Daddy, Unexpectedly

Claire looked up at him then, eyes brimming with concern. “Oh, Luke. Was she hurt? Was anyone else?”

“She was. No one else, though.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but he didn’t know if he should tell her. Aside from that night at the E.R., he’d never talked about the baby. Not with anyone. Not even Sherri.

“That’s a good thing, at least. Is she okay now?”

Should he tell her? Did it make sense to tell her? After all this time, here he was. Here. With her. He hadn’t known how much he wanted to be with her until she’d invited him into her bedroom last night. He wanted to spend more time with her. Starting tonight, if he could find a way to make it happen.

You know what you need to do.

Step four: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step five: Admit to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Here goes nothing.

“She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, so she was pretty badly banged up. Concussion, a bunch of stitches. And...”

Claire sliced through the omelet, slid the two halves onto plates and set them on the counter. “Salt and pepper?” she asked, suddenly very matter-of-fact. Very Claire.

“Sure.” He took the stool he’d been sitting on earlier.

She got out cutlery and napkins, took a pair of salt-and-pepper grinders out of a cupboard and sat next to him.

“This is good,” he said after swallowing a mouthful.

“Thanks.” She picked up her fork. “So you were telling me about the accident.”

“When I said no one else was hurt, that wasn’t entirely true. She was pregnant, and she lost the baby.”

“Oh, my God. Luke, I’m so sorry.” She set her fork on her plate and laid a hand on his arm.

He couldn’t look at her, not until he finished, because he didn’t want sympathy. He wanted to move forward, maybe with her. For that to happen, she needed to know the truth.

“I didn’t know about the baby. I don’t know if she did, either.”

“Really? How far along was she?”

“Two months, maybe a little more.”

“And she was drinking all that time?”

“Yeah, a lot. The doctor never came right out and said it, but I got the impression that the miscarriage was probably for the best.”

Claire squeezed his arm but stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“Then I said some stuff to Sherri, and she played the victim. She was good at that and I’d always let her get away with it, but not that time. She swore she hadn’t been drinking. Just swerved to miss a cat, and then there must’ve been something wrong with the brakes because she couldn’t stop. I called her on it, pointed out that the blood work didn’t lie, but she did. About the drinking, the accident, the baby...everything.”

“Is that when the two of you broke up, when you decided to stop...?”

“Not quite.” She didn’t need to know he’d stormed out of the hospital that night, met up with a couple of buddies, got smashed. Two days later he woke up on a friend’s couch with a buzz saw carving up his gut, the taste of bile in his throat, a jackhammer pounding on his skull and absolutely no recollection of how he’d spent the past forty-eight hours. If that wasn’t rock bottom, if it was possible to feel like a bigger piece of shit than he had that morning, he didn’t want to find out.

“I actually went on a bender for a couple of days, sobered up in time to bring her home from the hospital. I accused her of being careless and irresponsible, trying to trap me into marrying her, forcing me to have a baby I didn’t want.”

Claire snatched her hand away and picked up her fork again, averting her eyes.

He hated that she pulled away, mostly because he had no clue what it meant. Had he said too much? Sounded too harsh?

She refocused on him, this time with intense scrutiny. “But if the circumstances had been different...if the baby had been okay...you’d be a father right now.”

That was something he hadn’t been able to wrap his head around then, and it didn’t get easier with time. “She knew I didn’t want a family, and I didn’t mean not at that particular time, and I didn’t mean just not with her. I meant not ever. There’s no way I’ll bring another Devlin child into the world and have it grow up the way I did. Sherri knew that.”

“But you’re not your father, Luke.”

Nice of her to say, and he’d sure like to believe it. Truth was, he’d spent most of his adult life being like his father. Getting sober had changed that, he hoped, but it was a daily struggle. Only another alcoholic could understand that and there was no point in trying to explain it to Claire, so he let it drop.

“Sherri and I talked about kids more than once and she always gave the impression we were on the same page. After she lost the baby, I stuck around, tried to work things out, but I knew the only way to fix things was to do it sober. She agreed, but I was the only one who quit drinking. So I joined AA, moved into a place of my own, got a dog and here I am.”

“It sounds as though you did what you could, and then you did what you had to do,” Claire said.

Nice that she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or so it seemed. He wouldn’t know for sure until she agreed to see him again.

“Speaking of the dog...” He shoveled in the last forkful of omelet, drained his coffee cup. “Rex’ll be going squirrelly. I need to take him out for a run sometime this morning or he’ll unstuff a piece of furniture.”

Claire slid off her stool and cleared away their plates and empty cups. “Why don’t you go? I can wait for the locksmith. I still have plenty of time before I meet my clients.”

No way. Rex could knock himself out with the arm of the couch that still had some upholstery on it because Luke was not leaving her alone here until Donald’s key no longer worked the lock.

“I’ll stay. Marty can be a little intimidating.” Three hundred pounds and a hundred hours at the tattoo parlor tended to have that effect.

Claire was already dressed for work in tailored navy pants with a matching jacket and crisp white shirt. They had a little time before Marty would get here, and Luke was toying with the idea of unbuttoning the shirt when music started to play.

Was that... “La Cucaracha”?

“It’s Donald.” She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. “After last night, he’s got a lot of nerve.”

Nerve? The guy was either supremely arrogant or completely stupid. Maybe both, and that was always a dangerous combination.

“I’ll let it go to voice mail,” she said.

“Take it. Otherwise you’re giving him the upper hand.” He’d like to answer it himself, except that would be adding fuel to this guy’s fire, which was already raging out of control. “Act like his showing up here last night never happened.”

Claire lowered her eyes as she answered. “Good morning, Donald.”

Luke stopped her when she tried to turn away. He couldn’t hear what the ex was saying, but he’d be able to read it in her expression.

“I have appointments all day so no, I won’t have a chance to talk to my lawyer. I’ll call her on Monday.” Claire shook her head. “I’m not agreeing to that. The book was a gift and I’m keeping it. Like I said yesterday...”

He could sense the struggle it took to keep her voice steady and not react. He reached for her free hand, stroked his thumb across her palm, wanting her to know she was doing great.