Girls in Trouble (45 page)

“There’s a child?” Charlotte said quietly. “A child born out of wedlock?” And Danny wished he could disappear. “You think that Anne is your Anne?”

“I thought Sara had an abortion,” he said, and Charlotte drew in her breath. She stepped back from him.

“An abortion? You would have let her get one?” Charlotte said.

“I didn’t know that was what she was planning. All I knew was she didn’t want to see me. Didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Well, thank God she didn’t have one,” Charlotte said. “Thank God.”

Danny was silent. “I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to keep this from you, Charlotte, to protect you. I swear I tried. I don’t know what to do now.” He looked toward the doorway. “You don’t have to do anything about this. I’ll take care of it. Sara and the girls’ parents said they’d fly in and get her. Things will go back to normal.”

Charlotte looked at him. “Nothing’s normal anymore.”

“No, no, don’t say that—” He didn’t know what to say to her, how to make it right. He was ruining everything again. “You can’t touch a thing without making it die,” his brother used to taunt him. The broken-winged birds he’d find in the backyard would die before he even made up a box for them. A bike he had spent two whole Saturdays trying to fix had burst a tire the first time he took it out for a spin. He had been sent by his mother to buy a few things for the house once—butter, bread—and by the time he got to the store, he had lost the money. He hadn’t known what to do, so he simply slipped the items under his jacket and hoped for the best. Of course he was caught. Of course his mother was called and charges were threatened, and in the end, Danny and his mother were asked not to come to the store anymore. And when Danny and his mother got home, his brother had come after him, furious, shaking his finger. “You’d better stop screwing up!” he had shouted. “You’d better stop thinking of yourself! You’re killing her! Everything you do kills her a little bit more!”

Danny had told his mother about Sara being pregnant only because he was beside himself, because he didn’t know what else to do, because he thought maybe she could help. He was nearly weeping. “Please—” he begged, and she had gotten up without speaking to him and gone into the other room and sat there in cold, rigid silence, as if it were all happening to her, and not to him, and in that moment, Danny had known he was lost.

Charlotte shook her head, and when she looked at the door, he couldn’t help it, he grabbed Charlotte’s arm. “Don’t go,” he pleaded, and she looked at him, astonished.

“Go? Go where? What are you talking about?”

“I know I lied to you. You have a right not to trust me. A right to be angry, but please, we can work this out. We can get things back to the way they were.”

She stepped back from him. “Sometimes I think I don’t know you,” she said.

“I’m sorry—”

“And sometimes I think you don’t know me, either.”

“Charlotte—”

“Your daughter is sleeping in this house and you’re here in this kitchen. Don’t you want to go in and talk to her?”

“I’m going to talk to her—”

“That time Sara came to your mother’s house, you didn’t tell me the truth about her, did you? You didn’t tell me she was your old girlfriend. You didn’t tell me how serious things had been with you. What did you think I would do if I knew?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Did you still love her? Is that some of it? Did you want to leave me for her? Is that why you couldn’t tell me anything about her?”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“She was beautiful. And very smart, you told me. And she was your first love. I know what that means.”

“Charlotte. It was sixteen years ago.”

“And all I have to do is look at your face and see it’s upsetting you like it was yesterday. You think time matters? You think love goes away?” Charlotte brushed a hand through her hair. She smoothed her blouse. “I’ve gotten a little plump. I’m a housewife with a baby and I wear what’s practical rather than in fashion. I don’t have the time I’d like to have to read.”

“Charlotte, who cares about that?” he said, but she lifted up her hand.

“Your daughter is sleeping in our den, and your first love is about to come to town to get her. You tell me the truth, now. Should I be worried?”

“Charlotte, of course not.” He touched her arm. “I love you.”

She considered him. “You have a number to reach these people?”

Danny nodded.

“I want you to call them. They have to come here. All of them. As soon as possible.”

He stared at her. “You want them to come here?” he asked, astonished.

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t. I feel like screaming. I feel like asking God to help me not throw away everything good because right now I just want to walk right out of this house with Joseph and not come back.”

He stroked her face. “Charlotte,” he said, and she drew herself up.

“I’ll make a meal. When they get here, we’ll sit and eat and talk this all out. It’s the only way.” She started moving about the kitchen, looking in cabinets, in the freezer. “I was saving these chicken fryers for Sunday dinner.” She looked at him. “You invite them,” she repeated. “All of them.” She reached for a glass and it shattered on the floor, a million shiny shards. “Oh!” she said, as if she had been cut. He crouched down by her and helped her pick it up, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

He cupped his hands about her face and kissed her but her lips were cool, her kiss distant. She pushed him from her. “It doesn’t mean I’m happy about this,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I understand or I’m not angry with you, because I am. It just means they’re coming here.” She stepped back from him. “You call them, first. Then, you better go talk to that poor little girl in there,” she said.

He spoke briefly to Sara, was put on hold while she checked and made reservations. “Best we can do is tomorrow late afternoon,” she said, “Please. Don’t tell her we’re coming. I’m afraid she’ll take off again.”

He nodded because he couldn’t speak. Sara, here in his house. Sara.

He put the phone down. He could hear Charlotte in the kitchen and all he wanted to do was go to her, wrap his arms about her and sway her to him. All he wanted was to feel her hands on his face, to feel there was no one in his life but his wife, even as he felt Sara, like an undercurrent, rising to the surface.
No,
he thought. He knew if he walked in there, she’d just point him back out again.

Danny walked to the room where his daughter was. He stood in front of the closed door for a long time. What was he going to say to her? How could he possibly explain? How could he even know what he wanted to do? He knocked and a voice full of sleep said, “Come in.”

She was sitting up, her red hair—Sara’s hair—rumpled, her clothes in
disarray, and as soon as she saw him, her eyes grew huge. He couldn’t believe it. This girl in his house.

“Are you my father?” she asked.

“I’m Danny.” He thought suddenly of his own father, a man who left his family without a second thought, who drove off toward a new life and ended up dead. God, how he had hated him. How he had wanted him back, too. “I’m your father.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if she were measuring him up.

“You look just like your mother,” he said.

“Ha. Some mother,” Anne said. “Abandoned me twice.” She studied him. “And you abandoned her.”

He shook his head. “No, she didn’t. And neither did I.”

“Uh-huh. Do you still love her?”

Danny started. It was the second time that day someone had asked him that.

“I love my wife,” Danny said. “I love my son.”

Anne picked at the tufts in the spread. “What about me?” she said. “Did you love me?”

“I didn’t even know Sara had had you.”

She stared at him, making him feel uncomfortable, as if he should know the right thing to say or do.

“You want to forget about me now?” Anne said. “Just like you forgot about Sara.”

“You think that?” He looked at her. “I never forgot her. And I won’t forget you.”

“You don’t even know me. You said that yourself.”

He swallowed. “Tell me everything about yourself,” he said. “And then I will.”

He tried to concentrate on what she was saying, but the whole time he felt as if he were watching a movie of his life, the way it might have been, as if he had gotten up and left the theater to get something, and when he had come back, he had missed so much of the story, it wasn’t quite making sense to him, and his mind was trying to patch in what was lost.

“You would have raised me,” Anne said, shaking her head. “It would have been such a different life having you and Sara as my parents.”

“It would have been a harder one,” he said. “Two young kids, no money, struggling. We wouldn’t have been able to give you half of what your parents did.”

She blinked at him. “How do you know?” she said quietly. “How do you know how it would have turned out?” Helpless, he shrugged.

“Can I stay here for a while?” she asked. “Just until I figure out what to do?”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be possible,” Danny said quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because legally you can’t. Because I have a family. And so do you.”

“Family! I don’t even know what that means anymore!” Anne jumped up, digging in her pockets.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and she turned from him, her face pinched.

“I’m checking how much money I have.” He saw the crumpled bills, and then he saw the panic in her face. “Don’t look at me like that,” Anne said. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be out of your hair in ten minutes. I’ll find someplace to go.” She crouched down and searched out her sneakers under the couch, tugging them on, tying the knots so fiercely one snapped in two.

He touched her shoulder for the first time, this slight young girl. “You can stay here tonight,” he told her and her whole body relaxed again.

“I could get to like this den,” she said hopefully.

Charlotte made a simple dinner. Hot dogs. French fries. Grape juice. “Comfort food,” she said cheerfully, and all Danny could think was, well, who was getting comforted? Certainly not Charlotte, who averted her eyes every time Danny tried to meet them. And it sure as hell wasn’t Anne, who picked at her hot dog and maneuvered her fries about the rim of her plate. No one talked about Danny being Anne’s father, or Anne running away. Instead, Charlotte kept up a patter about the weather (God, the weather!), about how it was supposed to rain again. “I won’t have to water the lawn, then,” Danny said, and instantly felt ridiculous. Only the baby remained sunny, settled next to Charlotte in the carriage, babbling his own secret conversation.

When they were all as finished as they were going to be, Charlotte started clearing away the plates, and when Anne jumped up to help, Charlotte lifted her hand. “No, no, you’re a guest—” she said.

“I’m family.”

For a second Charlotte’s mouth wobbled, the way it always did when she was struggling with something, like the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come yet, and were crowding behind her lips. Anne stood there, glancing so anxiously from Charlotte to Danny that he suddenly didn’t know who he felt worse for, his wife or this young girl. “Hey, the more hands the better,” Danny said, and grabbed some plates to clear himself, and when he glanced over at his wife, he saw her mouth had gone soft again.

There wasn’t much to do. Dishes piled in the dishwasher, pots soaking in the sink, and then Anne began yawning, her hands cupped over her mouth. “Looks like it’s time for you to hit the hay,” Danny said. “Come on, I’ll set you up in the den.”

He brought her some clean linens, a blanket, a pillow. Then Charlotte appeared, holding up a green nightgown. “Nothing’s more uncomfortable than sleeping in your clothes,” she said.

They didn’t stay up much later than Anne. Only long enough to bathe Joseph and put him in his crib, to watch a bad movie on TV about a young couple who find a million dollars, and though they sat close together on the sofa, neither one of them said very much. “Let’s go to bed,” Danny said.

They usually slept spooned together, one of his arms flung about her, keeping her close as his heartbeat, but tonight, they both lay on their backs, blinking at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep. God. He just couldn’t sleep. And then he heard noises. Anne moving about the house. The pad of her feet. As exhausted as his daughter was, she couldn’t sleep either.
His daughter,
he repeated to himself, suddenly as startled as when he first found out she was in his home. When Joseph was born, he was there in the delivery room, holding Charlotte’s hand, as terrified as she was, and as soon as Joseph had come out, dotted with vernix, eyes wide open, Danny had burst into tears.
No one tells you what it’s like,
he thought,
how mixed up in the fierceness of your love is sadness because you know from the moment they’re born, they’re moving steadily away from you.
Right now, he knew everything there
was to know about Joseph, that he laughed if you tickled his feet, that he loved it if you blew raspberries on his sweet little belly, that his cry when he was hungry sounded different—longer, more plaintive—than his cry when he wanted to be held. Oh, yes, Danny knew everything about his boy, but he was smart enough to know that soon, he wouldn’t. And right now, he didn’t know much of anything about his daughter. And soon, she’d be leaving. And how was he to know it wouldn’t be for good, that all he might have is this one small slice of her time? He slid down against the pillow. Then there was a loud thunk, and then he turned to Charlotte.

Charlotte’s eyes were open. “Guess we’re all up now,” he said quietly and she nodded.

They heard a door whine open and then shut, and then the house was quiet again, and
how funny,
he thought because as soon as it was, he missed the noise of Anne. And he wondered how much more he’d miss when she was gone and what that would mean for him.

He called in sick the next day. He had been so conscientious, had barely missed an afternoon of work for a doctor’s appointment, let alone a whole day, but to hell with the office. His only thoughts were of Anne.

Charlotte had gone out before he was even up, coming home with enough groceries for months. Almost instantly she started in the kitchen, and he could still hear her, the clang and rattle of pots. The lilting babble of Joseph. And then, suddenly, she started to sing, some top-forty song that had a lot of “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy” in it, her off-key voice winding around him, moving him closer to her.