Page 14 of The Big Puck

It’s still early, so he’s being pushy and deserves the growly scowl he gets from Spence.

Instead of answering, Spence steps around Jason to the front door and walks out. No good-bye or good luck or even a backward glance. He’s simmering with all the stress and apparently barely able to be civil—if you count not snapping at either of us as civil.

I suppose it is. That’s definitely my generous mood talking.

* * *

After Spence and Jason leave, my phone rings while I’m on my way upstairs to check on Krissy. It has to be Dad because my brother Peter or my best friend Cherry would text rather than call. I peak into Krissy’s room and see that she’s still asleep, so I back out to the hallway and take the call.

“Hi, Dad. What’s up?”

“Don’t hate the messenger,” he says. Both his words and tone of voice freeze me.

Chapter 6

LAINEY

The same chill runs through me that I felt the day Dad called to tell me about Mom dying. Only healing time and my God-given tendency to lean positive allow me to push aside the mountain of trepidation.

“I promise I won’t hate you, Daddy. What is it?” My voice is as gentle and reasonable as I can make it. Dad has his own sadness and trepidation to deal with, and as always, I do everything I can to ease it.

“Maurice is planning to call you despite your directive otherwise. I heard it at the bank downtown.”

Other men gathered at the barber or the coffee shop, but not my dad. He visited the bank regularly to sit in the impressive lobby and visit with friends—some bankers, some customers. The bank he referred to wasn’t your typical retail savings and loan; it was the area’s largest commercial bank with the kind of high-end clients my dad palled around with because he was one of them. Our family, he liked to say, was a long-standing fixture in the area, the bedrock of the aristocracy of the New South.

I suppose, back when his great-great granddaddy came down from Boston, they would have called him a carpetbagger rather than the new aristocracy, but daddy was good at glossing over that picture. He’s where I got my positive attitude and need to paint life as a pretty picture no matter how bleak it gets.

“Why would he do that?” My heart speeds up, and I hold back all the myriad possibilities because none of them are good—not even the one where he begs me to take him back. Even if he turned into Superman and spun the world to turn back time to before he did what he did, I might not even take him back.

Before my mind wanders into why that’s true, dad finishes clearing his throat and answers my question. “I hear he wants his ring back.”

Boom. I feel like the proverbial rug has been pulled out from under me yet again, and I don’t know why it should.

“Oh. Fine. He changed his mind.” There’s more throat-clearing, and I steel myself for the rest of it.

“I hear speculation that he wants it back to give it to someone else.”

I laugh. It’s an automatic ridiculous response to celebrate the irony and the tragedy—not mine, but hers, the poor unfortunate little Miss Peach, who is likely the new recipient of his false promises.

“Glad you’re taking it well. I was worried. I say good riddance to him and his no-good family.”

“Let’s not go there, Dad. You’re right. If the rumor is true, I say good riddance and good luck, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.” The way down bottom, the part that knows whatever good he has in his soul, is forever spoiled by his recent behavior and it’s going to take a long time for him to recover my respect, my friendship. If ever.

“Good. That’s what I like to hear. Clear sailing ahead for you, my Lainey Lou. Nothing but sunshine and calm seas.”

I laugh again and almost tear up the way he reverts to his sailing euphemisms even though he hasn’t been sailing since Mom left us for the great ocean beyond, most likely in heaven. There’s a question about the destination because I got my sass from her. She had a generous dollop of the devil causing mischief in her otherwise angelic southern belle soul.

I sigh. “Thanks for the warning, Daddy. I have to go now.”

“Keep me posted on what happens.”

“I will.” Maybe. It depends. We say our fond good-byes because there’s no man I’m fonder of on this planet. But I need to protect his poor tortured soul that I know lies beneath the brave smile he shows the world, and there’s no way I’ll give him anything but the best possible version of the truth, no matter what Moe says or does.

I go to Krissy and hold her up, the instant lift making me feel a million pounds lighter, and I wonder if that’s how Mary Poppins could fly—that maybe it’s the joy of being around children that made her weightless with joy. I’ve found it impossible to carry around baggage in life—at least not enough to saddle me with doomy gloom, not for long anyway.

Not like Spence. “He needs our help, Krissy.”

First, I change her diaper, and then I choose a dress from the generous closet full of clothes. “Someone cares enough about you, baby doll, to buy you all these pretty things.” Most of them still have the tags attached, and I wonder if it was Spence’s Aunt Hildie or his mom who bought all these things for the sweet baby. I’m very certain it wasn’t Spencer with his paint-the-house-gray sensibility.