I’m not even done toweling off when I hear Hailey start wailing and crying in her room. I race down the hall in the towel, dripping all over the place. When I get to her room, she’s sitting up in bed, knuckling her eyes while she bawls. I sit down and scoop her into my lap. “Hailey, baby, what’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”
“I woked up, and you were gone!”
“Oh, sweetie!” I hold her close and rock her back and forth. “Honey, I was just down the hall.”
She’s snotty and sniffly, and I feel like the biggest asshole in the world for wasting time jerking off in the shower. Now Hailey’s hysterical.
“You w-weregone, and I didn’t know where you were! I wasscared!”
“I’m right here, Hailey. I’m right here.”
We sit there for a while as I wait for her to calm down. I hold her until she pulls away on her own to wipe her eyes.
“Are you better now?”
Hailey shrugs. “I dunno. Sometimes I wake up at night, and I get scared. But I know you’re sleeping, so you’re okay. But this was the daytime. Mommy went away in the daytime when I was sleeping. She was gone, and she never came back.”
I brush strands of hair out of her eyes as tears well up in my own. Hailey had been home with Becky, napping, when Lisa and I were in the accident. “Oh, honey. Daddy’s not going anywhere.”
Her tears have stopped, but I can’t take the sadness that’s written all over her face. Her little pout makes my heart ache.
“Hey,” I say, tipping her chin up so she can look at me. “How about pancakes for dinner?”
Her lip wobbles, and I worry I just said the wrong thing. “Who’s gonna make me pancakes when you’re gone?”
“Hailey, I’m not going anywhere for a long, long time.”
She pauses to think about it. “Not for a long time?”
“Not anywhere.”
Her little brow furrows as she ponders some more, and she gives me a dubious look. “Are you gonna make nekkid pancakes?”
I bite back the urge to crack up at that. She probably isn’t in the mood to be laughed at. “Well, if you’ll give me five minutes to put some clothes on, I promise to not make nekkid pancakes.”
Finally, a smile. A giggle. My happy girl, back for a time.
“Okay, Daddy. Five minutes. Then pants pancakes.”
“It’s a deal.”
Four minutes and thirty seconds later, I take Hailey downstairs—with pants on—and start making pancakes. It’s mid-afternoon, still early for dinner, but I figure she’s earned a treat.
We’re just about to sit down at the dining table with our chocolate chip pancakes when the doorbell rings. Figuring it’s just Iris bringing my shirt back, I get up and trot over to the door, opening it without checking.
I should have checked.
“Oh. Hi, Karen. Is there something I can help you with?”
Karen glares at me with a look that could cut through solid steel. I mentally run through everything I could possibly have said or done since moving in that could piss her off that bad but come up empty. I’ve been following all the rules, toeing the lines, and generally keeping my nose in my own business.
“You’re new to this neighborhood, so maybe you don’t realize that we’re good, God-fearing people here.”
What the hell does God have to do with anything I’ve done?
She doesn’t give me a chance to ask.
“Now, just because Iris Bridges is single, that’s no excuse for your behavior this morning. We have standards here, Micah, and if you’re going to flaunt yourself like this on a regular basis, we’re going to have a problem.”
