The Good Father

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He shot. Well. Then, cue stick suspended, he glanced over at his friend. “I didn’t know Chloe suffered from depression. Is she on medication?”

  “Not anymore. And she was only depressed after Cody was born. The doctor said it just happens sometimes, part of the hormonal changes after a woman gives birth.”

  “So, like, what did she do? Cry all the time?” It was important that he knew the facts. Proper assessments relied on them. And he was there to help.

  “That, yeah, but for the first week or two she wouldn’t even hold the baby. She said he didn’t like her. That if she touched him, she’d make him cry.”

  Brett listened as Jeff talked about the debilitating, though generally temporary, after-effect of birth that wasn’t commonly spoken about. At least not enough that he’d personally known of anyone who’d experienced it.

  Had Ella struggled that way? Could it happen if the woman didn’t carry a baby full term?

  Resting the bottom of his stick on the ground, he used it as a hand rest. “So you think, maybe, this...time away...is some sort of the same thing, except you’re the one she can’t make happy?”

  Leaning back against one of the half dozen or so tan leather bar stools situated around the room, Jeff shook his head. But continued to meet Brett’s gaze head-on. “I don’t know, man.” His chin jutted. Trembled. “I truly don’t know. I’ve gone over every second, every hour, every day in my head. Again and again. Was there something I forgot? Not a birthday or anything major like that, for sure, but maybe some little remembrance, like the anniversary of our first kiss or something? Something I said that she took wrong? Something she found in my pocket that she might have misinterpreted...”

  Senses honed even more than normal, Brett said, “Did you give her cause to misinterpret something?”

  “Hell, no! Wait.” Jeff crossed his arms, trapping his pool cue against his body. “Are you asking me if I’ve been unfaithful to my wife?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first guy...”

  “No!” Taking hold of his cue stick, he stood. “I don’t even flirt with other women, just to make certain I don’t find myself in something I don’t mean to be in. I love my wife, Brett. I thought you of all people knew that.”

  “I do.” Feeling a tug on emotions that were better off staying dormant, Brett stood toe-to-toe with his friend. “I do, Jeff. I’m just asking because the last I knew, Chloe felt the same way about you. You two...you’re that couple that makes it till you’re ninety and then dies within a day of each other because one can’t live without the other.”

  Jeff’s chin dropped to his chest. And then he stood straight. “I have to believe she still feels the same way,” Jeff said. “That’s what keeps me going.”

  He thought about what he wanted to ask. Speaking slowly as he chose his words carefully. “Have...you... Do you...have any reason...to think... Could there be...someone else? For her?”

  Shaking his head, Jeff headed to his beer waiting on the bar. Helped himself to a big swig. And Brett, tense and feeling a little angry, missed his next shot.

  “I’m going to be honest,” Jeff said, remaining by the bar, in spite of the fact that it was his turn. “Not that she ever gave me reason to doubt her, but after she left I went through everything. Searched her computer, her drawers. Her social-media accounts. I felt like a damned creep, but I just had to know, you know?”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. My wife is as sweet and loyal and honest as we both know her to be. Hell, she hadn’t even made a purchase she hadn’t told me about.”

  “So why up and leave? You having financial problems? Something that just overwhelmed her?”

  “Stocks are up and down. You know the business. But no. Our personal portfolio has enough safe investments to keep us secure.”

  “What about work? Anything life-altering happening there?”

  “Like, are any of the traders into something they shouldn’t be, you mean?”

  It happened far more than Brett would have figured before he’d gotten into the watchdog business. “Something like that.”

  “We’re clean,” he said. “We run audits with an independent company, just to make sure.”

  One by one, Jeff was shooting holes in the theories Brett had come up with to explain Chloe’s leaving her husband and moving in with Ella.

  And not telling Jeff where she was.

  “Where is she, by the way?” he asked now, justifying the duplicity implicit in asking a question to which he knew the answer with the idea that all he wanted was to help Jeff.

  Jeff took a shot. And then another. He sank four balls in a row, leaving only Brett’s striped balls on the table, and motioned to a side pocket as his call for the eight ball.

  He sank that, too. Leaned his pool cue against the table, pulled the rack off its hook on the wall, reached under the table for the balls and began placing them inside.

  When the fully racked balls were ready for Jeff to break for the next game, he faced Brett.

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  Brett could not doubt the sincerity of the response.

  And knew an odd second of relief that Ella’s secret was safe.

  Because he was still protective of his ex-wife? And because the secret meant a lot to her?

  Ella—and her secrets—were no longer in his control, or of his concern.

  “She just up and left and didn’t tell you where she was going?”

  “Yes.” Jeff, at six-two and two hundred pounds was a big man, but lean. Almost to the point of skinny. With his sandy-blond hair and freckles, his glasses, he looked like the stereotypical guy next door.

  “What about her mother? Isn’t Chloe’s mother in Florida?”

  “Yes, and Chloe said she isn’t there and begged me not to call her mother and get her all upset. I’ve agreed not to look for her, and in exchange, she’s agreed to answer her cell phone each and every time I call. Or, at the very least, call me right back. I need to know that she’s safe.”

  Ella hadn’t told him that Chloe and Jeff were in constant contact. Brett was glad to hear it.

  “She hasn’t told her mother she left you?”

  “Nope.” Pulling back, Jeff shoved his cue stick forward, making perfect contact with the cue ball, slamming it into the freshly racked triangle of balls, spreading them all over the table. Two fell. A solid and a stripe.

  “I’ll take the stripes,” Jeff said, proceeding to sink another three balls.

  Brett studied the solids. He was likely only going to get one shot at the game. Not that he cared about the fifty dollars balanced there to taunt them, but because he was a guy, and guys didn’t like to lose. Not even to good friends.

  Jeff missed a nearly impossible shot. Reached for his beer.

  “I’d say it’s a good sign, then.” Brett stood, watching Jeff rather than the pool balls. “If she was looking to do anything permanent, she’d let people know.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Jeff’s expression relaxed.

  And Brett cleared the table.

  * * *

  CHLOE WAS DUSTING the living room when Ella let herself into the apartment. Cody sat on the floor with a line of little cars around him, watching Nick Jr. reruns.

  “El! El!” The little boy jumped up when he heard her, running over to hug her knees and then to grab her finger. “Sit,” he said, pointing to his cars.

  “In a minute, buddy,” she told him. “Auntie El needs to get out of her work clothes, ’kay?”

  He was already staring at the television again as he nodded his little blond head. The boy’s constant need for technical stimulation bothered her, but raising Cody wasn’t her business. Loving him was.

  Chloe asked how her day was.

  And didn’t meet her gaze.

  Motioning down the hall, Ella headed back to her bedroom and waited for Chloe to follow her.

  “Did you go to the Stand?” she asked.

  Chloe nodded. A
nd started to dust her dresser. Ella did her cleaning on her days off. Which started tomorrow. “Cody cried when I told him it was time to go. He didn’t want to leave.”

  “But you didn’t like it?” she asked, pulling her stained scrub top over her head and tossing it in the hamper in her en-suite bathroom.

  Swinging around, Chloe met her gaze. “I loved it, El,” she said. But the moisture in her eyes didn’t seem to carry the same message. The woman turned back to the furniture.

  “But?”

  “No but. I have so many ideas, and Lila gave me a budget and told me I can have carte blanche. There are at least three cooks for every meal and other women who do all of the dishes. It’s a dream opportunity. She even offered to put in for a small salary for me since I’ve never been a resident, but I don’t need the money.”

  Ella was glad to see Chloe enthused. If Chloe could make a life for herself here, the rest wouldn’t be as difficult.

  She just wished she’d quit dusting and tell her what was wrong.

  “Did you have a problem with one of the residents?”

  “No! They were wonderful.” Chloe looked up again. “Everyone was so eager to help. Almost too eager.”

  “They’ve all been through a lot,” Ella said, her pants following her top, and then her bra landed last. Pulling on a robe, she stepped out of her panties, too. “And everyone handles turmoil differently. Some are friendly and kind. Others lash out or withdraw...”

  She’d done her homework.

  “They were fine, El, really.”

  Chloe was on to the nightstand. Carefully lifting. Dusting. Returning things to their proper positions.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  The smaller dresser got the rag. Then her rocker. And Ella stood there. Waiting.

  Afraid Chloe might just dust her, too, she remained still as the other woman approached her. Stood eye to eye with her. “I’m one of them, aren’t I?”

  “You’ve been through some of the same things they have.”

  Chloe nodded. “The first step to recovery is admittance,” she said. Something they’d talked about before, but Chloe’s tone was different. As if she had learned something new.

  “This isn’t just about my husband having trouble at work. I’m a victim of domestic violence.”

  The Lemonade Stand must have brought the truth of Chloe’s situation more intensely into focus.

  “You’re preventing yourself from becoming more of a victim. And helping your husband before he does something neither of you will be able to recover from.”

  The high-risk statistics weren’t drama. They were frighteningly real and fresh in her mind.

  “Seeing myself there, like them, I panicked.”

  “Did you call Jeff?” It’s what Chloe always did when she needed reassurance. Because Jeff always gave it to her.

  Because she loved him with all her heart.

  And because he was, at his core, a great man. A wonderful father and a loyal and loving husband.

  “No.” Chloe looked toward the living room, as Cody started to sing along with the television set. “And that kind of scared me, you know?” she said. “I didn’t call him.”

  Hallelujah!

  Chloe had just taken one more step on the road to health. And Jeff had more hope than ever of following in her footsteps. If Chloe stood her ground, he’d have to get help to get her back.

  Telling her sister-in-law that they were going out to dinner to celebrate, anywhere she wanted, Ella turned on the water and stepped out of her robe.

  A shower. Dinner. A good night’s sleep; that was all she needed. Life was good.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BRETT DIDN’T DRINK any more than his two-beer limit. Instead, he watched his friend polish off most of a twelve-pack of beer. And still win a hundred bucks off him.

  But you wouldn’t know Jeff had overindulged the night before when Brett walked into the kitchen, thinking to make himself a cup of coffee just after dawn the next morning. He had a full day ahead of him in Santa Raquel, preparing for Monday morning’s meetings, and the afternoon’s, too, since he was going to be using his lunch hour to get the haircut he’d rescheduled the day before.

  “Thought you’d like some breakfast before you hit the road,” Jeff said, standing at the stove over a pan of eggs. “The coffee’s fresh, dark roast,” he said. Brett took coffee just about any way he could find it, but preferred it dark and strong. As his college roommate knew well.

  In jeans and a polo shirt, Jeff looked ready for a good day. And Brett couldn’t help but wonder how he’d fill the next fourteen or so hours. His lawn was immaculate. The house appeared clean—Jeff and Chloe probably hired a service—and the refrigerator had been stocked when Brett had helped himself to a bottle of water the night before.

  “You got work to do today?” he asked as he poured a cup of coffee and pulled out a chair at the table in the window nook of the eat-in kitchen.

  “This evening. I’m going to church later this morning and then to play nine holes of golf.”

  He didn’t remember Jeff being a churchgoer. But was glad to know that the hours ahead wouldn’t be as empty for Jeff as his house felt.

  Putting plates filled with eggs and bacon, potatoes and toast on the table, Jeff brought over his own coffee cup and sat.

  “What about you? You got a game in for today?”

  “Yeah. At noon.” Yesterday’s business rescheduled. The food was good. Done well. And the kitchen wasn’t a disaster area, either.

  Obviously Jeff wasn’t new to cooking. Or picking up after himself. He’d been a bit of a slob in college. But then, Brett hadn’t cared all that much if his own dirty shorts filled a corner of their room, either.

  “So...church... What are you telling them about why you’re there alone?” Not Brett’s best syntax, but this was...odd. Him helping Jeff instead of the other way around.

  “Chloe’s helping a sick friend.”

  “Went to stay with her, you mean?”

  Jeff glanced up. “It’s church, man. I’m not going to lie to them. I just said she’s helping a sick friend and left it at that. And she is. She’s helping herself, and we are our own best friends, right?”

  Brett would have felt better if Jeff had chuckled. Or been grinning. But genuine loneliness lurked in the other man’s gaze. Almost as though he thought himself his only friend.

  Driving over there had been the right move.

  “So you really think this is a hormonal thing on her part?”

  “I hope it is.”

  Both of them were eating as though they hadn’t seen food in days.

  “What does she tell you?”

  “That we need help. She wanted to go to counseling. I told her I didn’t think we needed it. I mean...our marriage...from what I hear at the office, Chloe and I are tighter than most. We have our ups and downs, but we’re friends. We like each other, you know?”

  “Maybe she needs the counseling and wanted you to go with her. Maybe if you say you’ll go, she’ll come home.”

  “Been there, done that. The day she left, I came home from work and she wasn’t here. I called her. She told me she has to go away for a while. Just like that. Packed some bags, took our son and cleared out. I told her then, and several times since she left, that I’d go to counseling with her. She says maybe that would be good. In the future.”

  “Did she take much with her?”

  “As much as when we went to the mountains for a month last summer.”

  “She intends to be gone for a while.”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “How long’s it been?” Another question he knew the answer to. But one that might stand out in its absence if he didn’t ask.

  “A week and two days.”

  “Has she given any indication as to when she might return?”

  “None.” There was no anger, no bitterness in Jeff’s tone. Only confusion. As if he was lost.

  And still in love with the wi
fe who’d left him.

  Brett was hard-pressed not to get a little angry at Chloe himself. What was she thinking? Jeff was one of the good ones.

  “Did you have a fight that morning? Or the night before?”

  Finishing up his breakfast, Jeff gathered Brett’s empty plate and carried their dishes to the sink. “Yeah. And I’ve apologized for it. Several times.”

  Turning, Brett studied his friend. “Apologized for what?”

  “My bad temper,” Jeff said. “She told me about something Cody did at the park that day, and I snapped at her. Told her I needed a few minutes of peace when I get home before she starts bombarding me with her crap.” He turned from the sink. “I didn’t mean it, Brett. She knows that. But I just keep hearing those words over and over. Wishing like hell I could take them back. To the point of choking myself on them. I’d had a call on the way home, a stock we’d all expected to go public didn’t. I had several portfolios all set to move, had taken money from other markets, which meant a hell of a lot of scrambling, praying and luck or I was going to be calling some important clients with bad news.”

  There was no doubting Jeff’s sincerity.

  “That was all there was to the fight? Those words?”

  “I wanted to take them back the second I said them. The look in her eye...you’d think I’d killed her puppy or something.”

  “And that was it?”

  “That was it. She was standing in the doorway.” He motioned to a door that led out to a hallway and into another branch of the rambling ranch home. “I pushed past her, went to our room and showered, and when I came back out she’d left a note telling me there were leftovers in the fridge and that she’d taken Cody out for ice cream. She brought some back for me, with my favorite mix-ins, and we watched television until bed.

  “I told her I was sorry when I got in bed. Tried to kiss her good-night, and she just rolled over. The next day she was gone.”

  “What did you do when she rolled over?”

  “Nothing. I lay there in the dark until I could tell she was asleep, and then I went to sleep. I figured, hell, she was in the bed with me, it couldn’t be all that bad. I figured it would blow over by morning.”