Family Interrupted (36 page)

“When you come home with A’s in language arts, sweetheart, I’ll save my money. In the meantime, maybe Mrs. Wyatt can help you rebuild your writing and vocabulary skills.”

Of course she could. The subjects were her forte, but nice as he was trying to be, this dad wasn’t giving his daughter an inch.

“I don’t understand it,” he said. “Wendy’s smart, her grammar is excellent. She should be a great writer.”

Wendy stared at the wall.

“That puts you one step ahead,” Nancy said. “Let’s work together a time or two and see where we are.”

The girl spun around. “Just once or twice?” Hope shone on her face.

“That’s up to you,” said Nancy. “I can’t make promises I might not be able to keep.”

Wendy glared at her dad. “I guess adults aren’t good at keeping promises, are they?”

TMI. Nancy’s cue to disappear.

But Steve Duggan put his arm around his daughter, looked at Nancy in apology. “We’re making an awful impression, aren’t we?” he said. “I’m sorry about that. Divorce is tough, especially for kids, and some days just go that way.”

He apologized, but didn’t gush. Nancy gave him points for confidence and agreed with his observation. Some days were simply better than others. She could attest to that herself.

“I love you, baby. Always.”

His soft voice caressed. Nancy startled and felt that telltale heat in her cheeks again. But, of course, Steve was speaking to Wendy—words that ended with a chuckle as he glanced Nancy’s way. She made a bee-line to her assigned classroom and greeted the other five youngsters- two girls and three boys: Phillip Chambers, Nathan Brownstein, and John Pappas.

The six kids who needed writing help would get her undivided attention despite the distraction of one fine looking single dad. A man with the warmest gray eyes she’d ever seen.

In the kitchen, she finished setting the table and called Bobby down for dinner. His poor face. “Can you eat with one hand and hold an ice pack with the other?”

He grunted and took the cold pack. “Nice supper, Mom. So, is Stev-ee coming over?” His sarcasm revealed all. As though her only concern was Steve Duggan when her baby was hurting inside and out.

“Dinner will get cold,” she said quietly. “Sit down and eat.”

He sat. He ate. He stared at her, then at his plate. Then once more he met her glance, his eyes highlighted by the purple bruises around them. She heard him inhale before he asked, “Is Steve Duggan your boyfriend?”

Her thoughts whirled.
Grab the opening. Don’t miss an opportunity
.

“A boyfriend? Hmm…I’m not sure about using that label…

Bobby’s expression lightened.

“…but… I like him. I like him a lot. He can make me laugh. He listens. He’s kind….”

A thundercloud pushed his smile away. “If he’s so wonderful, how come he’s divorced? Even Wendy doesn’t like him!”

Although they attended the same school, their kids had barely known each other until Nancy and Steve had taken them to play miniature golf one Saturday. They’d topped that off with a pizza supper and the latest Star Trek movie. Since then, the Duggans had joined them for a couple of Sunday dinners at the house. But the young teens had been no more than civil to each other, their attention more on their parents. Watching. Judging. Too aware of their power to make or break the adults’ relationship.

Nancy sighed. Her son’s mind seemed closed to new ideas. Closed to change. “Wendy loves her dad, Bobby. She loves her mom, too. She’s just confused at the moment. It’s tough. But they’re doing the best they can.”

“So let them figure it out! It has nothing to do with us.”

“Oh, Bobby…

“He-he’s just lonely, Mom. He’s using you ‘cause he wants a girlfriend. Don’t fall for it. He’s-he’s not good enough!”

Her chest tightened. Tears welled and rolled down her face. Bobby’s pain consumed her, but she forced herself to probe.

“No man will ever be ‘good enough,’ will they, Bobby?”

His eyes flashed, his mouth thinned. “Right.”

“Because they’re not Dad.”

He jumped from the table, his chair crashing behind him as he ran from the room. Nancy sat quietly, her eyes tracking her disappearing son. Four years of healing gone in a moment. Four years of coping turned upside down. All it had taken was the appearance of Steve Duggan. A man who was not Jason.

#

BOBBY

Every time I think about my dad dying from cancer, I get hot and cold inside, and I can’t sit still. Sometimes I pace, and sometimes I go to the schoolyard and shoot hoops.

I was nine then, and I went berserk on the day of the funeral. When I saw his coffin go into the ground, I couldn’t breathe. Daddy was gone forever, for “eternity.” A black awfulness filled me. When my mom and I got home, I picked up a soft roll from the dining room table and crushed it. Then I crushed another one, and one by one I started throwing them. First it was rolls. Then I threw eggs and china plates and cups –whatever I could get. People ducked and hollered, but no one could catch me and make me stop. Not even my Grandpa ‘cause he was crying, too.

“Stupids, stupids! You’re all a bunch of stupids,” I yelled. “Stupid doctors, stupid people, stupid Daddy! Why’d you have to die?”

By then I was crying and hiccupping, but I was still mad. How could we have buried my dad like that? How could he go off and leave us?

It was a lousy, rotten thing to have happened, and now I know why. The real reason. Dad was the one who was cheated most of all. He was too young to die. At the time, all I could think about was Mom and me being without him. And that was scary and…lonely. I loved him so much and missed him every day. My dad was special and no one, including the big man with the gray glinting eyes, could take his place.

I know Mom wants me to like Steve Duggan, and I suppose I would if my dad was still here, and Duggan was a neighbor or something. But I just can’t do it. He’s no better than those morons at school. His eyes are hungry when he looks at Mom. A big bad wolf. He thinks she’s a MILF, too.

Chapter Three

STEVE DUGGAN

One week later

“Slow down, slow down, Nance. Just what are you saying?”

Steve Duggan wasn’t used to knots forming in his stomach, at least not since the divorce. But as he held the phone and listened to the woman who’d captured his heart, the woman he loved, his insides began doing the twist. Tears laced her words. Words he’d suspected might come one day if nothing changed between him and her son. He hadn’t counted on that day sneaking up on him. He needed more time to break down the barriers Bobby presented.

“Please, honey. Don’t say anything else. We need to work this out. Remember that we’re the adults. Let me ask you one question. Only one.” He paused for her agreement. “Is it me, or would Bobby resent any man who came into your life?”

He waited, his fist tight around the receiver.

“I’m not sure, Steve. You’re the only one I’ve brought home with me since Jason died. So, I don’t have an answer. All I know is that Bobby isn’t himself. He’s usually a happy kid, and now…all these fights in school. And you’re on the scene. I-I can’t let him go on this way.”

“I’m so sorry, honey. I hear you crying, and you’re breaking my heart. But I’m not giving up on us. We’ll figure it out. I promise, we’ll figure it out.”

After more words of reassurance, he hung up and paced his home office, then jogged toward Wendy’s room in the one story home he’d bought after the divorce. He’d just made a promise to Nancy that he had to keep—for both their sakes. Too bad he was no parenting expert and certainly no expert about Bobby. He’d fought for custody of his daughter and won. But in Wendy’s eyes, he’d had the advantage in court because he worked from home while her mom traveled all over the states. Wendy didn’t know her mom had spiced up her trips in the arms of a co-worker. She didn’t need to know. Steve rolled his shoulders and knocked on Wendy’s door. His ex’s behavior was unimportant. His daughter was important.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, baby. Homework done?”

“Sure.”

“Does Mrs. Wyatt give you homework, too?”

She glared at him as though he had an I.Q of twenty. “You’re kidding, right? If she gave homework, I’d never, never go back there. Besides, we do so much in her class, we don’t need homework.”

He’d grab onto any thread of hope. “So, she’s a good teacher. And you like her?”

Wendy’s forehead creased, her eyes narrowed. “She’s okay in the classroom, but I don’t need another mother. I’ve already got one. So, don’t start arranging more ‘fun days’ or anything. If that’s what you really came here to find out, that’s my answer.”

Scared and defensive. She’d adjusted to their new lives as well as possible, and now he was throwing more change at her.

Suddenly, he understood Nancy's tears. He stared at his child, the child he loved and would protect with his life, and wondered why he’d chance messing things up. An image of Nancy floated in his mind, and he had his answer. Love beckoned. Happiness teased him, waiting just around the next bend.

“Sorry, kiddo. More family fun is in your future. But before that happens, I need your help.”

Her brows lifted, her interest caught. Bingo! Girls liked to be needed.

“It’s about Bobby Wyatt…

#

Steve pulled up to the school and waited for the kids to burst through the doors. Tutoring day for Wendy. He kept his eyes peeled and finally spotted her…talking to Bobby. Great! His daughter must have taken her old man seriously.

He rolled down his window as the kids approached. “Hey, Bobby. Want a ride home?”

“I can take the bus.”

“Give it a break, man. I won’t bite. Or lecture.”

“Right,” Wendy murmured as she opened the front door.

Bobby clasped the door’s edge and peered inside. “Stop trying to be nice to me. See those guys over there?” he asked, nodding toward a trio of lanky loudmouths. They looked familiar, but Steve couldn’t place them immediately.

“You’re no better than they are. Why don’t you give them a ride to the learning center?” And with that, Bobby slammed the car door shut and took off down the street.

Steve watched him go, then glanced at the other boys. “So those are the ones he fights with?”

Wendy shrugged. “I tried to be friendly and find out. But he wouldn’t tell me. He wouldn’t even talk to me except to say that you should stay away from his mom. I agreed with him.” A smile of satisfaction crossed her face. “See, Dad. I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this thing you have going with Mrs. Wyatt.”

“Doesn’t scare me, baby. But you’re going to need an attitude change. And so is Bobby. Nancy is not disappearing from our lives. And we are not disappearing from hers and Bobby’s. Get it?”

But it was Steve who “got it” a half-hour later when he stepped into Nancy’s classroom. Three adolescent boys were ogling their teacher as if she were a juicy steak and they were famished wolves. Their glances darted from Nancy to each other, their grins peeking out from behind their hand-covered mouths. Their idiotic expressions turned serious as soon as Nancy addressed them. If Nancy picked up on their behavior, she chose to ignore it. Maybe she was used to it. Or maybe she dismissed it as a typical teenage crush.

Steve remembered having crushes. No attractive female teacher was safe from a second look. But that’s all it was. A look. And then he kept his eyes down. These guys depended on their impeccable timing not to get caught. They thought a lot of themselves. Which meant he needed to knock some sense into them. It seemed Bobby had tried, but couldn’t do it alone.

He’d hang around tonight. See what went down.

#

BOBBY

I watched Mom walk into the kitchen that night and knew something was different. Her eyes were shiny and her smile was for real. She didn’t wait for me to ask any questions. She just put her stuffed tote bag down and twirled around the kitchen.

“The class was great tonight,” she said. “I could hardly believe it, and it must be because of you. Those boys you’re always fighting with actually behaved themselves. No more fooling around. No wandering eyes or wandering attention. I’m glad. Their parents are paying for the lessons, and they should see some results. I think tonight was the turning point.”

She had to be imagining things. My day in school was no different than yesterday or the day before. The jerks were still jerks.

Banging noises came from the cabinets as she gathered her pots and pans. “Maybe they got sick and weren’t feeling good,” I said. My imagination was limited.

“Nope. And Wendy had a good class too.”

“Oh…you mean they weren’t hitting on her?” Oops. Almost said, instead of you.

“Hitting on her? They wouldn’t dare, not with her dad hanging around. I think she likes it now when he waits for her.”

I could connect the dots, but my mom was clueless. That’s why she needed me to look out for her. If big Steve Duggan kept checking on the classroom through the glass windows, none of those idiots would make a wrong move.

That guy with the gray glinting eyes made Wendy and my mom happy. But his tricks wouldn’t work with me.

“I’ve planned the weekend for us with Steve and Wendy,” Mom began, her voice happy, “and nothing will interfere with your usual baseball practice on Saturday or the game on Sunday. So, don’t moan and groan.”

“Mom! This Sunday is Father’s Day. Steve Duggan is not my father. He and Wendy aren’t even family. They can’t come.”

The kitchen got quiet. Mom’s face turned white. “Baseball is for everybody,” she said, “including our friends.” She walked closer and put her hand on my cheek. “Please, Bobby. I don’t ask too much from you, but this time…can’t you just give it a chance?”

Geez, she was pleading with me. I loved my mother, and my father wasn’t here, and I didn’t know what to do. But I didn’t want Steve sniffing around her. Wouldn’t Dad mind? Especially on Father’s Day? I snapped to attention, my thoughts going at warp speed and stared at my mom’s anxious face.

The answer to my question stared back at me. Dad loved her. He’d want her to be happy.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “They can come.”

She beamed.