Father to Be

by Marilyn Pappano

  He didn’t head toward Alanna’s right away. Instead, he walked all the way to the end of Sixth Street. He liked living in the country, but it was nice living in town too. At least in town, going places was no big deal. There wasn’t anywhere in Bethlehem that he couldn’t walk in less’n half the time it took him to walk from his house to the edge of town. If he had any reason to go to the store and the money to spend there, he could go and be back in no time. If the kids wanted to go to the library, he could take ’em without having to wait for a grown-up, and if he had any friends …

  Make ’em, the welfare lady said as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Maybe it was for her. She was pretty and smart, and her family couldn’t have been poor if they’d gone to the beach every summer. But he didn’t know how to make friends. He didn’t even know where to start. Besides, kids didn’t want to be friends with him, and he’d rather not even try than have ’em say so again.

  It hurt too much.

  Wiping his eyes, he turned left and walked two blocks to Fourth, then turned left again. As he walked, he saw some kids playing outside their houses, but mostly they were little kids, Noah’s and Gracie’s age. He didn’t see anyone his age and figured they were all inside watching TV or playing video games or doing stuff on their computers, or they were off on vacation somewhere, maybe at the beach. He wouldn’t mind a trip to the beach. Maybe, if his dad ever come back, he’d take them.

  Hearing his own words echo in his head, he stopped right where he was. If his dad ever come back? Of course he would. He’d promised! He’d come, and he would know that everybody else had doubted him except Caleb. He’d know that Caleb had always believed in him—always.

  A honk from a car’s horn made him jump, then someone yelled, “Caleb Brown, get out of the street!”

  Startled, he noticed the car that had stopped for him to cross the street, then he realized he was right by the Winchesters’ house. Right where he’d wanted to come. It was Alanna who yelled at him, and he looked like an idiot. As usual.

  The lady in the car waved for him to go on, and his feet obeyed without his mind telling them to. He stepped onto the curb and faced Alanna, standing at the edge of the yard, holding a baby on one hip.

  “Are you trying to get killed or something?” she asked, sounding like she did whenever she bossed around Josie or Brendan.

  “I was thinking,” he said defensively.

  “About getting hit by a car?”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he scowled at her. For a moment she scowled back, then slowly she began to smile.

  “Come sit down.” She sat at one end of the glider, with him at the other. There was a baby bottle and a cloth diaper for wiping the baby’s mouth in the middle. “I was hoping someone would come by. Miss Agatha took the kids to the library for story hour, and it gets awful quiet when they’re not around.”

  “Why didn’t you go with them?”

  “It’s for little kids.” She shrugged. “I saw Gracie and your brothers with Dr. J.D. when he picked up Buddy to go to the nursing home. Why didn’t you go with them?”

  “Didn’t want to.”

  She looked at him, and he could feel that she was staring at his mouth. Even though it was still sore, he pressed his lips together and looked away.

  “Did you get in bad trouble over what happened at the church?”

  “Not really.”

  “I told Dr. J.D. it wasn’t your fault.”

  Still staring away, Caleb shrugged. “He didn’t care whose fault it was. He didn’t care at all.”

  “He was worried,” she said softly, and he looked at her again.

  “Not about me.”

  She looked as though she were gonna argue with him, but she didn’t. Instead, she started bouncing the baby on her lap. The baby looked like Gracie and Noah did when they were babies, with brown hair and great big eyes, and chewing on things and drooling all over. “What’s his name?”

  “Mike. Well, that’s what Uncle Nathan and I call him. Aunt Emilie calls him Michael, and Josie and Brendan call him Mikey. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t answer to any of them, do you, Mike?”

  He reached across the bench, and the baby latched on to his finger, curling his fingers around it while chewing on his other hand. “I used to take care of Noah and Gracie when they were this little, changed their diapers, fed ’em, rocked ’em to sleep.”

  “What did your mom do?”

  “Not much. She used to say she wasn’t the motherly type.”

  “Do you remember much about her?”

  Caleb thought about it a moment. He mostly remembered the fights she’d started with his dad. She’d always wanted to go somewhere, do something, spend money. She’d blamed his dad for them being poor, but she hadn’t worked. She’d always said she couldn’t have a job because of the brats—that was what she’d usually called them—but what work was done around the house and with the kids was mostly done by Caleb and his dad.

  The truth was, his mom had been lazy, selfish, and mean. There wasn’t much nice to remember about her, but he didn’t tell Alanna that. He just shook his head. “I don’t remember a lot about her. But I know everything about my dad.”

  “Except where he is now,” Alanna said. Right away her face turned red, as though she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  “He’s coming back,” he said fiercely.

  “I hope he does,” she said, then asked, “How long has he been gone?”

  He didn’t want to answer, because he knew what she’d say, but he did anyway. “Fifty-eight days.”

  “Wow. That’s almost two months. That’s a long time, Caleb.”

  “But he’s coming back.” He said each word with as much confidence as he could find.

  “If he doesn’t—”

  “He will!”

  “But if something happens that he doesn’t …” She shrugged. “At least you got Dr. J.D. You got a nice place to live with someone who’ll take good care of you.”

  “We’re not staying with him. This is just temporary.”

  “Maybe. But I heard the grown-ups talking and they said you’d probably live with Dr. J.D. for a long time. Maybe till you were grown-up.”

  Caleb snatched his hand back, making the baby screw up his face, and jumped to his feet. “We’re not staying with him! He don’t like us, and we don’t like him.”

  “Everyone likes him but you,” she said, lifting Mike to her shoulder and patting his back to keep him quiet. “Gracie does, and Noah, and even Jacob. They already call his dad Grandpa. Before long they’ll be wanting to call him Dad.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about! They’ll never call him that, not ever! And we won’t stay with him! Anyplace would be better than with him! Living alone in the woods and going hungry would be better than with him, and if you weren’t so stupid, you’d know that!”

  She gave him that really-mad look that meant he’d gone too far. “I’m not stupid. I’m not the one who got held back a grade because he wasn’t smart enough to go on to the next one. Why don’t you go live alone in the woods and be hungry? Why don’t you just go back to your little old house and sneak into town to steal food from other people, or just go hungry till you die? Nobody’d care. But Jacob and Noah and Gracie won’t go with you, ’cause they like being clean and having food and nice clothes and a nice house and a nice father who doesn’t go off and abandon them, like your father did.”

  Breathing hard and clenching his fists, Caleb stared at her. He wanted to hit— Not her. His dad had told him that boys don’t ever hit girls, no matter what. But he wanted to hit something, wanted to hit and hit until he couldn’t hit anymore. But since there was nothing around to punch, he settled instead for the meanest voice he could manage. “I hate you.”

  She blinked, then held Mike closer. When she answered, her voice wasn’t mean at all. It was just sad. “I feel sorry for you, Caleb.”

  “You’re not my friend!” he accused Alanna.


  “No,” she agreed. “I’m not.” And then she stood up and took the baby inside. She didn’t even look back at him, not once.

  When the screen door closed, Caleb stomped off down the sidewalk. He crossed Fifth Street, then Sixth, and kept on going, hands in his pockets, head ducked down. At first he was just real mad because she was stupid and said such stupid things. But finally he admitted that what he really was was afraid. He was afraid Alanna was right, afraid that the kids would want Grayson to be their new dad, that his dad really might not come back, that nobody would care if he went off by himself, that she really wasn’t his friend. He was afraid that everybody was right and his dad had just decided he didn’t want them anymore. There was no law that said moms and dads had to love their kids or want them or live with them. Their mom had stopped loving them and left more than two years ago. Maybe their dad had too.

  “Hey, look,” a voice called out. “It’s dumb Caleb Brown.”

  Raising his head, he realized that he’d passed the edge of town. The nearest house was a hundred feet behind him. The street went another fifty feet ahead, then ended at a pile of dirt and a wood fence. Between him and that pile of dirt was Kenny Howard and Garth, and their friends were circling around behind him.

  He could probably outrun all of them, but he didn’t feel like running. He felt like hitting something, like making something hurt as bad as he did. He felt like causing trouble—for himself, for Kenny and Garth.

  And especially for Grayson.

  “I’m sorry, son.”

  J.D. stood on the porch, hands in his hip pockets, and stared down the driveway. “He’s been gone only two and a half hours. That’s not so long for a kid his age.”

  Bud sighed heavily. “I thought—”

  “You thought he could be trusted. It’s not your fault. If I’d been here, I would have let him go too.”

  “Does he have any friends he might visit?”

  “No. Just Alanna, and I saw her when I took Buddy home. He wasn’t with her.”

  “Do you think he might go back to his house?”

  “Maybe. Why don’t you wait with the kids in case he comes back, and I’ll check out there.” He offered his father a smile that wasn’t nearly as reassuring as he’d intended, then headed down the stairs.

  Leave it to Caleb to cap off with his disappearing act what had been a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. The kids had had a great time at the nursing home, entertained more than a few of his patients, and reveled in all the attention paid them. J.D. had been proud of the way they’d behaved themselves, and he’d come home in a good mood, looking forward to dinner with the whole bunch, looking forward even more to seeing Kelsey, only to walk into the apartment and find Caleb gone and Bud pacing the floor.

  He climbed into his truck and drove to the end of the drive. There, movement in the rearview mirror caught his attention—Caleb, cutting across Mrs. Larrabee’s yard. He backed into his parking space, then jumped out, reaching the bottom of the stairs just as the door slammed at the top.

  The house was unnaturally silent when J.D. got inside. Bud and the younger kids were spaced along the hallway—one in the kitchen, one in the dining room, and two in the living room. With a nod Bud gestured toward the kids’ room, and J.D. started in that direction. Before he got there, the door opened and Caleb came out, carrying clean clothes. His hair was disheveled, his face red and damp with sweat.

  J.D. blocked his way. “Where have you been?”

  “Out.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t have to answer to you,” Caleb said with a sneer.

  “As long as you live in my house, you most certainly do. What have you been up to, Caleb?”

  The boy fixed his gaze somewhere around J.D.’s feet. “Nothing.”

  “What happened to your shirt? How’d you get so dirty?”

  He stuck out his lower lip and didn’t answer.

  “Don’t play games with me, Caleb. I can outlast you anytime. I’ll stand here all night if necessary.”

  “You do whatever the hell you want.” Caleb spun around, intending to return to his room, but J.D. grabbed his shoulder. The kid spun around again, dropped his clothes, and hit J.D. square in the chest with both hands, shoving him against the wall. “Leave me alone! And don’t touch me!” he shrieked. “You aren’t my boss! You’re nobody! Just leave me alone!” Then he ran into his room, slamming the door hard enough to vibrate the wall against J.D.’s back.

  “Leave him be,” Bud advised, but J.D. ignored his father. He followed Caleb into the bedroom, giving the door a good slam.

  “Listen up, Caleb,” he said angrily, facing the boy from across the room. “You’re pissed off because your father’s gone. We all know that. We’ve all made allowances for you because of that. But I’ve had enough. You can be as angry as you damn well please, but you won’t behave like that in my house. You won’t talk to me like that in my house. Because if you do, if you continue your poor-little-Caleb act, you’re going to find yourself doing it someplace else, without your brothers or your sister or me for an audience. Do you understand?”

  Caleb stared at him, his face white, his eyes filled with rage. “You can’t tell me what to do!” he screamed. “You’re not my dad and you never will be! I hate you! I hate you, and I wish you were dead!”

  The words, the hatred, reverberated in the air, twisting around and through J.D. He’d heard them before, at a time when he’d been too devastated to endure them. That time they had almost destroyed him. This time they brought back all that pain, all that bleak hopelessness he’d foolishly thought he had escaped.

  After a moment of utter stillness he took a breath. When nothing shattered, he took one more, then another, until he trusted that he could speak, could move, could function in spite of the ache inside. “You’ll spend the rest of the evening in this room,” he said quietly. “You’ll eat your dinner here, and then you’ll go to bed. I don’t want to hear you or see you or even know you’re here before tomorrow morning.” Then he walked out of the room, closed the door quietly, and simply stood there a moment.

  Down the hall, Gracie whimpered and Jacob, on his knees with his arms around her, harshly told her to hush. Noah stood motionless and afraid. Bud stood behind him, hands on his shoulders, and also looked afraid.

  I hate you, and I wish you were dead! With the raw, ugly hurt of the words clawing through him, J.D. started down the hall.

  “Son—”

  He raised one trembling hand. “It’s okay, Dad. Listen, I’m going out for a while. Can you feed the kids and make sure they get to bed on time?”

  “Of course I can. But, son—”

  “Caleb’s grounded. I don’t want him out of his room for any reason but going to the bathroom. I won’t be gone long. Don’t worry.”

  “J.D.—”

  Forcing a smile that was as unsteady as he was, he walked out the door and down the stairs to the truck. He didn’t open the door though, didn’t climb inside and start the powerful engine. Behind the wheel of a car was no place to be when you were less than a hundred percent in control. He’d learned that lesson in Chicago.

  Instead, he started walking. He had no destination in mind other than away. That had been his goal with Trey too, and he’d run all the way here. To Bethlehem, where Caleb Brown had been just waiting for the chance to echo Trey’s words, his anger, his hatred.

  You’re not my dad and you never will be! I hate you, and I wish you were dead!

  They were just words from a twelve-year-old boy. He was angry. He didn’t mean them.

  But words were never just words. They were the most powerful tools people had at their disposal. They could hurt, heal, destroy, or save. Once spoken, they could be forgiven, maybe even forgotten, but they could never be taken back. They were always there, always waiting for a weak moment to ease back into your mind, or for an angry moment to flood back with all their power, all their hurt, intact.

  Those words had broken his heart on
ce. They threatened to do it again.

  And he didn’t even know why. Caleb meant little to him. He was an obligation, a responsibility J.D. had taken on for a while. He was a royal pain in the butt, nothing but trouble, and he wasn’t special, not the way Trey was. Caleb was just somebody he’d thought he could help, but obviously he’d been wrong. He didn’t even like the kid, and he wouldn’t be sorry to see the last of him.

  And if he told himself that another dozen or so times, he admitted with a sigh, he might begin to believe it. Caleb was special. Not the way Trey was, granted, but there would never be another Trey.

  But there was something about Caleb … His devotion to his brothers and sister. His unwavering faith in his father. The vulnerable young boy inside who was so hungry for love and acceptance, and the belligerent, hostile youth outside that protected him from admitting just how fierce that hunger was.

  Caleb was worth saving, worth loving, but maybe J.D. wasn’t the one meant to do it. Maybe, as with Trey, he was doing more harm than good. Maybe the best thing he could do for the boy was admit that, turn him back over to the state, and keep his distance.

  Maybe.

  After a time he realized that he’d stopped walking and took a look around. He was on the south edge of town, in front of one of Bethlehem’s three bars. One was quite respectable, one quite disreputable. This one was in between.

  A slight breeze blew from behind the building, bringing with it the aromas of fried food, cigarette smoke, and, barely noticeable under the stronger odors, the faint scent of alcohol. The place had a reputation for serving cold beer, greasy burgers, and the best onion rings in town, but J.D. couldn’t vouch for it. He’d never set foot inside.

  Tonight he was tempted.

  He measured the distance from where he stood to the front door. Twenty feet, five or six strides, a couple of seconds.

  And the distance back? Immeasurable. Impossible.

  A soothing feminine voice came from behind him. “If you’re looking for dinner, you can do better than the grease-laden junk this place serves. And if you’re looking for a friend or a little peace from your troubles, you won’t find either in there. All that waits for you through that door is heartache.”