“Bella.” A faint voice calls in the background.
“I think Mommy wants her phone back, Daddy.”
“No problem. I’d like to say hi to your mom, anyway.”
“Okay!”
Bella runs on her tiptoes like a little ballerina toward her mother and hands her the phone.
“Daddy wants to say hello.”
“Okay, but get ready for your bath if you want to go to Erin’s house for the playdate.”
“I’m going. I’m going. Bye, Daddy!” she yells excitedly in the background.
“Have fun, Meatball.”
Jana lifts the phone to her face after Bella leaves the room. “Yes, Dak?”
“What’s going on with you and Cliff?”
“I don’t understand the question. He’s my fiance.”
“But he’s not Bella’s father.”
“I realize that.” She rolls her eyes. “I was there too when we made the little girl.”
“So why is he buying her bedroom furniture?”
“What do you care?”
“That’s fucking weird, Jana. Have you done a background check on this dude?”
“Oh my god, you shower Bella with gifts all the time. He just wanted to do something nice for her.”
“It’s not Uncle Cliff’s place to do that.”
“We don’t need your permission to buy her things, Dak. You give me money every month for that sole purpose.”
“Did you buy the shelves with my money, or did he?”
She sighs. “What does it matter?”
“It matters that she is receiving gifts from a man who is not her relative. Who you’re not married to.”
“Yet.”
“And who shouldn’t even be in her life as far as I’m concerned.”
“Listen, you controlling prick!” She points her ridiculously long, coffin-shaped fingernail at me. “You had the opportunity to be the one man in her life and you blew that!”
“Lower your damn voice before she hears you.”
“You’re afraid that she’ll hear how you’re the one responsible for this broken little family we have?”
“We were never serious, Jana. Stop making it seem like I left you at the altar or something.”
“It’s not my fault that you lack the ability to be serious about anything except football, and it looks like you’re even blowing that all to hell damn near killing a man.”
