“Okay, Daddy. Night!”
“Good night.”
He closed the door to the girls’ room with a sigh. Three out of four asleep. He’d give Liv a few minutes and move her back to her own bed. On bare feet, he padded to the small galley kitchen off the apartment’s living room, grabbed the notebook off its shelf and a couple of pain relief tablets from the bottle high up in a kitchen cabinet for the headache forming behind his eyeballs.
His family needed a bigger place before they killed each other…or him. The only reason he’d taken this unit was because it was one of the perks of being the building superintendent—no rent. But four girls in one bedroom was a disaster. One of the building’s three-bedroom duplexes had just been vacated. Its rent was high. Higher than the mortgage on the upstate house he and Janey had owned before her death. But maybe he could talk Mike’s uncle, the building’s owner, into letting him pay the difference between the rent on this apartment and that one. He wasn’t sure how he was going to swing that amount, though.
Twenty minutes later, he collapsed on the sofa and dropped his head into his hands with a loud sigh. He had a plan now, a plan that would take a lot of juggling, but could work. All he had to do was find some part-time engineering or inspecting work, pick up some extra cash. He could still manage the building.
He needed to square it with Mike first, but he wasn’t worried.
Mike Kinsella had been Gabe’s friend since they were Maddie’s age. They’d been through it all…school, football, broken hearts, first cars and first loves. Mike had been Gabe’s best man and was godfather to all four of his girls. And when he’d lost Janey, Mike was the first call Gabe had made.
Gabe had a difficult time facing Janey’s parents after her death. Oh, they’d welcomed him into their family, but Janey died on his watch. How the hell do you apologize for that? How do you ever make that right? They never said it. They didn’t need to.
He blamed himself.
Mike helped him care for the girls. He called his uncle, who owned several buildings in the New York borough of Queens, including a garden apartment building in Bayside. Styled like an old Tudor, it took up most of a city block, featured twenty ground-floor and second-floor apartments arranged around a central courtyard. It needed a new superintendent to live on-site in exchange for a small salary and two-bedroom apartment, rent-free.
They’d headed to Bayside just over a year ago. For the most part, it worked well. But the girls were really getting on each other’s nerves, and by extension, his. If he didn’t find a way to separate Kimberly and Olivia from Madison soon, blood might be drawn. Chatty Maddie could talk the ears off a dead body and he was close to slitting his own throat.
He lifted his eyes to the picture the kids had put on the refrigerator door. Janey’s beautiful brown eyes looked back at him, full of humor and love. It had been taken the day they’d brought Emerson home from the hospital, baby number four and the absolute last, he’d sworn. Janey had merely laughed and said, “We’ll see.” Exactly what she’d said after each of the previous children. Only this time, it had been true. She’d died barely four months later.
Now, it was up to him to figure out how to manage things like braids and feeding schedules and homework and after-school activities and mean girls and teething, and a host of other childhood issues he’d been utterly unprepared to tackle alone.
“God, Janey. I miss you,” he whispered to the photograph. Gabe swore he heard her giggle and figured it was time to grab some sleep. He stood, collected his paperwork into a pile and put it all on top of the refrigerator. His spine popped and cracked in blessed relief. He made sure the stove was off—it was, and the door locked—it was. He walked back to his bedroom, stopping at the door just across from the bathroom where a sign said Girlz Rule in pink glitter paint. He quietly opened it, walked inside, aiming his cell phone’s flashlight app to avoid tripping over discarded clothes, toys, and once—a tiny figure who’d fallen out of bed.
Emerson slept with her thumb in her mouth, clutching her Teddy bear. Madison was curled up in a cat shape in her twin bed. Across the room in the top bunk, Kimberly slept soundly. He shut the door, hit the bathroom across the hall, and in his bedroom, watched Olivia breathe for a minute or two. He was too tired to carry her back to her bed so he shuffled back to the couch and stretched out.
He’d sleep here for what was left of the night.
Ah, hell. Maddie’s tooth.
He dragged himself upright, found his wallet, and carefully slid a buck under Maddie’s pillow, then spent fifteen aggravating minutes trying to find the tooth that had found its way under the bed.
He returned to the sofa, stretched out on his back and finally, fell asleep.
*
Four seconds later, giggles woke him.
No, no, no, no. It could not be morning.
“Shh, he’s waking up!”
That was Kimberly.
More giggles.
“But his face didn’t get soft!”
Madison.
“That’s because he didn’t shave yet, dopey.” Olivia. Always the voice of logic.
“I’m not dopey, you are!” Maddie shot back.
More giggles. “Pwetty Dad-dee.” Emmy was up, too? Awesome. The gang’s all here. He hoped to God he wasn’t sporting morning wood because there was no way in hell he wanted to explain that to four little girls when he’d had maybe an hour of sound sleep that night. They were already far too fascinated with the concept of peeing while standing up.
Madison had walked in on him when she was about four years old and with wide eyes asked, “What is that big thing, Daddy?” He’d immediately shooed her out of the bathroom so he could finish his business, only to find the group of them having a conference in the hall. Kimberly had put both hands on her narrow hips, cocked her head to the side and said, “Maddie says you can pee standing up. That’s not true, is it?” He’d had to mop the bathroom when Olivia had taken that news as a challenge and then, Maddie told everyone they met from the mail carrier to the waiting room at Janey’s obstetrics appointment about his big thing that lets him pee while standing up.
Janey had laughed herself silly about that but he’d been afraid he’d have to enroll the lot of them in therapy. Fixing the lock on the bathroom door had immediately climbed to the top of his to-do list.
Several small hands were in his hair. The giggles continued. He let out a snore every few minutes, hating to ruin their fun. They’d had precious little of that in their young lives, especially Kimberly. She was the oldest. She remembered. Emerson wouldn’t remember at all.
He never could decide which was worse.
Somebody crawled over his prostrate form, putting a small foot right on top of that big thing and his eyes popped open whether he wanted them to or not.
“Hi, Dad-dee!” Emmy slapped both chubby hands to his face and grinned down at him.
“Mmm.”
“Morning, Daddy!” Maddie was at his feet.
“Hi, Daddy.” Olivia. She was sitting on the arm of the couch.
“Hey, Dad.” Kimberly, leaning against the wall.
All four of them had wide, wide smiles.
“What? What’s funny?”
Giggles.
He glanced at the oven clock, saw that it was past seven. Damn it. He had to get everybody dressed, fed, and off to school by eight and be back here by nine for the inspector.
“Okay, okay, ’nuff laughing at the old man. Everybody get dressed. Breakfast in ten.” He flung aside the blanket and swung his legs to the floor, stretching his arms over his still-tired body. The girls ran back to their room, the giggles and shrieks going through him like drill bits. Gabe stood up, staggered to the bathroom—made damn sure the door was locked—and lifted the toilet seat. When he’d finished and glanced at his reflection in the mirror, he let out a laugh. There were at least two dozen clips and barrettes in his too-long hair—pink ones, purple ones, blue ones, yellow ones. He looked like a deranged unicor
n.
He began pulling them from his hair but the phone rang.
“Daddy, it’s Mrs. Morgan!” Kimberly called.
He forgot about the clips and took the phone from her. “Well,” Gabe smiled down at her, tugging on a lock of his hair. “I guess it could have been worse. They could have given me a makeover while I slept.” He shivered dramatically, earning a big smile from his eldest daughter. “Why don’t you grab a spatula while I crack these eggs?” Into the phone, he said, “Hey, Mrs. M. What can I do for you?”
“It’s my toilet, Gabe. It won’t flush.”
“Did it overflow?”
“No, thank goodness. But nothing happens at all when I jiggle the handle.”
“Okay. I’ll be over later. Meanwhile, you come on over here and use mine.”
“Thank you, I’ll do that.”
He ended the call, tossed the phone to the table. Kimberly fed some bread into the toaster while he brewed a single cup of coffee.
A large one.
“Maddie! Livvie! Get moving.”
“Coming, Daddy!”
It didn’t take long to scramble the eggs, butter the toast. By the time all his daughters joined them at the table, he had the juice poured and a handful of Cheerios and banana slices on Emmy’s tray.
“Hair?” he asked.
Olivia spoke up first. “A braid, Daddy.”
Madison was next. “Ponytail!”
Kimberly didn’t answer him.
“Kim?”
She only shrugged. “I’ll do it.”
He grabbed the basket where he usually kept the girls’ hair accessories from its home on the kitchen counter and started pulling out elastics and clips and a brush. Maddie’s hair was snarled again and she began to scream he was hurting her. “Maddie, maybe we should get your hair cut short.”
“No! I want my hair like Mommy’s.”
“But you’ve got a giant knot in your hair.”
She stuck her lip out and crossed her arms, so he grabbed the bottle of detangler and tried again. He managed to pull it up into a messy ponytail, finishing it off with a pair of rainbow barrettes. Olivia’s braid took a bit longer, but soon he had her hair secured, too. The baby was easy. Emerson didn’t have much hair yet, so he scooped the top up and added a fabric Velcro holder.
His cell phone rang next. Gabe checked the ID and took the call. “Jim! Long time.” Jim was a coworker from his time at Paradigm Construction.
“Hi, Gabe. I’m sorry for calling so early, but I’ve got an opportunity for you, if you’re interested. Remember that fire escape project? It’s turning out to be a real beast. I need someone like you to help manage it.”
Gabe did a mental fist-pump of victory. Here was that extra money he needed. “Sounds great, but can I call you later? I’ve gotta get my kids to school.”
A knock on the door added more chaos to his morning.
“It’s Mrs. Morgan, Daddy,” Olivia announced from the sofa she’d jumped on to look out the window.
He unfastened the deadbolt, opened the door and revealed the elderly tenant from Apartment B, still wearing her bathrobe.
“Just down the hall, Mrs. M.”
She shot him a look of pure mortification, but nodded. He turned back to the phone in his hand. “Sorry, Jim. You were saying?”
“Look, can we just discuss this idea in person? I want you to return as a consultant. Part-time. Set your own schedule and name your rate.”
“Yeah, but not today. I don’t have babysitting lined up.” Gabe snagged a pen and notepad from the drawer in the kitchen, calculating how much compensation to request so he could finally afford that duplex, as well as babysitters to cover the time he’d be away.
“Jim, I’ll get back to you this afternoon. I’m sorry, it’s nuts here right now.” He hung up just as Mrs. Morgan walked out of his bathroom and Emmy hurled her cup to the floor.
“Sorry, Daddy.” Kimberly dove under the table to retrieve the baby’s cup, hurried to the sink to rinse it off before giving it back to a crying Emerson.
“You need help.” Mrs. Morgan surveyed the kitchen with her hands on her hips just as the phone rang again.
“I got this,” Gabe assured her while Olivia slid out of her chair to bring him the magnetic clipboard hanging on the refrigerator. He jotted down Mrs. Morgan’s toilet and then answered the next call.
“Gabe, it’s Mike.”
“Hey, Mike,” he said, grinning. “Glad you called. I need to run something by you.”
“Hold that thought. I’ll be by Friday night, but just got off the phone with my uncle. That vacant duplex? He’s renting it to some friend of a friend’s daughter. Bad marriage, worse divorce. She needs a new address fast. She’s moving in this morning and she’ll need the keys.”
Gabe’s stomach fell. He shut his eyes and tamped down on the disappointment as his entire plan for that same duplex went up in a finger snap. The same plan he’d sketched out through eyes so tired, he was sure they’d bled. “Oh. Right. The duplex. Okay. No worries, Mike.” His voice had gone up an entire octave.
“Name’s Amelia. She’s had some bad luck lately. Besides the divorce, there was some kind of a surgery. She needs a place and—well…”
“It’s okay, Mike. Don’t sweat it,” Gabe played it easy while inside, he felt like a failure. The girls needed more space. He had to find a way to make that happen.
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll babysit. For the whole weekend. You can head east and fish for two entire days.”
“Deal,” Gabe said instantly.
Mike laughed. “I knew that would work. Now put the girls on the phone.”
While the girls talked to “Uncle” Mike, Gabe let go of his dream to give the girls more space. Maybe he could build some organizers or something for this apartment.
It wasn’t ideal. But he’d make it work.
He had to.
Chapter Two
Amelia Blake sat beside the window that overlooked 7th Avenue. New York hummed as traffic idled and pedestrians clogged the intersection but she wasn’t looking at them. She was looking for him.
She glanced at the watch on her wrist. Just going on seven AM. She had to get the timing just right. Jared was a creature of habit…as was she. He always left at 6:55. Always. It was now 6:57. From the window of the apartment she’d once shared with him, she watched and waited. At 7:02, she finally spotted him, walking with Candi.
With an I.
Lia sneered. How old do you have to be to stop dotting that I with a cutesy heart? That’s what Jared wondered when they’d met their new upstairs neighbor three years earlier. It hadn’t taken Candi long, Lia noted. Three years to steal her husband.
Her life.
Then again, Lia had no real idea exactly when Jared had first hooked up with Candi-with-an-I. She’d been too busy juggling temperature charts and infertility specialists, not to mention her clients. She’d had no clue he was unhappy, no clue he’d been cheating on her, no clue her own marriage was anything but an illusion, just like her parents’.
That’s the word Jared used when he asked her for a divorce. Illusion.
She’d been in the hospital, recovering from a miscarriage and emergency hysterectomy.
He’d walked in, sat down, told her what was up, and then, just to rub salt into her freshly stapled incision, told her he’d never meant for any of this to happen, that he was sorry. He’d wanted to leave sooner, but when she’d gotten pregnant—finally—he’d felt that he had to stay. For the baby’s sake.
A cliché. He ended their marriage and her dreams with a stupid cliché.
She hated him in that moment. He should have left the minute he’d developed feelings for Candi-with-an-I. If he had, she’d never have gotten pregnant. And if she’d never gotten pregnant, she’d still have that dream of motherhood to sustain her.
In a gesture no doubt intended to be magnanimous, Jared told her she was welcome to their apartment. He’d already moved upstairs. Ridiculous
ly, she had. She had no idea what she’d been thinking.
She managed half a laugh. Thinking was obviously not so high on her to-do list. She’d been too busy mourning.
She remembered sitting alone in her hospital room with the bouquet of flowers in her arms, plucking off every last petal and leaf, imagining they were Jared’s balls. She was still plucking when Roseann and Vivian arrived and by the time her mother showed up, her anger had given way to grief…grief not just for the child she’d lost and the husband she’d loved, but for something that went way deeper.
“Where’s Dad?” she’d asked her mother, her voice thick from crying, but Victoria had lifted her shoulders the way she always did when Lia asked that question.
“Oh, he wanted to be here, amie, but he had that golf thing.”
Golf. Right.
Lia was about ten years old when she’d guessed the truth about Santa Claus. She was only slightly older when she’d figured out Greg Blake was a man who’d never wanted kids or a wife and after he’d found himself chained by both, enjoyed pretending he had neither. Evidently, not even his daughter’s miscarriage and emergency hysterectomy could compel him to skip a date with his latest good-time girl. When she was thirteen, she asked Victoria why she put up with it but her mother shushed her. She asked again when she was seventeen and Victoria said she knew who Gregory Blake was when she married him.
Which was no answer at all if you asked Lia.
When she was a child, she’d questioned and wondered and cried alone in her bed at night, and promised herself that when she grew up, she’d make the family she wished she’d had. She’d find a husband who respected her, who loved her, and together, they’d have children who’d never question or wonder or cry alone.
While she’d curled in a ball in that hospital bed, she mourned that child as much as the one she’d lost…maybe even more.
“Amelia, I told you from the beginning that men don’t appreciate women with lofty goals but you insisted on starting that business and now look what happened,” Victoria told her. “Your husband is playing house with someone else.” Victoria seemed incapable of seeing her own hypocrisy and Lia was too full of grief to deal with her.