The Good Father

“Hey,” she said. “I’m Savannah. Your next-door neighbor.”

“Cool.” I moved forward to shake her hand. “I’m Travis and this is Bella.” I squeezed Bella’s shoulder and she wrapped one arm around my leg, the other holding the bag of shells.

“Hey, Bella.” Savannah squatted down, giving me a really nice view of her breasts. “Welcome to the neighborhood, honey,” she said. “What do you have in the bag?”

I expected Bella to pull away from her. It usually took her a while to warm up to strangers. But instead, she opened the tote bag and let Savannah peek inside. I wondered if Savannah reminded her of the long-haired doll she carried around in her pink purse.

“Shells!” Savannah’s eyes lit up and she actually sat down on the ratty thin carpet, cross-legged, and patted the spot next to her. “Will you show me? I love shells.”

Okay, I thought. This is finally a stroke of luck. I could have gotten a trailer next door to a crazy old dude who walked around in his undershirt and had a thing for little girls. Instead I was living next to a hot girl who had a way with kids.

“The Beetle is yours?” I asked as Bella took out the rest of her shells and showed them to Savannah, one by one.

“Uh-huh.” Savannah didn’t look at me. Her attention was on Bella and she said nice things about each shell. “I’ve been living here three months and I’m glad to finally have a neighbor. I mean a real neighbor. There were plenty of people over the summer.” She rolled her eyes. “Too many. But now that the season’s over, it’s lonely here.”

“Do you … I mean, why are you living here?”

“I waitressed during the summer and I’m taking a couple of night classes now. Cosmetology. And I need a cheap place to live and this is about as cheap as it gets.”

I laughed. “Tell me about it.”

Okay, so she wasn’t a rocket scientist, but neither was I. Although at one time, I’d had higher expectations of myself. Those days were gone.

“I wanted to invite you and Bella over for dinner.” She got to her feet and dusted off her hands. “Just mac and cheese, if that’s okay.”

Bella drew in a quick breath. She was still sitting on the floor and she looked up at me with a little smile. Damn, she was cute. I grinned at her. “Mac and cheese work for you, Bella?” I asked. It was her favorite, and she nodded.

“What time?” I asked Savannah.

“Six?”

“Excellent. We’ll settle in. Maybe one of us will take a little nap.”

We exchanged phone numbers and I didn’t tell her I probably wouldn’t have my phone much longer. I hadn’t been able to pay the last bill. I thought about the magnetic signs I had on the sides of my van: Brown Construction, with my phone number below it. I wasn’t taking those signs down, no matter what. I had a thing about them. They were more than just magnetized plastic to me. My dad had had Brown Plumbing signs on the sides of his truck, and when I put my own up, I thought about how he must have felt about those signs. Proud to have his own business. Proud to have a way to support us, the way I’d supported Bella and my mom before the economy totally tanked. What use would those signs be if I had no phone, though?

Savannah’s trailer was a step up from mine, which wasn’t saying much, but you could feel a girly touch when you walked inside. First, it smelled a lot better, between the macaroni and cheese cooking and some other scent. A candle, maybe. Second, she’d put some nicer rugs on top of the old carpeting. Maybe I could do that, too, when I got some money. Third, she’d thrown this gold-striped fabric over the couch along with a bunch of pillows, and there were lamps all over the place. It just felt homey. I could see into the second room, where her bed had a bunch of pillows on it, too, and a yellow quilt. There was one thing that bugged me, though, and that was a bong sitting out on her kitchen counter. I didn’t do drugs. I was even careful with booze. Maybe I messed with it a little after things went south with Robin, but once I had a kid to raise, I cooled it. I didn’t care if Savannah smoked weed. It was no big deal, but the bong right out in the open like that with Bella there … well, I didn’t like it. But I was liking her well enough. She’d changed into a skimpy dress. No bra. She was so thin she didn’t need one, but the fabric of her dress hugged her nipples and I was having trouble keeping my eyes on her face. She’d taken her hair out of the ponytail and it was very long and gold. Smooth and silky. The kind of hair you’d see on a shampoo commercial. I wanted to touch it. Just grab a big fistful of it in my hand.

I needed to slow the hell down.

“Thanks for asking us over,” I said. “I didn’t have a chance to go to the store yet.”

“I know what moving day’s like,” she said. She reached into the fridge, pulled out a beer, uncapped it and handed it to me. “What about for Bella?” she asked. “Juice? Milk?”

“Juice,” Bella said. Usually I’d give her the milk, but tonight was a special occasion.

“Please,” I reminded Bella.

“Please,” she said.

Savannah poured some orange juice into a tall plastic cup with a cap and a straw. Perfect.

“You act like you understand kids,” I said as I settled Bella at the table with a puzzle I’d brought with me so she wouldn’t get bored. She loved puzzles and this one had Cinderella on it. She loved her princesses.

“Oh, I’ve got a slew of nieces and I volunteered in a day care for a year or so. This age—” she motioned toward Bella “—so adorable. The best. Still innocent, you know?”

I nodded, but I was thinking about what she said. She’d worked in a day care? Was there a chance I’d stumbled across not only the hottest neighbor a man could hope for but child care, as well?

Savannah pulled a bunch of salad stuff out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter, then seemed to notice the bong and quietly moved it inside one of the lower cabinets. I didn’t say a thing except, “Can I help?”

We worked together in the kitchen, talking about where we were from—me, from right there in Carolina Beach; her, from Kinston—and did a little “Do you know so and so?” but we definitely moved in different circles. I told her about the fire and she stopped chopping celery to look at me. She rested her hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Travis,” she said. She glanced at Bella, who was quietly working on her puzzle. “This must completely suck for both of you.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

She still had her hand on my shoulder and she lowered it, running it down the length of my arm, slipping her fingers into my palm. She was coming on to me. I hadn’t had any kind of long-term relationship since Bella came into my life. I didn’t want one now, either. It would just confuse things. But I could use someone to sleep with. That I couldn’t deny, and the way she’d touched me let me know she knew what she was doing. She would be as good in bed as she looked.

I focused on the lettuce to keep my wits about me. “The thing is,” I said, “I really need to get work. My final paycheck literally went up in smoke with the house. And if I find work, I need somebody to watch Bella for me. Do you know anyone who does child care?”

She shrugged with a smile. “I know me,” she said. “I’ve had experience. I told you I worked in a day care. My classes are at night and all I do all day right now is hang out. I’d love to watch her.”

“I’d pay you, of course. I mean, as soon as I get work.”

She nodded. “Not easy to find right now, huh?”

I shook my head. “Twenty guys for every job, at least,” I said.

“Well, if you find a job, you’ve got a sitter. Except …” She hesitated, taking a few more chops at the celery. “I have to go out of town sometimes. I have friends I visit in Raleigh when I don’t have class. But I could probably find someone to cover for me then.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking that I wouldn’t want to leave Bella with someone I didn’t know. But then, what did I know about Savannah herself? I should probably ask to speak to the day care where she’d worked, but I was afraid that would sound like an insult. What I knew about Savannah was that she grew up in Kinston and was taking night classes to learn how to do hair or nails or whatever and that she drank beer and smoked enough weed to have a bong on her kitchen counter. I wondered if she did anything heavier than marijuana. I’d keep an eye on how much she drank tonight. What if she had friends who hung out with her at the trailer? I didn’t want a bunch of losers hanging around Bella. I wondered if I was one of the losers now. Maybe that’s what Savannah was thinking.

“Where’s Bella’s mom?” she asked quietly as she dropped the celery into the salad bowl.

“Beaufort,” I said.

“Is she … What’s her name?”

“Robin.”

“Was she unfit or what? How come Bella’s with you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. Robin wasn’t my favorite topic, especially not with someone I didn’t know well.

“Does Bella ever see her?”

“Sure,” I lied. It was none of her business, and the lie seemed the easiest way out of the conversation. “Want me to shred some carrots for the salad?”

“Sure.” Savannah smiled. Touched my arm. “I think Bella’s a lucky little girl to end up with you,” she said.

Over dinner, we did most of our talking to and through Bella, but beneath the table Savannah ran her bare foot up my leg. The first time, she looked at me with a question in her eyes, like “Is this okay? Are we on the same page?” and I gave her a little smile back to let her know it was as okay as it could be, even though I knew hooking up with her might be really stupid. I needed her to take care of Bella more than I needed a lover. But right then, with her foot inching closer to the inside of my thigh, I wasn’t thinking all that much about child care.

We watched a little TV with Bella after dinner, then I settled her down on Savannah’s couch. I didn’t think she’d go right to sleep. It usually took her a while, especially in a strange place, and she was used to me reading to her in bed before lights out. She’d had a ton of books that burned in the fire, but Franny’d given us The Cat in the Hat when we first moved in with her, and Bella didn’t seem to mind hearing it over and over again. Even when we were finished reading, she’d rarely just drift off. She’d ask for water or get up to tell me or my mom something that couldn’t possibly wait until morning and generally wear herself out. But the lack of a nap was working to her advantage tonight. My advantage. I covered her over and watched while she sank into a deep sleep, and as I tucked the light blanket tighter over her shoulders, Savannah leaned over and nuzzled my neck.

I stood up and put my arms around her. “Listen,” I said. “I’m not ready for anything ser—”

“Shh.” She kissed me. “I don’t care about serious,” she said. “I’m all about living in the present moment.” She took my hand and we walked into her bedroom and, for a couple of hours, I forgot about the fire and my lack of a job and just about everything except my body and hers.

9 Robin

ONCE MY BED-AND-BREAKFAST GUESTS WERE well fed and ready to explore Beaufort for the day, I left my assistant, Bridget, to clean up and headed next door to Hendricks House. The fact that, at thirty-three, Dale still lived with his parents had seemed weird to me until I saw his apartment. He had the entire second story to himself with a separate entrance. Once we were married, we’d have a place of our own, of course. Just two weeks ago, a few days before Hannah was born, we’d signed a contract on a small house a block from the water. Or at least Dale had signed the contract. The Beaufort-style bungalow would be in his name until we were married. We’d close in a month and I couldn’t wait to fix it up. I’d still manage the B and B, although Bridget would take over my roomy first-floor apartment and I’d do less of the day-to-day grunt work. If Dale had his way, I wouldn’t be doing any of it. I could be a lady of leisure, he said, just doing volunteer work like his mother. He didn’t like it when I talked about going to school. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a nurse or some kind of medical technician, but I was absolutely certain I’d need more in my life than the garden club and playing golf and tennis, two games I hated to begin with. Dale thought I should just take it easy. He was always worrying about my health. I took a couple of handfuls of pills a day and had to be careful around germs, but I refused to live my life in a bubble the way he wanted me to.

I walked across the driveway that ran between the B and B and Hendricks House and spotted Mollie working in the garden by the front steps. They had a gardener, of course—a bunch of them, actually—who took care of both properties, but the garden that ran the width of the house belonged to Mollie.

“Hi, Mom,” I said as I neared her. She sat back on her heels and adjusted her straw hat to look at me.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Her smile looked a little tired and I guessed that having a baby in the house was taking a toll on everyone’s sleep. I’d started calling Mollie and James Mom and Dad at their insistence right after Dale and I announced our engagement a year ago. Calling Mollie “Mom” came easily to me. I loved how kind she was to me. I didn’t remember my own mother and I’d spent most of my life wishing I had someone I could call Mom. Calling James “Dad” had been tougher, though. My own father had still been alive then, so I already had a dad. Plus James always held his distance. Oh, he was really nice to me and I knew he loved me in his own way, but he was such a politician. I was never certain if what was written on his face was what he was really feeling. I’d seen him smile warmly at too many people he’d later put down in private to trust him completely. I sometimes saw the same trait in Dale and it shook me up.

“Alissa’s going to be so happy to see you.” Mollie brushed a speck of dirt from her khaki shorts. “That baby was up all night.”

“Did she keep you awake?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Ear plugs. I’ve worn them ever since I married James. I’m going to give you a pair as a wedding gift.”

I laughed. I started to say that Dale didn’t snore, but thought better of it. I honestly didn’t know if they realized how often Dale stayed over at my apartment. Anyhow, it would be “indelicate” of me to say. I was learning a lot about what was tolerated in a family that needed to keep a polished public image. The word indelicate came up a lot. That’s why they dealt so openly and quickly with Alissa’s pregnancy, making lemonade out of lemons.

I’d adored Alissa from the moment I met her. She’d been barely fifteen with silky-straight, long, dark hair and a wide, white smile. For the longest time, I’d thought what an amazing teenager she was. She seemed so together. Straight-A student. Popular, with a sweet, shy, lovable boyfriend named Jess. She was a whiz with anything to do with the computer. She set up the website for the bed-and-breakfast herself at fourteen. If anyone should have been able to see through a facade, though, it should have been me, and even I missed it. Only when she was five months pregnant did she tell her parents and Dale. Then, for the first time, I saw all hell break loose in the Hendricks family. When James and Mollie and Dale started talking about contacting Jess’s parents, Alissa owned up to the truth: Jess had been nothing but a cover. He was Alissa’s best friend, as gay as the day was long, and he’d been helping her sneak around to see Will Stevenson, a boy she’d been forbidden to go out with. Jess would pick her up for a “date,” then drive her to wherever she and Will were hooking up. I’d never met Will, so I couldn’t pass judgment on him, but the rest of the family seemed to hate him for reasons that still seemed small and wrong to me. I guessed there were enough small reasons that when you added them together, it was enough to equal one giant one. For starters, he was a high-school dropout doing custodial work for some businesses. His mother was a housekeeper—in fact, she’d been the Hendricks’ housekeeper when Alissa and Will were toddlers. His father was in prison for something to do with drugs. Plus Will was nineteen, two and a half years older than Alissa. The Hendricks all acted like that was a big deal. Since Dale was eleven years older than me, the age difference seemed like a pretty weak argument, but it was one of those family issues I knew I’d better stay out of. Anyhow, Alissa hadn’t been allowed to see him and when she announced he was her baby’s father, the shit hit the fan. We were all sitting in the living room when she told us the truth. James and Dale went ballistic. Seriously, I was afraid they were going to get the rifles from the gun rack in the den and hunt Will down.

The family kept Will’s name out of the whole mess, simply painting him as an older guy who took advantage of their vulnerable daughter. “Please let us deal with this family matter in private and protect a young girl who made a mistake and is taking responsibility for her actions,” James had said in a statement to the press.

I felt sorry for Alissa. She was sixteen years younger than Dale, a change-of-life baby, Mollie told me, and it was like she had three parents instead of two. They started monitoring her cell phone and computer to make sure she and Will had no contact, and I honestly thought she’d lost interest in him until she mentioned him in the labor room. I’d asked her about that once since Hannah was born but she said she was just “crazy” that day and that she really didn’t care about him anymore.

It was strange that I never connected what Alissa was going through with what I’d gone through with Travis. Maybe because Alissa was so healthy and together and I’d been anything but. Maybe because she had two parents and a brother and I’d just had my father. Maybe because I’d never met Will, so it felt almost as though he didn’t exist. The one thing I knew, though, was that my sympathy was with Alissa more than with her parents or Dale. I was careful about ever saying that, but I hoped Alissa knew I was in her corner. I could hear Hannah crying as I neared Alissa’s room. The door was open, and when I walked in, Alissa was sitting in the rocker by the window while Hannah wailed in her bassinet.

“Is she hungry?” I asked, walking to the bassinet to peer down at Hannah. I couldn’t stand it when she cried. I just wanted to fix whatever was upsetting her. “When’s the last time you fed her?”

Alissa held up a bottle. “I was just going to,” she said, although it looked to me like she’d been pretty relaxed for a while in that rocker. “You want to do it?”

“Is the bottle still warm?” I asked.

“Yeah. I made it too hot and was waiting for it to cool down.”

I bent over to lift Hannah into my arms. I could finally hold her without crying. That first day in the delivery room when I held her in my arms had opened up a whole part of myself I’d buried. Now I couldn’t get enough of her. I helped Alissa every chance I got, though Mollie had hired a nanny, an older woman named Gretchen, who came in several hours a day—hours I wasn’t needed and left me wishing I was. Everyone thought I was hormonal or something, the way I’d get so emotional around Hannah, and maybe that was it. I’d seen plenty of babies since my own was born four years ago, and I’d never had this reaction before. It was like I was ready now. Ready to let myself admit it had all happened, though I refused to dwell on it.

Through the bay window, the sun fell on Alissa’s long, reddish-brown hair, and for the first time since Hannah was born, she looked strong and well and pretty. I took the bottle from her and settled down in the wing chair opposite the rocker. I could see Alissa’s desk from where I sat. The book I’d given her on baby care was tossed on a messy pile of other books and magazines. I doubted she’d even glanced at it, although I’d read it from cover to cover myself before I gave it to her.

“Mom said she was awake a lot last night,” I said. I touched the nipple to Hannah’s lips and she trembled as she took it in her mouth as though she couldn’t get to the formula fast enough. It made me smile.

Alissa rocked a little. “I couldn’t get her to settle down,” she said. “Gretchen said I should make little swishing sounds in her ear, but it didn’t work.”

“Frustrating,” I said. Gretchen had told Mollie and me that Alissa wasn’t bonding well with Hannah. We were supposed to keep an eye on her. Make sure she wasn’t sinking into some major postpartum depression. I just thought she needed sleep, but maybe it was more than that. She was such a social girl and I knew she’d felt cut off from her friends, first by the pregnancy and now by the baby. She’d go back to school in another month and maybe that would help her mood.

Hannah opened her eyes and stared right at me. I wondered if she did that with Alissa. I hoped so. How could you feel those dark eyes on you and not be hooked for life? “Hi, sweetie,” I said to the baby. “Is that good?”

From her seat by the window, Alissa watched Hannah drink the way she might look at a puppy she hadn’t quite decided whether to take home or not. I smiled at her. “She has such a good appetite,” I said.

“She’s so much better for you than she is for me.”

“You’ll get the knack of it in no time.”

“But you never had a baby and it’s natural with you. It’s totally not natural to me. Gretchen said I need to relax when I hold her, but I get all tense.”

“Be patient with yourself,” I said.

She looked out the window toward Taylor’s Creek. “Maybe you and Dale should raise her,” she said, without glancing back at me.

“We’ll be right there to help you with her, Ali. Don’t worry.”

She let out a long sigh. “I am so trapped,” she said.

“But soon you’ll be back with your friends.”

“With a baby.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said, but I knew she had an uphill battle in front of her. Things would never be the same between her and her old friends.

I stayed with her another hour, until it was time for me to get back to the B and B to check on the housekeepers and answer messages. I’d burped Hannah, changed her and settled her back in her bassinet when Alissa grabbed my hand.

“I’m so glad you came along,” she said. “I’m so glad Dale ended up with you instead of Debra.”

Dale had told me about Debra, his former fiancée, early on, when we were just getting to know each other. He’d been crazy about her and she’d told him she’d never been serious about anyone before. Some reporter, though, wrote an article about the Hendricks family in the local paper and he’d dug up the fact that Debra’d been married before. Not a crime. The crime was that she’d never told Dale about it and he was hurt and humiliated by her deception. I saw it in his eyes when he told me. The pain had still been raw then, and I’d felt sorry for him.

I bent over to give Alissa a hug. “I’m glad, too,” I said. “Call me if you get lonely.”

I left her room and was nearly to the front door when I spotted James and two well-dressed men in the living room. “Here’s our Robin!” James boomed, and I slowed my pace to a more ladylike walk.

“Hello.” I smiled.

“Come in, come in!” James held out an arm to motion me into the room. I walked in, and he introduced me to the men, whose names I quickly forgot. Dale told me I was going to have to do better with names. I just couldn’t keep everyone straight the way he did.

“Robin’s going to be the newest member of the Hendricks family,” James said. He sounded proud of me and I tried to look worthy, but in my shorts and T-shirt with a little bit of baby spit-up on my shoulder, I doubted I was pulling it off. I hoped he wasn’t upset that I was such a mess.

One of the men held my hand in both of his. “All my wife can talk about is your wedding,” he said. “She said it’s been too long since she’s been to one. You’ll have to meet her beforehand so when she starts crying, she’ll at least know the person inspiring her tears.”

“I look forward to meeting her,” I said. I was getting so nervous about the wedding. It seemed like everyone in town was being invited. I’d had almost nothing to do with the plans. Mollie took over, picking out the invitations and the flowers and the cake. Well, I did say I wanted chocolate, but she picked the style. She also picked out my dress, but since it had been hers, I couldn’t criticize her for that, and it was beautiful. Just amazing. I was trying to think of the event as a dream wedding, but I kept waking up around two in the morning, feeling as though it was more of a nightmare. My life these days seemed a little out of my control.