An Act of Persuasion

by Stephanie Doyle

  Maybe a little too much information for a teenage girl to know about her father. But it was true, and he had to own that, too. “My whole life I wanted this one thing. Then you came along and I knew I had to let it go. And, truly, I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t know what being a dad would be like but part of me was excited. That’s the truth. But your mom wasn’t wrong. Sometimes I think she knew me better than myself.”

  “She was really intuitive.”

  “Yes, she was.” Mark thought it was good to hear Sophie talk about Helen. Sophie hadn’t done enough of that around him. Probably because she didn’t talk much at all around him. “I would like to think I would never have resented my choice. I did love your mom back then. I know I wouldn’t have resented you. You were totally innocent. But maybe your mom saw something in me that made her think I wasn’t the best bet as a father. While that still might be true, I’m the only one you have.”

  “I don’t even, like, know you.”

  Mark nodded. Again he was pleased. For the first time he actually thought they were communicating. She was talking and, more importantly, she was listening. “Then we get to know each other. You move in with me and we move your grandparents into that assisted living place that’s better for them. You’ll still see them as much as you want. They’re not going anywhere. Certainly not your grandfather, he walks like a snail.”

  There it was. For one brief second the corner of her lip curled up. The semblance of a smile. Then it was gone.

  “It’s, like, everything is changing so fast.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  He reached out to take her wrist. She kept her hand in a fist, balled around another napkin, but she didn’t try to pull away. “It is, kid. Because of a stupid freak accident your mom, who should be here, is gone. Your grandparents should have stayed the same forever, but they can’t stop age. And I should be in a camp somewhere in southeast Afghanistan, but I’m here.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “No.” This he could tell her truthfully. “I enjoyed working for the government but my time there was done. I was ready for this. I was coming home, Sophie. To you. No matter what.”

  She seemed to take all that in. Then she tugged her hand away so she could nibble at the tips of her fingernails.

  “So…did you, like, kill people and stuff?”

  “Classified.”

  “Did you know where Osama Bin Laden was hiding?”

  “Classified.”

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  “George Bush is shorter in person.”

  “That blows.”

  No, he thought. It didn’t blow at all. In fact, it had been their first real conversation. “How about another slice? Then we can take all this stuff to the baby who, you know, won’t really care about any of it.”

  *

  “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”

  “I’m doing it fine.”

  “It’s not snug enough. It’s going to fall off.”

  Mark and Sophie had left an hour ago, and Anna and Ben were getting ready to settle their child, and themselves, down for the night.

  Ben looked at his baby girl who was squalling her head off in irritation over being exposed to the cool air as he replaced her diaper. Anna kept making him undo the sticky plastic tab and pull it in even farther across her tiny little body before reattaching it.

  “I’m going to cut off her circulation.”

  “Let me.”

  He pushed her away with one arm, careful not to jostle her. She was still slightly bent over from where her cesarean stitches pulled on her stomach.

  “I will master this. I will not be defeated by the diaper.” So declaring it, he finished the task and handed Kelly over to her mother.

  Both mother and daughter instantly sighed with contentment.

  Anna took the couch and kept their daughter cradled in the nook of her elbow. She was still so tiny, but the doctors had no concerns and, based on her ability to screech to the high heavens when she wasn’t one hundred percent happy, Ben knew there was no problem with her lungs.

  He sat across from them and thought, for the first time, how tired he was. He hadn’t slept much since he’d come back into the house to find Anna bleeding at the top of the stairs. His body, which at its best was still only eighty percent recovered, was letting him know he’d gone as far as he could go. He leaned his head against the recliner.

  He’d been able to pick limited pieces of furniture from his home to move here and that one, as agreed, was relegated to the basement. Everything else he planned to sell. He was hoping the potential buyer for the house might want it fully furnished.

  “You should go upstairs and get some sleep. We’re going to chill down here.”

  “I’ll sleep down here with you.”

  No stairs was a condition of her release, so she’d been sleeping on the couch with Kelly in the bassinet next to her. Ben figured the recliner would be fine for another few nights.

  “Ben, you’ve been pushing yourself now for days. I don’t want you to get sick. It could lead to a setback. Go to bed and we’ll be here when you wake up.”

  He opened one eye because he didn’t have the energy to open both. “I’ll stay here with you.”

  He could hear her chuckle. “So, is that the plan? You’re never going to leave me alone ever again.”

  “That’s my current working plan, yes. But to clarify, I’m never leaving the two of you alone…ever.”

  “Kelly, your daddy is a nutcase.”

  “Kelly,” he murmured. “Your mommy almost died and made Daddy a nutcase.”

  He’d meant it as joke, but not really. He didn’t think he would ever forget how it felt in those moments when he was holding her and feeling the damp heat of her blood soak through his clothing. Knowing that their life forces were fundamentally comingled. Did she know? Did she know, even a little bit, how he felt?

  He imagined it wasn’t fair that she’d been conscious for his confession when he’d been his most vulnerable with her. Of course, he’d told her again what he knew about her parents and when he’d found out. She’d listened and she’d cried. But the anger she’d felt toward him for keeping it a secret was clearly gone. He wanted to ask her why it had meant so much to her on the night they fought but didn’t seem to matter to her now.

  That fight had nearly cost him everything.

  He’d never told her the other stuff he said. About loving her. How much easier would it be to think that she had somehow heard everything and took it all inside? That she just knew what was in his head and his heart?

  “Ben?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “Who?”

  “My mother.”

  He lifted his head and met her gaze. “I do.”

  “I think I want to go see her.”

  “Really? Even knowing what you know?”

  “She was an addict. An addict who wanted to keep her addiction and her daughter. My father was an addict, too. In his own way he still wanted to try to do right by me. Yes, they both shit the bed when it came to being parents, but I can’t claim that they didn’t care about me. Didn’t love me. Each in their own mixed-up way.”

  “This is important to you?”

  Anna glanced at the baby, the smile she wore practically making her glow from the inside. The light and energy that was Anna was back and even brighter than before. “Yes. I think…I think I need that last piece. Then it will all make sense.”

  “Okay. In a few weeks when you’re up for it, I’ll take you to her. She works at a snack shop in one of the Big Foods stores.”

  “She’s clean?”

  “Yes. She served fifteen of her eighteen-year sentence. Got sober in prison and was able to get the job through a charitable organization that finds jobs for the formerly incarcerated.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you knew all of this for years?”

  “I did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?�
��

  Ben thought of the easy answer, that he hadn’t wanted to tell her something so awful about her past. But there was more. “I was afraid. I thought if I told you what I had done—looking for them in the first place, even though you never asked me to—that you would know.”

  “Know what?”

  He took a deep breath. The crazy thing was he actually found himself wanting to say it out loud. He didn’t want her to just know it. He wanted to say it and know that she heard it. Awake this time.

  “That I was obsessed with you. That I thought about you all the time. That I needed every piece of you. Your work, your life, your past and your present. In my head I couldn’t reason why, but now it all makes so much sense. I didn’t know what love was and yet it was right there. The whole time. Staring me in the face. That boyfriend you thought you dumped five years ago… What was his name? The one who had the nerve to borrow money from me for your date?”

  “You mean Kevin?”

  “He was going to dump you first. Because I arranged it. I told him if he ever even so much as looked at you again, bad things would happen to him and he could be assured of that because of my background in black ops. At the time I told myself I was only doing it for your own good. He wasn’t nearly good enough for you and I was simply helping out a friend who was mixed up with the wrong person.”

  “Like I said, baby girl. Daddy is a nutcase.”

  Ben could see she was smiling as she said that. Another fight avoided then. “I told myself a lot of things when it came to you. But the truth is I was lying. Lying about everything. There were times I told myself I hated you for turning me into this irrational creature. I would think about letting you go, cutting all ties so I could go back to my normal life. Then I would laugh at myself because I knew it would never happen. I would never let you go.”

  He watched as she literally had to work to close her jaw. Then he saw the confusion in her expression and he knew what her next question would be before she asked it. So he gave her the answer.

  “I shut you down after we made love that first time because I wasn’t prepared to deal with any of those emotions, Anna. Hell, I haven’t been dealing with them very well these past nine months or else I would have told you I loved you as soon as I saw you again. I know it’s crazy, but that’s where my head was then. I had lost control over you, and I was losing control over my body and the two things happening at the same time…messed with my reasoning. It’s my only explanation and I know it’s not a very good one.”

  “It’s a pretty good one.”

  “Do you forgive me? For that and your parents? When I learned what happened to them I told myself it was better that you didn’t know. Then when you asked me to find them I thought learning about them while you were pregnant wasn’t a good idea. I was going to tell you. Eventually. I just wanted to pick a better time. Namely, after you were married to me.”

  “I should be furious,” she said.

  She didn’t look angry. “You were furious. You kicked me out of your home. Remember?”

  Anna smiled, then got up and settled the soundly sleeping baby in the bassinet. Slowly she walked over to where he sat and he made room for her on his lap. Gingerly, she settled into his arms and he was careful not to touch her stomach.

  “I made up that fight,” she whispered, her head against his shoulder, probably so she didn’t have to look at him.

  “Really?”

  “I was scared. I was scared of how I felt about you and I couldn’t deal with it. I wanted what you were offering so much. A real family. But it seemed like too much to want. I was afraid that it would end up breaking me apart if anything bad happened. So I used the whole bit about you not telling me your secret as the perfect out. I mean, who wouldn’t be furious over something like that? But it wasn’t my real reason. Since we’re being honest here, I figure it’s time to confess. Not going to lie. It was sort of mean of me.”

  “Although effective,” he drawled.

  “You shouldn’t have kept that information from me. That still stands. But it wasn’t the reason I told you to go.”

  “Why are you so scared?”

  “Because I didn’t think anyone would ever love me. Which is baggage I didn’t even know I had. I loved you so much that it completely freaked me out.”

  “I love you.”

  She lifted her head and kissed his chin. “Really? Truly?”

  “Madly. Deeply.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, settling her head back against his shoulder. “If a man really loves a woman who, oh, by the way, happens to be the mother of his only child, you would think he might propose marriage.”

  Ben could feel his blood pressure elevate until he felt more than heard her laughing against his body. Nothing she loved better than to ruffle him. She would spend the rest of her life trying to do that, and he would love that, too.

  “Anna?”

  “Yes, Ben.”

  “Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

  “Geesh. You just moved in with me and already we’re talking about marriage?”

  “Anna?”

  “Yes, Ben.”

  “You are not funny.”

  This time he heard her laugh. “Okay. Because I love you. And because you obviously have plans to never leave my side again, I guess I will marry you.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Are you falling asleep after we’ve just declared our love?”

  He was. It felt so good, too. As though he’d never truly known what it was to sleep as a man completely satisfied with his life. “Anna. I can feel it now. I’m finally cured.”

  She brushed his neck with her lips. “Me, too.”

  EPILOGUE

  THE MEETING HAD been arranged. Ben made the call to Jennifer, explained who he was and asked if she would be interested in meeting with her daughter. Anna had listened to the conversation over the speaker phone and, in the silence between when Ben had finally asked if she would like to meet her daughter and Jennifer’s answer, Anna thought her heart was going to burst.

  Then Jennifer, in a shaky voice clearly filled with emotion, had asked if Anna knew what she’d done.

  Ben explained that Anna was aware of the circumstances of her incarceration and that she still wanted to meet. In the interest of keeping the visit short and giving Anna an easy out if she felt she needed it, Ben had suggested they meet at the coffee shop next to the Big Foods store where Jennifer worked. This would define the boundaries of the encounter, ensuring it would last no longer than half an hour, which was the length of Jennifer’s lunch break.

  Now Anna sat in the coffee shop, Kelly asleep in her stroller beside her, wondering if she hadn’t made a mistake. There was no reason Anna needed to meet this woman. Their family tie had been broken years ago. Given what she’d done to her father, Anna had every reason to go the rest of her life without ever acknowledging the woman who gave birth to her.

  “Calm down.”

  Ben placed two cups of steaming tea on the small table. Winter had hit the East Coast full force this past weekend. Not only was the ground covered with a couple inches of snow, but it also felt as though the temperature had dropped again.

  “I shouldn’t have brought the baby out. It’s too cold. What if it starts snowing? We shouldn’t be on the road. We should have rescheduled.”

  Ben pointed to the sleeping child. “She’s wearing fifteen layers of clothing. She would be comfortably warm in the Arctic right now. There is no prediction for snow in the forecast. You’re only nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous,” Anna lied, even as her leg jiggled under the table. “I mean, she’s probably more nervous to see me than I am her, right? Do you think I’ll remember what she looks like?”

  “I don’t know. Six is young, but maybe not too young.”

  “Right.”

  The door to the shop opened, but a man walked in rubbing his hands as if to reinforce Anna’s concern that she’d brought her seven-week-old baby
out in horrible, freezing conditions. Was this an indication she was a bad mother?

  “Do you want me to distract you?”

  That probably wouldn’t happen, but she liked that he made the offer. “Go for it.”

  “I’ve decided it’s time for us to consummate our marriage.”

  That did get her attention. As soon as she’d agreed to his proposal he hadn’t wasted any time. Two days later he arranged for a civil ceremony at their home. Having connections helped and Ben had connections everywhere. The mayor of Philadelphia had officiated, with Mark and Greg from the office in attendance. Sophie had also come and offered to hold the baby for the duration of the ceremony. Since it had lasted only ten minutes, the girl had been a little put out. The one thing that seemed to break her out of her perpetually bad mood was Kelly. Mark offered her services as a baby sitter any time Ben and Anna needed her. For his own selfish reasons, he admitted.

  So while Ben and Anna had been married now for nearly seven weeks, sex hadn’t been an option. Anna was still healing from the C-section. And beyond that, not getting more than two hours of sleep at any given stretch during the night had put a damper on both their sex drives.

  It was scary how easily they fell into the routine of living together. Anna remembered at one point thinking that she wasn’t cut out for a real relationship, but the reality of living in one hadn’t proven to be a challenge at all.

  Ben was doing only half days at the office and spending the rest of his time with her and Kelly. They traded off feedings and did their best to let the other get as much prolonged sleep as they could. But their child’s lungs were overdeveloped and trying to sleep through her cries when she was in full throttle hungry mode was nearly impossible.

  They laughed at their baby bungles. They were in awe of every tiny milestone. Today’s had been Kelly pushing her tongue out through her little mouth.