Chapter 9
Tuesday morning, he did something he hadn’t done in what seemed like forever. He put his resume together. He procrastinated until he had done his usual investing, but an hour after that, it was done. He printed a hard copy and parked Andie in front of the TV, ashamed to realize he didn’t feel any guilt about that at all. Then he tucked himself upstairs where it was quiet and began making phone calls.
Thirty minutes later, he’d emailed the resume to three different firms. It would be enough to get an interview. The past two and a half years might be an issue, though he figured he’d just say he’d been living off the same fifty thousand dollars that he’d come here with. In that time the fifty thousand had only dwindled by 1,676 dollars. Every last penny of principle that was gone was for Andie. He hadn’t touched it once before she arrived.
Having done more than enough for one day, he packed Andie up and took her with him to band practice. She colored for the several hours they were there, and didn’t make eye contact with any of them. He was in deeper trouble with her than he thought.
Wednesday, Andie was with Kelsey, and JD was glad that school would start in two weeks and that this wouldn’t go on much longer. His heart sure didn’t feel lighter, but he was doing the right thing. Andie would have a safe car, and the right education, and as many clothes as she could possibly wear.
When he shed his old life and high-tailed it to Nashville, he’d felt the weight lift, but right now he was just grateful that he had sitters that came to him, or lived next door, and that he didn’t have to have Andie in his rat-trap car that often.
He let himself in through the garage again, and again found Kelsey with her headset on. She said a few words into the mouthpiece while she held up a finger to keep him quiet and quickly signed off.
“Hey, how was your day?”
It took just a moment to figure out that she was talking to him.
“Okay.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “You know, if you need to work, you can call me and I’ll take them.”
She shook her head. “I’m used to working like this in the summer. I just close fewer loans. I did have some stuff come crashing down today, but the kids played great together.”
Of course they did, Andie was a star-pupil for Kelsey. She peeled the headset and phone and put them in the cradle, declaring herself done for the day.
“You’ve done a lot for us-”
“Uh oh, where is this going?” She frowned at him, like he was about to take away her toys, and he stifled a little laugh, before he continued.
“And you’re working pretty hard. I have Bethany lined-up for tomorrow night for practice, but Craig and TJ bowed out, so I’m free.” He paused, not wanting it to sound like a date, which wasn’t where he was going. He couldn’t afford to, not with Kelsey watching Andie so much, not with her living next door. “I can’t remember the last movie I saw, so I’m going to keep Bethany and go out tomorrow night. If you want to join me, the whole evening’s on me.”
She eyed him like he was something she couldn’t identify, and that worried him.
“So, what you’re saying is, if I upgrade the babysitter to cover all three kids, I can have an evening with adult conversation and a free movie?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “The baby sitter upgrade is on me. And, if you promise not to whine, pout, or scream at me, I’ll throw in dinner.” Uh oh, that started sounding like a date.
Kelsey laughed. “I am so there.”
JD couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face. “One rule: no talking about kids.”
She stuck out her hand and they shook on it. She called the kids out of the back bedroom, then turned back to him. “So what are we going to see?”
“I don’t even know what’s out.” God, that was sad, to not even know what movies were playing. He hadn’t gotten to see a lot in the past three years of being dirt-poor, but he’d at least known what he was missing.
The kids traipsed into the room as she volunteered to pay for dinner.
“No.” His chest sank. “I’ve got the whole thing. Please, don’t worry about it.” He didn’t like the way the word ‘please’ had come out of his mouth, he was truly beseeching her to trust that he had the money. He almost laughed at himself for thinking she might mistake it for a date. There was no way Kelsey thought her younger, poorer neighbor was actually asking her out.
She explained to the kids that Bethany was coming tomorrow night, then asked if Bethany would be at her house or his condo. He stiffened at that, too. What was wrong with his place? Except that Kelsey’s was perfectly set up for kids.
She walked away, talking as she went, “If they’re here, then you can just carry Andie home, and we don’t have to wake anyone up.”
She made a good point, and he conceded before dragging Andie back home, against her will, as usual.
At five o’clock sharp the next night, he and Andie showed up on Kelsey’s doorstep, and for a moment he felt as if he’d spent the whole last year showing up on Kelsey’s doorstep. Bethany was already there, and so he offered Andie a quick hug good-bye, which she refused.
When Kelsey offered to drive, he felt the last straw hit. Suddenly, he didn’t care if the AC leaked on her feet. He just pulled his keys out of his pocket and spoke up, “I’ve got it.”
She actually smiled.
The evening was cool enough that he didn’t have to worry about using the AC. Kelsey climbed in the passenger seat and stretched like a cat, “God, no one’s driven me anywhere since . . I don’t know how long.”
“When Andrew was alive?” He prompted.
“Andy was sick, he couldn’t have a license, and I sure wouldn’t get in a car with him. He was great, except that could change at any minute.”
“Jesus.”
Her only response was a nod.
“Your mother?”
A harsh sound, just shy of laughter, barked out of her, “My mother was an alcoholic.”
“Wow,” JD cranked the wheel into the turn, “I think your family was even more dysfunctional than mine is.”
“We were hard to beat.”
They still hadn’t decided what movie to see by the time the bill came for dinner. Everything had been good until Kelsey looked at the slip with a worried expression. JD got mad. “Don’t you dare touch that.”
“Okay, I was just trying to help.” She held her hands up. “I know what it’s like-”
“Do you?” From where he sat, she had everything. Two perfect kids, a house, and spare money she had asked him again to invest for her.
Hazel eyes flared. “Yes, I do. And I did it in DC, where the house payment I couldn’t make every month was several thousand dollars. I did it from when I dropped out of college until last year. I was the sole breadwinner for my family. Andy’s medical bills wiped out anything spare real fast. So it was all on me. And there was no end in sight.”
JD started to apologize, but Kelsey bulldozed right over him. “I had my mom and Andy and Daniel to take care of, and some days I think I had Allie just to make sure there was a greater number of sane people in the house. My mother up and died on me. Then the day after the last house payment was in, Andy dies. Things were finally looking up, and he goes and dies.”
JD sat, chastised, while she was quiet for a moment, looking at her napkin in her hands. She was only right then noticing that she’d twisted it while she was talking. “Sometimes I think he planned it that way, that he did that on purpose to set me free.”
“People don’t time their deaths like that.”
Her glassy eyes caught him square and held him tighter than any fist. “They do when they kill themselves.”
His mouth fell open, but he shut it as soon as he realized he didn’t have anything to say to that. It wasn’t fast enough for her to not see it though.
The server appeared, and they didn’t speak while he paid the bill. “Do you really believe he planned it like that?”
“Sometimes.”
She spoke again, softer this time, more subdued. “At least there’s a good purpose for you living like this.”
“There was a good purpose for you, too.”
Her smile changed her face, “Yeah, but I was in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. I didn’t really choose it. It chose me.”
JD shook his head, wanting only to negate the way she felt about it. “You were doing the right thing. You were taking care of the people you love.”
That’s what he would be doing, too.
The movie was uneventful; they opted for the last big summer blockbuster, and both decided they couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Kelsey laughed at him, and he realized that she had actually spent a good portion of the evening laughing. Aside from the really tense bill-paying moment at the restaurant, she’d been in a really good mood. It even seemed like she was a little lighter after she got that off her chest.
“I forgot to warn you,” She started, “one of the symptoms of being a parent is that you get really picky about your movies.”
“How so?”
“Well, you don’t get to see very many, so when you do you really want them to count. If they don’t, you can get really upset about it.”
Something comfortable settled itself inside him and he told her about his week. “I hit this stock, I made over two grand, so don’t worry about me and Andie.”
Her head cocked to one side. “I don’t really. I know I’m always offering to help out. But I do like doing it, and you two won’t need us at all one of these days, and we’ll all miss you.”
He wanted to inject some words of his own into the conversation, but he only got out a disbelieving half-laugh before she was talking again. “I’ve been better since you two have been around. These last weeks, I’ve laughed more and seen the world around me more. Thank you.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about us going anywhere any time soon.” He told her about the Thursday night show, that TJ and Craig were meeting with someone tonight, but all he’d gotten was a text message that said, ‘too hard-core’. It was just another ‘no,’ the reason didn’t really matter.
At Kelsey’s, he roused Andie just enough to gather her up and carry her back home, but just as he got to the front door she woke. Just alert enough to know she was being carried, she lashed out at him, landing a fist square on his jaw, as well as a solid kick to the ribs. To add insult to injury, she yelled at him, and ran to hide behind Kelsey.
Kelsey squatted down to Andie’s level, “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t need a daddy. My Mommy said! I need my Mommy!” With that, she pitched herself into the armchair and let out a wail.
Kelsey looked at him like she was in shock, “JD, go get her birth certificate.”
He stood there looking at the two crazy women in his life, and couldn’t decide if he should just flee. But he shook his head and walked back to the condo. He rifled through the file drawers looking for the envelope that Texas CPS had sent him.
He was two inches from giving up, when the envelope appeared in front of him. Not for the first time, he wondered what Kelsey and Andie were talking about without him.
He locked his door behind him and hit the sidewalk.
In under two minutes he was back at Kelsey’s. When he opened the door, he stopped cold. Kelsey sat square in the middle of the couch, her cheek pressed against Andie’s head as his daughter cried. Wide hazel eyes looked up at him and Kelsey’s hand snaked out reaching for something.
JD held out the birth certificate, but it wasn’t the paper she took. Kelsey’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and gently tugged him down next to her on the couch. There was only enough room to be flush up against the two crying females, and JD was at a total loss.
This time she took the birth certificate from his hand, and repositioned Andie, so that his daughter was still on her lap, but facing him now. “Andie, I want you to look at this. It’s your birth certificate.”
Andie ran one small fingertip across the embossed emblem in the corner, but didn’t say anything.
Kelsey kept talking. “Everybody, when they’re born, gets a birth certificate. And there are some rules about these papers. Do you know any of the rules?”
Andie shook her head. JD wanted to also—what the hell ‘rules’ was she talking about?
“Well, the first rule is that only the Mommy can fill out the birth certificate. So, for example, I filled out Allie’s.”
Andie nodded.
Kelsey kept going, her voice low and sweet. “It’s the mommy who tells the hospital what to put on the birth certificate. She tells them the baby’s name. Can you find your name?”
“Yes.” Andie’s voice was small, and she looked at the paper and, though she couldn’t read, she did find her own name. “That says ‘Andie’.”
Kelsey smiled, “Actually, it says your whole name. Andie is your nickname. Like Allie, her whole first name is Allison. Do you know your whole name?”
“My whole name is Anderson Winslow Hewlitt.”
“That’s right, baby. That’s exactly what it says, right there.” Kelsey traced her finger along the page. “They put other things on here, too. Like where you were born,” She pointed, then pointed again, “How much you weighed, that you’re a girl.” She smiled a little at Andie, and Andie just tucked herself back into Kelsey’s arms.
This child didn’t want him. He’d never been more certain of anything in his life.
“The mommy also puts her own name on the birth certificate.” Kelsey pointed. “I bet you miss her.”
Andie’s voice was tiny. “A whole lot.”
JD wondered again where all this was leading. He really felt he would be most useful if he handed them each a tissue and got the hell out.
“There’s something else on your birth certificate, too.” Kelsey tracked her finger to the other corner, to JD’s name. “There’s a line here for the father. Some mommies are married, and they put their husband’s name in. Your mommy wasn’t married was she?”
“No.”
“Then she had a really important decision to make. She didn’t like her own daddy, did she?”
Andie’s voice was a whisper. “He was bad. He was mean to her.”
Kelsey nodded. “I figured that. She didn’t think you two needed a daddy, did she?”
“No, I don’t.”
“She was probably right.”
JD’s mouth almost dropped open. Just when he’d thought he knew where she was headed, Kelsey dropped that one.
“You two didn’t need a daddy, you had your mommy. And you guys were just fine. But your mommy got sick didn’t she?”
Andie nodded again, looking even sadder.
“Then it’s a good thing your mommy was so smart.”
Wide brown eyes looked up at Kelsey, waiting. JD waited, too.
“Your mom got to choose. She could leave the line for the daddy blank, or she could choose a really good daddy for her little girl. Just in case anything happened to her, she wanted to know that her little girl would be okay. And so she thought real hard, and she chose the best daddy she could think of, and she put his name down.”
His chest constricted. Kelsey looked up, her hazel gaze a little foggy, and her smile fighting through the tears he had seen earlier. “Andie, can you read that name?”
Andie shook her head.
“JD, can you?”
He hadn’t expected to participate in this, but maybe he should have. It didn’t come out as clear as he would have liked, but he spoke it. “It says Johnathan Darcy Hewlitt.”
“Who is that?”
He almost burst out laughing.
But Kelsey stepped in, as usual. She hugged Andie a little tighter. “He’s right here. We call him JD, for Johnathan Darcy. It’s his nickname like Andie is yours. JD is the daddy your mommy chose for you.”
Andie looked up at him, her brown eyes scanning him for faults, like she was seeing him anew.
Kelsey continu
ed, “Now you have to be really careful with him. There aren’t many like him left. He’s a really good daddy. That’s why your mommy picked him. She even gave you the same last name as him, so you would know when you two found each other again. I’m really sorry about what happened to your mommy, I am, baby, but your mommy was so smart, she gave you the best present ever. She found the very best daddy, and she gave him to you.”
Andie looked at him with a little frown, “Are you really my daddy?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
That was it, no fanfare, just ‘okay’. Somehow Kelsey had done it. Convinced Andie that he was a good guy. Even set things up for later when he would have to tell Andie she wasn’t genetically his. And Kelsey hadn’t lied, like so many people do to sugarcoat things to small children.
He held his hand out to her. “Are you tired, baby? Do you want to go sleep in your own bed?”
She nodded, her small hand sliding into his, and he realized, for the first time, what it really felt like to have a child hold your hand. The weight of it settled over him like a warm blanket.
Kelsey handed him the birth certificate, but Andie reached out for it. “Can I keep it?”
JD sighed. That was it. His thirty seconds of enjoying his daughter was over. “No, honey, this is a very special paper, and we only have one.”
Her face sank, and she looked so sad it broke his heart, but she didn’t whine or scream or fight. So for the first time, she truly won. JD realized he was in for a lifetime of losing battles to his daughter. “But I have an idea. Tomorrow we can go to the copy place and make you your own copy. Would you like that?”
Jesus, she looked at him like he had just volunteered ice cream for dinner, every night, for the rest of her life.
“You can sleep with it on your nightstand tonight.” He started to turn to go, but she didn’t give. Her little hand tugged on his, and he winced waiting for the kick, the scream, the tantrum.
“I don’t have any shoes on.” Her hands reached up for him. He wouldn’t really have thought it possible, but he sunk a little deeper.
Our Song Page 8
