“Hold out your hand,” Jack says. “He’ll recognize you.”
Her hand is remarkably steady. I hold my breath until the dog has sniffed, identified, and pushed his head under her hand. With the wag of his tail, the moment is over, the tension gone.
I’m slower to relax than Joy. Vaguely, I’m aware of a discussion between Jack and her, but I’m having a mother moment in which the world is filled with danger that can at any time take away my child. I want to shoutNo!when Joy kneels on the sand. I want to restrain the dog myself when Jack lets go and steps back. And when Guy sidles close to Joy, his blonde body wagging, I wait.
“They’re fine.” Jack is standing beside me now. “No need to panic.”
“Of course, there’s need,” I argue, but I’m still weak in the knees. “Dogs kill children.”
“That wouldn’t have happened. I’m right here.”
“Like you’d have been able to stop it?”
“I would have. Can’t you trust me on this?”
I feel his eyes on me, but my own don’t leave Joy. “I could see the headlines, Jack. Girl mauled to death on Rhode Island beach.”
“That would not have happened. My dog is not a danger if common sense is applied. Look at him, Mallory.Lookat him.”
I take my eyes from Joy to find the dog’s woeful ones on me. I could swear he is apologizing.
“Joy knows she shouldn’t have charged him.”
“She didn’t charge him. She was running toward us.”
“Same difference in his eyes. Now he’s learned that she won’t hurt him. So he’s come another step in his training.”
“This is about your dog being trained?” I ask in disbelief, and give a dry laugh. “Sorry, but that doesn’t work for me. The world is full of things I can’t control. This is one I can. You have no right to use my child that way.”
“I sure as hell do. This is my beach. She was running toward my dog on my beach against my orders.”
“She’s my daughter!” I cry. How else to explain my feelings?
But suddenly Jack is facing me, blocking my view of Joy and Guy. His voice is deep and low, as menacing as Guy’s growl minutes before. “Yeah, well, she should have been mine. Do you really think I’d have let anything hurt her?”
Chapter 13
Jack is right. Joy should have been his. When I was picking a father for her, the qualities I’d looked for in a donor were the ones I had loved in him. Had it not been for our parents, shewouldhave been his.
But your parents weren’t the only ones at fault, Chrissie said in the gentle way of a therapist pointing out the obvious to a friend. We were at lunch last week. I was still debating whether to come home, and was trying to explain to her how intense it might be.
She was right, of course. We can blame the Aldiss-MacKay thing all we want. But Jack and I were the ones who had argued. We were the ones who had let our emotions build a wall.Wewere the ones who had turned our backs on each other at the worst possible time in our lives.
It is mid-afternoon now. Joy and I are back on the beach, slathered in sunscreen and lying on our stomachs reading, when Jack and hisdog appear at his end and head for the dock. My daughter turns over, sits up, and adjusts her wide-brim hat to watch them, but neither the shadow of the brim nor her sunglasses can keep her thoughts from me.
“No,” I say preemptively, barely looking up.
“Why not? I’d love to go for a boat ride, and that boat is so cool. I’ll bet Jack’s a really good boater.”
He is. Absolutely. But Joy is not going on his boat without me, and right now I need a little distance. Jack Sabathian doesn’t prevaricate. Discussions with him touch on core truths, and that last remark he made before stalking off this morning is only one. I’m still grappling with thoughts of the gardener, the roofer, and the pharmacist. I need a break.
Even though I don’t look at the boat, I easily imagine Jack watching us as he readies to leave. “We’ll get Anne to take us on Papa’s boat,” I tell Joy. “It’s cool, too.”
“But she’s not here, and he’s going out now, and just think of how neat it would be to have bonding time with Guy?”
“We weren’t invited, sweetie. I think Jack wants to be alone.”
“Really? You think that? How do you know?”
