“She wasn’t there.”
What could he say? Your mother is an idiot? Better yet— Your mother needs to accept she has a teenager living in her house?
Mouth shut, he set the table, hauled out the bowl of food when the microwave buzzed. In silence they sat and ate. Finished, he took the plates to the sink and flipped on the tap.
Hallie came beside him, catching the tea towel hanging on the oven door. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
His heart rolled, sweet and painful. Wish and you might receive. How many times had he yearned for her to voluntarily choose him? Though not through distress.
He looked down at her dark head just shy of his shoulder, at her smooth, pale forehead, the slant of her small, straight nose. “You don’t have to ask, Hallie. This is your home, too.”
She dried both plates together, set them on the counter. “Mom’ll stay at Roy-Dean’s, anyway.”
“She do that a lot? Leave you alone overnight?”
“Just since she’s been dating him.”
In other words, since last August, when Melody, his daughter in tow, had relocated to Misty River from Eugene. Two months.
Why hadn’t Hallie told him before?
Roy-Dean Lunn, eight years younger than Melody.
A pretty boy she paraded through town like a talisman for her aging face.
Lunn worked road maintenance, fixing highways and secondaries; winters, he ploughed snow in northeast Washington and Idaho. Down times, he blew his money on women and booze. Now he blew it on Melody while she blew off her responsibility—her legally assigned responsibility—to Hallie.
Whose fault is that?
Mine, dammit. I should have fought harder when I had the chance.
Except, he had fought hard—as much as his meager savings had afforded a decade ago. But Melody stemmed from second-generation money and politics and influence; her daddy owned Misty River Chev Olds and Seth, standing in front of a female judge who pitched her tent in the mama-bear-protecting-her-cub camp, had lost his footing.
Hearing she’d won the full right to raise their daughter, Melody had volleyed tears in front of the judge and Seth, seeing his ex’s wet gratitude, could only bow to the decision. Hallie was five years old. Much as it killed him, he knew his work hours weren’t conducive to a tot in kindergarten. His baby girl needed her mother, and that was that.
In the end, he got “visitation” every Sunday and was awarded joint legal custody, which granted a say in the child’s education, health care and other major facets of her life.
Then, five years ago, Melody—wanting her “last big chance at life”—had moved to Eugene, near her brother. A three-hour drive away. Where visitations with Hallie were chewed up by motel costs and travel time that disintegrated her belief in him. Even his phone calls couldn’t rectify the ever-widening gap between him and his daughter as she trudged through her teen years. His fault, of course. All his fault.
Well, he couldn’t alter the past, but he could do something about Roy-Dean Lunn.
“From now on when he shows up,” Seth said, “call me and I’ll come get you.”
Hallie tossed the utensils into the drying rack. “It’s okay. I can crash at Susanna’s or Grandma Owens when I know he’s coming. Tonight we… Mom wasn’t expecting him, that’s all.”
Seth drained the water. “I want you to come here, Hallie. Don’t bother your grandmother or your friend.” You’re mine, not theirs.
“Dad, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” He faced her. “It’s not okay. You page me or call my cell phone or leave a message with Wanda at the office.” Her face, a river of emotion, had him setting a hand on her shoulder. “What was the fight about?”
She dropped her chin. “Nothing.”
“You walked here.”
A shrug. “I was mad.”
He gathered that. Tugging the towel from her hands, he hung it over the oven handle. “Wanna tell me why?”
Her lips were plank-straight.
Okay, he wouldn’t push. She’d tell him in her own good time. He stacked the plates in the cupboard, laid the utensils in the drawer.
She eyed him. “Aren’t you going to hassle me?”
“Nope.”
“Mom always does if I don’t tell her.”
He leaned against the counter, arms folded across his chest. “Want to watch some TV or play a game of chess?”
Another shrug. “Sure. Whatever.”
He chose chess. They played in the living room while logs burned and crackled in the fireplace, and she beat him.
“Guess I’m a bit rusty.” He smiled and got a sheepish one in return. His chest ached. “Want another round?”
A little smirk. “Want to lose again?”
“Ha! You’re on.”
This time, he won.
“Luck,” she told him, and grinned. His heart tumbled.
“That so? Make it two out of three.”
She had him checkmated within forty minutes.
Damn, he was proud. She was an admirable opponent, this daughter. He wanted to reach out, stroke her ponytail. His hand lifted, dropped. Too much, too soon. He couldn’t recall the last hug, the last kiss. Had she been five? Ten? I miss you.
Something must have shown in his face; she gathered the board and players back in the box, got up to return the game to the bedroom she used whenever it was his turn for “parenting time,” a new term for visitation rights. That was another thing he wished were different. Now that Hallie was older, he wanted her to visit on her own. Not when he asked, or when the system deemed it correct, or when arguments sent her running.
Squatting by the fire, he replaced the disintegrating logs. Spruce sap sweetened the room.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, honey?”
She stood just beyond the coffee table, a slim, shy figure, hands burrowed in baggy denim overalls. His throat tightened.
“Mom doesn’t want me dating.”
The fight. “I see.”
Her eyes, full of need for him to understand. “It’s not fair. She started dating when she was thirteen and I’m— I’m already fifteen.”
“Barely four months, Hal.”
