he worked. Everybody in town knew about him. Tedi knew the kids at school talked about her behind her back, and she hated it. She hated what he did to Mom and the way he’d threatened to ruin Mom’s practice again if she tried to get custody. And the only reason he wanted custody was because Mom had to pay so much child support. Tedi would never go back to live with him. She would rather die first.
Her heart was beating so fast now she could barely hear the sound of wind flipping the leaves around on the trees. Breathing hard, yet trying not to make noise, she stopped about ten feet from where he stood, and she studied him.
He looked different. Of course, he wasn’t drunk now, but he looked different from the way he had this spring even when he was sober. He looked smaller somehow. His blond hair looked more gray. He had more creases in his face.
“What are you doing here?” She said it, then held her breath, arms straight at her sides, anger and fear mingling within her. If he moved toward her, she would turn and run.
He swung around, and his pale blue eyes widened, his lips parted slightly in surprise. “Tedi.” He breathed the name. He did not move a muscle, but stood staring at her as if she were a bird he was afraid would fly away.
Her gaze darted toward the kids on the playground, and at the teachers refereeing, and at Abby watching from the door of the school building, hands clenched at her sides, gaze fierce, as though she were getting ready to thwack a baseball.
“I’m sorry, Tedi. I didn’t come here to scare you.” Dad’s voice drew Tedi’s attention back to him, and his blue gaze held her, roving over her face, as if he was studying it. “I wasn’t even going to let you know I was here. I just wanted to see you again. I thought you’d be out on the playground with the rest of the kids.” He sounded hoarse, as if he hadn’t been talking much lately and wasn’t used to it.
He wouldn’t stop looking at her.
“But why are you out?” she demanded.
“The judge released me.”
Tedi felt a fresh surge of anger and fear. What kind of a judge would release a man who’d almost killed his own kid? “Why?”
“I dried out, no booze since…None all summer.”
“Oh, sure. How can you get to the booze when you’re locked up? That doesn’t prove anything.”
“That’s what I asked them. I was afraid to leave. I didn’t trust myself because I can’t forget what I did to you.” He slowly took his hands out of his pockets and spread them, taking care not to get close to her. “The judge assigned a new, young attorney to my case, and the guy got me out on bail because I had a good record at the detox center, and I’d never been in trouble with the police before, and—”
“But I almost died!” Tedi crossed her arms over her chest. How could they just let him go like that? “Mom said you couldn’t get out to hurt me again.”
He winced as if someone had slugged him. A muscle tightened in his jaw. “I won’t hurt you again.” Now he seemed to study the ground as closely as he had been studying her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I just wanted to see you, see for myself how you were doing…. I guess I had to make sure you were really okay. I was so scared that night…so sure that…And the police took me in while you were being flown out for surgery.” He looked up then, and his gaze pinpointed the scar at her throat. “I did that and so many other things. All these months in detox I’ve realized how much I did to destroy what I had with you, and…and I was the one who destroyed the relationship I had with your mother. I’ve been forced to admit so much this summer, so much I didn’t want to see, but that I can’t afford to forget.”
Tedi watched his face and listened to his voice. He’d apologized before. Maybe he’d meant it when he said it, but what good had it done?
His gaze drifted again to her throat, and she knew he was looking at the scar, then he closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing them tightly shut, as if he were afraid they would burn out if he kept them open any longer. He looked old. He was the same age as Mom, but he looked a lot older than she did. His eyes looked wrinkled, and they turned down at the corners, the way his mouth did.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and he raised his head and gazed into her eyes again. “I can’t ever make it up to you, Tedi, and I’m so sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m going to try anyway. Tedi, I’m not supposed to be here, but I want to get permission to try to see you again. Before I do that, though, I want to know if it’s okay with you. If not, I’ll wait.”
She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She was too shocked, not by his words, but by the fact that she realized she didn’t hate him totally. Mostly, but not totally.
“I’d like a chance to talk with you, Tedi. Your mother would have to be there with us.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re talking to me now .”
“What I mean is that I want to start seeing you again, regularly, like the kind of visitation you had with your mom when you lived with me.”
She took a step forward, feeling braver. “Mom would never let you take me away from her again. Never! And I will never go back.”
He sighed and held her gaze steadily. “I wouldn’t try to get you back. If I got to visit with you, I wouldn’t even touch you. I promise. I just want to find out if it would be okay with you before I ask for permission from your mother.’ His light blue eyes filled with tears, and he looked away for a moment. “It’s going to take a long time to become friends again, but I have to try.”
Friends? Ha! A friend didn’t try to kill a friend. And a friend didn’t try to keep a friend from her mother or try to ruin her mother’s name in town just out of spite. “I don’t want to be your friend.”
He reached up with the back of his hand and brushed his tears away. “Of course you don’t. I’ve been talking with my counselor about it, and he said it would be unreasonable for me to expect that. I just felt like I had to make contact.”
So now he’d made contact. What else would he want? When Dad was nice, it was always because he wanted something. Why was she even listening to him? Why was she talking to him and thinking about what it might be like to see him again? She should hate him for what he had done to her and Mom. She shouldn’t’ve even come out here.
But what if he’d really changed?
“You’ll have to ask Mom yourself,” she said at last. “I’m not going to be your messenger this time.”
Dad blinked a couple of times and looked back at her. “You’d meet with me?” Some of the sadness left his face. The bell rang, and he stiffened. He reached out as if to touch her and then drew his hand back. “Tedi, I want to prove to you—and maybe to myself—that people can change, that they don’t have to be stuck in the rut they dig for themselves.”
For a moment, she couldn’t help hoping. Then she thought of something Grandma always said, and she knew Dad needed to hear it. “Grandma Ivy says nobody can do that without God’s help.”
Instead of sneering at her and laughing the way he used to do when she quoted Grandma, he cocked his head to the side. “How’s your grandma doing?”
Tedi heard her name being called and glanced
