The Good Father

by Diane Chamberlain

  “You keep looking at your watch,” Judith said to me. She was dressed in one of her usual outfits—a brightly colored, flowy top and long skirt. She always looked like a rainbow.

  “I do?” I said, as though I didn’t know I was repeatedly checking the time. “I have a dentist appointment.”

  I liked Judith. Actually, I thought I loved her. I knew that was called transference. She’d become my mother and my sister and my best friend, all rolled into one. Judith let me talk and talk and talk. When Michael and my friends were sick of hearing me describe what happened that night, sick of hearing me say Why? Why? Why?, Judith listened. She would listen forever if she needed to, and that’s what I loved about her. She loved adages and always ended our session with one. Sometimes the best way to hold on to something is to let it go, she’d say. I hated that one, because I didn’t agree with it. I would never, never let Carolyn go. To know the road ahead, ask those who are coming back, she’d say. That one, I liked. It made me think of the Harley’s Dad group, how the parents who’d been grieving years longer than me were helping me survive the journey.

  Judith had suggested I bring in pictures of Carolyn, something I still wasn’t ready to do, and she thought it was fine that I didn’t want to change Carolyn’s room. She made me feel not crazy, while Michael and my friends made me feel as though I was grieving the wrong way. Ruminating, as Michael would say.

  But there was one thing I didn’t feel ready to talk to Judith about in any depth and that was how I was feeling about Bella and Travis. I wasn’t sure why. I’d known Bella and Travis for ten days now and I was so afraid she’d say it was unhealthy that I was growing attached to a child who was essentially a stranger to me. I just didn’t feel like examining my feelings about Bella with Judith. Not yet. Which is why I lied about my reason for checking my watch. Judith believed me about the dentist appointment; I could tell she did. But I’d never been a comfortable liar and the guilt finally did me in.

  “I just lied to you,” I said.

  “What about?”

  “I don’t have a dentist appointment. I’m just…I’m afraid to tell you why I’m in a rush today.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “It’s that… You know how I hang out in that coffee shop every morning?”

  She nodded.

  “I told you about that man and his daughter who came in about a week or so ago?”

  She nodded. I’d mentioned Bella and Travis to her, but that was before my feelings for them had mushroomed into something that seemed out of my control. “Well, they come in every morning now. The little girl—her name is Bella—is four.”

  “The age Carolyn would be now.”

  “Right. And I…” I straightened my wedding rings on my finger. They’d gotten so loose. “I like seeing her. Talking to her.” Holding her. “I’ll be getting there late this morning and I don’t want to miss getting to see her.”

  “You’ve avoided your friends’ children,” Judith said. “You’ve said it’s too hard to be around them. Why is this different?”

  I thought about it. “I’m not sure,” I said. “With my friends, we were always doing things together. My friends and their kids and Carolyn and me, so now when I’m with them it’s uncomfortable for me and I can tell it is for them, too. Our kids were what we had in common. I don’t think they want me there. But with Travis…he has no idea about Carolyn. He doesn’t know I have…had a child. So it’s just easier. And the little girl is nothing like Carolyn, really. She doesn’t look like her. She’s not as outgoing and chatty and happy-go-lucky as Carolyn was. She’s adorable, though.” I smiled. “She carries this stuffed lamb around with her and a little pink purse. I think they may actually be homeless, though I’m not positive. I’m worried about…” I stopped. Took in a deep breath. “I’m rambling,” I said.

  “You can ramble in here anytime you like,” Judith said.

  “The past few days, when I get up in the morning, I’m actually looking forward to something,” I said. “But that’s sick, isn’t it? They’re strangers to me.”

  “Connecting with other people isn’t sick,” Judith said. “And they’re no longer strangers, either. Are you interested in this man? Travis?”

  Her question took me by surprise and I laughed. “No, not at all! He’s half my age. Well, I mean, he’s in his early twenties. Hot, though. Very hot. If I were twenty and single, yes, I’d be interested. At least physically, but as I said, he seems hard up. He’s trying to find a job and everything keeps falling through for him. I feel sorry for him and worried about Bella.” I looked at my watch again.

  “Are you worried this is becoming an obsession?” Judith asked.

  I shook my head, but thought, Yes, it’s becoming an obsession, and no, I wasn’t worried about it. I welcomed it.

  Judith leaned forward, a small smile on her lips. “Do you remember when I said you’d know you’re beginning to heal when you start looking forward to something with happy anticipation?”

  “Well, this is not exactly happy anticipation,” I said. “It’s just…” I shrugged, my voice trailing off. It was the word happy that got me. I couldn’t let myself be happy about anything. It felt wrong somehow.

  “Do you want to end early?” Judith asked.

  I nodded.

  She smiled again. “All right,” she said, “but here’s your adage for the week.”

  I reached for my purse and stood up. “What?”

  “Honor the past, but live in the present.”

  “Right, okay,” I said, the words barely registering as I rushed out the door.

  * * *

  Minutes later, I sat in the leather chair at JumpStart, trying to read the morning’s posts from the Harley’s Dad group, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept glancing through the windows of the coffee shop to the parking lot, watching for them. It was after ten. Where were they? They’d been here by this time every morning, and with each passing minute, my heart sank deeper in my chest. I looked down at my iPad. SadMamma had posted that her in-laws were coming to town tomorrow and she was dreading it. Mom-of-Five wondered if she might be pregnant and didn’t know whether to hope that she was or wasn’t.

  I spotted them outside. Travis was walking quickly toward the Jumpstart entrance, holding Bella’s hand as she trotted next to him, her skinny little legs trying to keep up with him. I felt a smile spread across my face as he pushed open the door and both he and Bella immediately looked in my direction. I waved, so relieved to see them. Happy anticipation. Yes, there was no other way to describe what I’d been feeling.

  “Hey,” Travis said when he and Bella reached the circle of worn leather furniture where I always sat. He was holding a small bunch of flowers at his side. I noticed the two young women sitting at a table near the window eying him up and down, then whispering to each other. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Good.” I smiled at Bella. “Good morning, honey.” I reached out to touch her arm. “How are you today?”

  Bella leaned against Travis’s leg, her ragged stuffed lamb clutched to her chest and the pink purse dangling from her wrist. “We had Tic Tacs for breakfast,” she said.

  “Well, we’ll get something a little better here,” Travis said. He smoothed his hand over her messy brown hair and I wondered, as I had every morning, if that hair was ever combed. I wanted to smooth her too-long bangs off her forehead.

  “Did you?” I asked. “Were they yummy?”

  She nodded. Her nose was a little runny as usual, the skin beneath it raw, and I had to stop myself from reaching out with my napkin to clean her up.

  “We need to use the bathroom, don’t we, Bell?” Travis asked. “You’ll be here a minute?”

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “These are for you.” Travis reached toward me with the fistful of wildflowers. “Bella picked them for you this morning.”

  “How pretty!” I looked into Travis’s clear gray eyes as I took the loose bouquet from him.
I knew why he was giving the flowers to me—it was the only way he could say thank you for the twenty-dollar bill I’d slipped into Bella’s pocket. I put the flowers on the coffee table. “Thank you, Bella,” I said.

  “Looks like Miss Erin has a new book to read you.” Travis nodded toward Winnie the Pooh, where it rested on the table next to my chair.

  “I got to go potty, Daddy,” Bella said.

  “Right.” Travis reached for her hand again. “We’ll be back in a sec,” he said to me.

  I watched them walk toward the men’s room, where I knew they’d be a long time, as they were each morning. It was their routine, just like mine was sitting in this brown leather chair with my coffee and iPad and the Harley’s Dad group. Next week, I’d be going back to work and I’d miss seeing Travis and Bella more than I could say. I didn’t even want to think about it.

  When they returned, I moved the book from my lap to the arm of the chair. “I think you’re going to love this one, Bella,” I said, holding my arms toward her. She stepped into them so easily now and I lifted her up and set her on my lap. This was the third day in a row I’d read to her, the third day I’d been able to hold her like this and feel her rib cage beneath my hands and smell the little girl musk of her hair. The third day I’d fought the burn of tears in my eyes.

  “I’m going to grab my coffee and our muffin,” Travis said. “Can I get you anything, Erin?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. He asked me this every day even though I always said no. “I picked up an OJ for Bella,” I added, pointing at the carton on the end table. Buying her orange juice was getting to be a habit. Travis glanced at the carton and I thought he was going to protest, but then he gave a little nod.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  I began reading to Bella. She rested her head against my chest in a way that took my breath away.

  “That’s bumblebees!” She interrupted my reading to point to an illustration of bees.

  “Right,” I said. “Do you know what they make?”

  “Bzzzzz,” she said.

  “That’s the sound they make.” I smiled. “But they make a kind of food, too—”

  “Honey!”

  “Right. And Winnie the Pooh loves honey,” I said, and then went back to reading the story.

  Travis returned with a small cardboard cup of coffee for himself, a plastic cup of water for Bella and a blueberry muffin I knew he’d split with Bella, as he did every day.

  The young women by the window glanced in his direction again. The blonde fanned her face as though she was burning up, and her friend laughed.

  “Come over here to eat your muffin so you don’t get it all over Miss Erin,” Travis said to Bella when I’d finished reading the first chapter.

  “Oh, she’s fine here,” I said. “Just set the water on the table.”

  I was surprised when Travis handed Bella the entire muffin on a napkin. It was the first time I hadn’t seen him split it. She’d probably spill crumbs all over my yoga pants, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hold her as long as she’d let me. My happy anticipation. I rubbed her back lightly and she leaned into my touch.

  “So, just a couple more days till you go back to work?” Travis sipped his coffee, looking at me over the top of the cup.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said.

  “Do you ever feel, you know, tempted being around all those drugs all the time?” Travis asked.

  My glance was sharp and for the first time I wondered if he might be an addict. It would explain his slender frame. His lack of money. But I didn’t think so. It didn’t fit with what I’d learned about him in the past week and a half, and I just plain liked him too much to believe it. Yet how well did I really know him?

  “Not even a little bit,” I said, although that was a teeny tiny lie. That one day I’d gone back to work, the narcotics had had an appeal to me they’d never had before. I could take a handful of them and the pain would go away. “And please don’t tell me you would be tempted,” I said to him. I held Bella a little tighter.

  “No way,” he said. “It’s not my thing.” His grin was familiar, but I realized there was something different about him today. He seemed a little wired, bouncing his knee up and down and tapping his fingers on the arm of the leather couch. I wanted to ask him if he had any job leads, but he had to be tired of me asking that question. As if reading my mind, though, he took another swallow of his coffee, then said, “I’ve got another interview today.”

  “Great!” I said. “You found something on Craigslist?”

  “No, my friend came through,” he said, tapping his fingers faster. “I hope this one works out.”

  “Oh, me too, Travis.” Maybe I could help him find child care. Maybe one of my old friends knew someone in the area. “I guess it’s in construction? Is it for a business? Or residential? Or—”

  “I’ve got the info in my van,” he said, standing up suddenly. “Can you watch Bella a sec and I’ll go get it? I can tell you the address and maybe you can tell me how to get there.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He hesitated a moment, then leaned over, cupping Bella’s head with his hands and pressing his lips to her temple. His face was close to mine, but he turned his head away quickly and walked to the door. The young women by the window stared after him as he walked down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building toward the parking lot.

  “Read some more?” Bella asked, her palm on the cover of the book. “Please?”

  I opened the book and read for about ten minutes, wondering what was taking Travis so long. I read another chapter, my mind only half on the story, my worry mounting. I kept glancing through the windows at the sidewalk. This was a little weird.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Bella asked finally, looking toward the door. I checked my watch. It had been twenty-five minutes, at least. The two women stood up and left.

  “Maybe he got sidetracked,” I said, closing the book. “Let’s go see if we can find him.”

  Bella held my hand—oh, that feeling!—and we walked out to the sidewalk and around the corner of the building where I’d seen Travis disappear. There were rows upon rows of cars in the massive parking lot and I realized I had no idea what his looked like. A van, he’d said. I walked with Bella down the first row of vehicles, then the next. “What color is your Daddy’s van?” I asked Bella.

  “White,” she said. “Its name is Moby Dick.”

  “Like the white whale?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  There were no white vans. One white pickup, but I didn’t think that was it. “I guess he had to run an errand,” I said.

  “What’s an errand?”

  “Go to the store.”

  Bella looked toward the endless sea of stores that lined the parking lot. He could be anywhere. I had no idea what to do. I looked at my watch again. He’d been gone close to an hour now. This is unreal, I thought. I felt as if I were in a dream, one with the potential to turn into a nightmare. The whole world felt out of kilter. The sky was an unnatural blue. The sun bounced off the sidewalk in sharp bursts of light. And the shapes of the cars in the parking lot ran together in a multicolored sea of metal.

  The only thing that felt real to me was the trusting little hand in mine.

  24

  Robin

  2007

  When I woke up—fully woke up—a few days after my heart transplant, I had two memories. One was of a view from the ceiling of the operating room, looking down at the doctors frantically working over my open, bloody chest. I remembered feeling calm and curious as I watched them. I wanted to tell them how peaceful I felt, because they seemed so scared down there. The second memory was less clear. My father’s voice came to me through a haze of beeping machines and the hiss of the ventilator. Against my ear, I felt the rough material of the mask he had to wear in my room. The baby never happened, he whispered to me, like a hypnotist. Put it all behind you, Robin. That part of your life never happened.

  As
the nurses helped me sit up, both memories slipped out of my head at the same moment, leaving me with a searing pain in my breastbone, a foggy brain and the realization that my life had changed forever.

  Over the next couple of weeks, I learned that by the time a heart had been found for me, I’d only had days to live and that I actually had died in the operating room, but they were able to get me back. My surgeon’s face went white when I told him I’d watched the whole thing from the ceiling, but by then I wasn’t sure if I’d made it up or not.

  I started rehab, which was grueling and painful and amazing, because my heartbeat was so steady and my breathing improved each day. My father came to the live-in rehab center nearly every day to encourage me. I felt as though whatever anger I’d had toward him had left with my old heart. This new one seemed pure and open, ready for me to fill it with new experiences. New emotions.

  One day, a couple of months into my rehab, Daddy walked me back to my room. That wasn’t unusual, but his quietness and the way he tightly cupped my elbow was, and I had the feeling something was up. Sure enough, when we were nearly to my room, he put his arm around me.

  “I need to tell you something, Robin,” he said, his hand gently massaging my shoulder. “I wasn’t going to tell you at all, but the social worker thinks you need to know. She said if I didn’t tell you, she would, so we’ll discuss it just this once and then never again, all right?”

  I stopped walking, suddenly worried. Was something wrong with my new heart? “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  He nudged me toward my room and I walked ahead of him inside, then turned to face him. He looked past me, toward the window. He didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye. I thought it was good my roommate wasn’t there because something was definitely wrong. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s about the baby,” he said.

  From the time I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant to the time I woke up from my heart transplant, I’d had almost zero awareness of anything going on around me. I had no memory of that baby being taken from my body. I’d never seen her. Never cared about seeing her. “Is she all right?” I asked.