“Come along, Becky,” I said.
“It was nice meeting you.” She held out her little hand to Joe again.
“Likewise.” He shook it solemnly, then gave her a hug.
Charlie lifted his cane. “Run along now.”
I took Becky’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here,” Joe called.
•••
My parents lived two blocks down. Mother immediately wanted to know about the gentleman caller who had stopped by her house. I mumbled some vague excuse about Joe being a friend of a friend, and asked her to watch Becky, saying she was bored with adult conversation.
“Am not!” Becky protested. “Joe an’ I were makin’ paper airplanes!”
I hurried back home, worried about what was going on in my absence. Joe and Charlie were still standing in the kitchen, facing off like a pair of prizefighters.
The screen door squeaked behind me. Both men turned toward me. “Let’s move into the living room,” I suggested.
“No need for that,” Charlie said curtly. “I’ve already explained things to Joe, and he’s just leaving.”
“You explained... what?”
“That we’re a family. That my name is on Becky’s birth certificate, and that makes her legally mine. That we don’t need a scandal. That you’re having my baby, and everyone will be better off if he goes away and never comes back.”
“But...”
My eyes met Charlie’s. What I saw there reminded me of the time I stopped to help a dog who’d just been hit by a car. His back end had been completely crushed, and the poor creature had gazed at me with these sinkhole eyes, so filled with pain and—this is what stayed with me the most—an odd bewilderment, as if to say,How can this be happening? How can God allow this level of pain to exist?
My gaze shifted to Joe. He looked at me as if he’d just hiked twenty miles in the hottest desert, and I were an icy Coca-Cola. But Joe... well, Joe was made of tougher stuff. Joe could take it.
And he did. “He’s right, Addie. I shouldn’t have come here. I just had to know. And I had to letyouknow. I didn’t want you to ever find out I was alive and think that... to think that I didn’t...”
Love you. Want you. Need you.I heard all the unsaid words. From the quick flinch in Charlie’s jaw, I knew he’d heard them, too.
“Well, I see that you have a happy life and a wonderful family. I’ll leave you alone.”
“That would be for the best.” Charlie limped to the door and opened it, pointedly.
Joe picked up his hat. He reached into his pocket and held out a card. “If you ever need anything, this is where you can reach me.”
“She won’t,” Charlie said. “Keep your card.”
I took it anyway.
Joe’s throat worked. He nodded and put on his hat, then shook Charlie’s hand. He turned to me, as if to shake my hand, too, and I flung myself into his arms, hugging him fiercely.
He hugged me back. I tried to memorize the imprint of his body against mine. I whispered, “Write me.” And then he set me away from him and walked out the door.
The silence between Charlie and me was cold and thick as a marble tombstone.
Charlie’s hands clenched and unclenched. “Of all the nerve,” he said. “Who does he think he is, coming here?”
“Rebecca’s father.”
Charlie raised his hand, and for an awful moment, I thought he was going to strike me. Instead, he smote his chest. “Iam Rebecca’s father. I’m the only father she knows, and it’s going to stay that way. And don’t youeversay otherwise.”
