much, but when he did, his words had a habit of inducing vertigo.
Finally we were done with the—uh—the thing—and Mr. Bramford turned to me, offering me his hand while his eyes met mine with a steely gaze. "Dominick Henderson. Great stats, by the way."
"Thanks, sir," I said, returning the handshake.
"Oh, call me Charlie," he said with a shrug. "Unless you prefer 'Dad'? I mean, you're family now, right?"
Pure vertigo.
"I, er, yeah. I guess so, in a way," I said, reeling from the unexpected invitation. This was definitely shaping up to be one of the strangest social encounters I'd had, second only to the day Ali introduced herself to me.
The Bramfords certainly knew how to make an impression.
All of them, I thought, remembering the sudden and intense connection I'd had with Helena from day one.
"Blood is important," Charlie said. "It's not everything, but it's definitely something."
"Yes sir," I said, and then mentally kicked myself.
"Charlie," he repeated, a soft popping noise coming from him as he stood up and stretched out. "Hungry?" he asked.
"Very," I admitted. My stomach had calmed down a bit, or maybe I'd gotten used to the nervous feeling in it, and I'd been regretting my light breakfast for a while.
"Great," Charlie said, and I followed him upstairs to the kitchen. Helena was sitting at a table, next to a girl I didn't recognize who looked even younger than Ali. Helena waved when she saw me, the motion fluidly turning into a shh gesture as she placed a finger to her lips.
I looked back at the kid, who was writing on a piece of paper with a determined look and her tongue sticking out. Helena had a brilliant smile, and it was clear that she enjoyed all kinds of teaching.
Charlie silently opened the fridge, grabbing two beers and a plate of finger food before he gestured at me to follow him outside.
"Nice yard," I said, noting the way that it was in better condition than Helena's had been.
"Thanks," he said. "Helena mentioned that you were the one who fixed the jungle that was growing in hers."
"I did a bit, yeah. Enough to be sure Ali won't get eaten by a jaguar, anyway," I joked. "There's still a lot I could do, though."
"Oh? It looks pretty good to me," Charlie said.
"Yeah, but it could be better. I keep imagining having a nice, big porch back there. It would be nice to have a shaded place to go to when it's too hot. Or maybe a pool, who knows?" I shrugged.
Charlie made an affirming hrm sound, then nodded. "I keep telling Helena that she should get out more. Sunlight, fresh air, all that. Ali, too. And then she tells me that I need more, too, and it's a bit of a stalemate."
I took a sip of the beer and nodded, thinking how I wouldn't want to try winning any arguments with Helena. She seemed like a force of nature.
"I tried to compromise, once. I suggested installing high intensity, full-spectrum lights in the basement. That's practically the same thing as sunlight, right? She wasn't having any of it, of course. Not even when I suggested trying one of those skylight-tube things that pipes down actual sunlight."
"You know," I said with a laugh. "That's just such a perfectly…well, a perfectly Bramford sort of argument. I can just imagine Ali saying exactly the same thing to her mother, or Helena saying that to me…."
"I guess
the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Helena's mother was the down-to-earth one, but we lost her a long time ago. Before she had a chance to show Helena just how much of a crazy old coot I really am," Charlie said with a wistful voice, happy and sad at the same time.
"Oh come on, you're not that bad," I insisted.
"Are you kidding me? I'm one encounter with Libyan Nationalists away from building a time machine out of a DeLorean," Charlie said.
"Well," I said philosophically. "At least then, you might still be able to get Billy Mays to sell your stuff, I guess."
Charlie suddenly burst into laughter, the fit fading slowly as he leaned back against the wall. "I see why she likes you in spite of herself," he said finally. After a moment he clenched his eyes shut and groaned. "I uh, probably shouldn't have said that last part."
"Certainly made me curious," I said, trying to sound as laid-back as I could. "In spite of herself?"
"Nothing to do with you, you understand," Charlie explained. "Just history."
"What kind of history?" I asked, feeling bad for prying but utterly unable to resist.
"After her mom passed, I needed to raise Helena by myself. In retrospect, homeschooling might not have been the best approach. She had a great education, but min-maxing in real life can lead to problems. You can't just put all your points into intelligence and ignore everything else, so to speak. You follow?"
"Not even a little," I admitted.
"Never mind," Charlie shrugged. "Doesn't matter. The point is, she wasn't very well-rounded and I did nothing to stop that. By the time she realized how unusual it was, she was already a teenager. Begged me to enroll her in a local high school so she could see how everyone else lives."
"How did that go?"
"Showing up in the middle of the year at high school, when you've never really been socialized, and you have a father who says things like min-maxing in real life can lead to problems? It could've gone better."
"Ouch," I said.
"It wasn't a total disaster, at least," Charlie said reassuringly. "But she was never one of the popular kids. She was an easy target, especially for the in-crowd. The ones who were trendy and social, the athletes and jocks…."
