man.”
“I never thought you were.”
He was glad to hear that. Not that it should matter.
“So, the fact that I’ve fathered a child and am doing absolutely nothing to take responsibility for it isn’t going down right with me.”
“But I’m not letting you do anything.”
“I know.”
“So the choice is out of your hands.”
He pinned her with a hard stare. “Is it?”
Rocking back and forth, her feet leaving the step, then gently touching again, Phyllis nodded. “Of course it is. It’s not as if there’s anything for you to do. Any role to play. We hardly know each other.”
“I’m the baby’s father.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
His stomach dropped. “It’s a boy?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at him and then away. “That was a generic ‘he.”’
“Oh.” Good. For a second there, thinking the baby actually had a sex had made it all seem so much more real. So much more threatening.
He knew that made no sense. Of course the baby had a sex. Whether or not its unprepared parents knew what it was.
“The point is,” Phyllis said, still hugging her knees, still rocking slightly, “your involvement here is only biological. In the big picture, that doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Relief flooded through Matt, almost bringing forth the grin he’d suppressed earlier. Almost, but not quite. A strange, inexplicable sadness got in the way.
“I can’t just turn my back on this.”
“You have no choice.” She started to rock harder.
“There are always choices.” Some much harder to face than others.
“We agreed I’d do this on my own.” Her voice had a definite edge to it.
“I know.”
“But you’re reneging on that?”
“No.” He thought about the past weeks, wondered how he could possibly explain them to her. To himself. Wondered why he even wanted to try.
“So you’re going to let me do this alone, but you’d like to be a father to the baby?” She’d lost some of her edge but was still hugging herself tightly. He thought she might be cold, in spite of the thick velour sweater she was wearing.
The air was definitely cooler now that the sun was losing its intensity.
It really wouldn’t be good for her to catch a chill.
“I can’t be a father.”
He hadn’t meant the words to come out like that. Wasn’t sure he’d meant them to come out at all. Somehow, over the years of observing rather than living, he’d forgotten how to communicate.
“What do you mean, can’t?” she challenged. “Don’t you mean won’t? That you don’t want to?”
No, that wasn’t what he’d intended. It had been so long since his wanting had played a part in anything that he no longer even asked himself what he wanted.
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.” He bit down hard, controlling the tension gripping him. “I’m not father material! Wouldn’t be good for a child.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Phyllis said, apparently not having heard his admonition about trust. Or perhaps it was the fact that he hadn’t done anything to earn her trust that had her arguing an inarguable point with him. “You’re great with your students,” she continued. “Patient, firm. It’s obvious they adore you.”
No one adored him. No one got that close. He made certain of that. “I control the grade book.”
He could feel her eyes on him again. “You really believe that’s all it is?”
“Of course.” That was all it could be. “I have a past, Phyllis,” he told her, sounding a little too adamant. They had to get over this once and for all so they need never visit it again. “I’ve made mistakes that would inevitably reflect on anyone closely associated with me.”
“Everyone reaching our age has made mistakes. Either that or they haven’t lived.”
“I can’t be a father to that child.”
He’d grown up the child of a convict. Knew how that fact insidiously wore away at a boy’s self-esteem, his confidence. His sense of who he was. Coming from a family of cons did something to a kid, made him something he might not otherwise have been, convinced him of things he didn’t even recognize until it was too late.
Matt might not be guilty of the crime of which he was convicted, might even have won his acquittal, but only because the evidence hadn’t been strong enough the second time around to pass the “beyond reasonable doubt” provision. No one really knew—except Matt himself—what had happened between him and Shelley Monroe. Shelley wasn’t certain herself, although Matt knew full well what she wanted to believe, what she chose to believe. She thought Matt had slept with her that day in his office when she’d been too drugged to remember what had happened. It was what she needed to think.
He understood that now.
Understood, too, that a lot of what had happened between them was his own damn fault. Shelley had longed for love and acceptance. At fourteen she’d already been conditioned by the life she led, the choices she’d made, to take her validation, her self-worth, from her body. Because of that, she’d needed badly to believe that Matt found her body worthy, that he considered her attractive. And so, like an idiot, he’d given her the verbal praise she’d seemed so desperately to require.
He hadn’t even been able to ease his guilt with the knowledge that he’d never ever thought about Shelley as a female. The idea of having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl, no matter how much older than her years, hadn’t entered his mind for even a second. But, he had, perhaps, fallen just a little in love with the woman he knew she could someday become.
Which was one of the reasons he sent her a support check every month. He might not be the father of her child, but he wasn’t completely free of responsibility for what had happened. Besides, then and now, he saw her potential—a potential she was well on her way to achieving.
Shelley was one of those rare people who had grit and talent, wit and compassion and that ability to see a bit deeper, go a bit farther, than most people.
Phyllis let out a heavy sigh, bringing Matt back from the hell he’d visited less and less over the past four years—and almost hourly, it seemed, during the past month. She’d stopped rocking. Rested her head on her pulled-up knees.
“What exactly do you want, then?” He could feel her gaze on him, but didn’t turn to meet it.
“I’m
