“It’s okay, Uncle Maffew,” Lizzie promised as she nuzzled against his neck before sitting back and looking between Elizabeth and me. “My Mommy and Daddy took care of me.”
For the briefest moment, Matthew’s attention shifted from Lizzie to me. His expression was wary, but for the first time it lacked the contempt it normal y held. He opened his mouth as if to say something but turned away as Elizabeth made the cal to breakfast.
I couldn’t help but feel out of place as the four of them settled into their usual spots without a thought. Matthew and Lizzie dove right into conversation as he asked for a play-by-play of the night before while he dug into the food spread out on the table in front of him. My feet were glued to the floor, and I watched them with benevolent envy, without spite or resentment, but covetous of the bond they had formed.
Elizabeth looked up from her seat, smothering me in the warmth in her gaze. She inclined her head, beckoning me to take the spot beside her.
As much as I felt like an outsider, my need to be a part of this family outweighed the discomfort I experienced as I walked across the room and pul ed out the chair between Elizabeth and Lizzie.
Three pairs of eyes watched as I settled into my place, Natalie as if she’d always believed I belonged there, Matthew cautious, and Elizabeth with a hint of red on her cheeks. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling self-conscious. But even if it was new and fil ed with uncertainty, it didn’t make it any less right.
Lizzie was the only one who didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary and continued with the animated description of the previous night, relieving some of the awkwardness.
With a quiet grin on my face, I listened to my daughter prattle on and was unable to contain the pleasure I felt as I fil ed my plate from the bowls Elizabeth passed my way. If Lizzie had been in distress the night before, I never would have known. Matthew and Natalie hung on her every word as they showered her with sympathy and cheered her for being such a brave girl as she recounted her experience.
By the look of my plate, I knew I appeared to be a glutton. The homemade breakfast was piled high, but I couldn’t resist. How many mornings had I woken up to Elizabeth cooking in that smal kitchen of my apartment back in New York? I was salivating by the time I bit into a biscuit dripping with butter and raspberry jam. A moan escaped me before I could stop it.
The voice beside me was so quiet I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it. “They were always your favorite.” I tilted my head toward her, smiled softly, wished I had the freedom to reach out and touch her face, and whispered, “Thank-you for making them.”
I realized we were being watched, but I didn’t care. I’d chosen to stop being a coward the day I’d final y sought Elizabeth out, and if I had to lay my heart out in front of her family to show her I cared for her, that I had never forgotten her, through something as simple has homemade biscuits, I would do it.
“So, Christian . . . ,” Natalie said, cutting in before placing a forkful of eggs in her mouth. She chewed and swal owed before she continued. “What do you think of living in San Diego?” I looked across the table at her, aware she was trying to make me comfortable and welcome me into their circle. She’d always been kind to me, giving me the benefit while everyone else had remained in doubt.
My gaze flickered between the girls on my left and right before returning to rest on her. “I love it here.”
“Me too,” Lizzie added as she shoved half of a piece of bacon into her mouth.
Yes. I absolutely loved it here.
“And work?” Natalie asked.
“Uh . . .” Honestly, I real y didn’t know how to answer her. I knew I had a dream job, and I wished I could appreciate it more; but in the end, it real y only served to remind me of what I’d walked away from to attain it.
Natalie laughed. “Work’s work, right?”
I chuckled at her observation even though it went much deeper than the obvious. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Elizabeth tensed beside me as we broached what I knew was going to be a very touchy subject for us.
Elizabeth had never been in it for the money, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have aspirations. And she was right, what she’d said that afternoon—we could have figured it out.
Lizzie jumped on the topic. “At my Daddy’s work you can see the ocean and at his house too,” she said with wide-eyed exuberance. Months before, I’d taken Lizzie to my office to show her where I worked, and of course, she’d been to my condo a number of times. She’d clearly been impressed by the fact that they looked over the water and had declared that one day she’d live by the ocean, too. It was a wish I’d be al too happy to grant.
Elizabeth joining the conversation caught me off guard.
“So, what’s it like working for your dad?” She studied me with a genuine concern-fil ed gaze. She’d known how turbulent my relationship with my father had been, and he’d been nothing but a self-righteous asshole to her. I was surprised she’d even mention him.
I looked directly at her and expel ed a weighty breath before I answered truthful y. “Miserable.” I shoveled some scrambled eggs into my mouth to cover up the disdain I felt for my father. He ruled his company with an iron fist and treated every single one of his employees like garbage, including me. Why he’d asked me to “head” the San Diego office when he thought me incapable of doing anything right was beyond me.
She nodded softly as if she’d expected it. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” For everything.
Her attention dropped to her plate, absorbed with spearing eggs onto her fork.
It was al so disconcerting, the way Elizabeth and I had to tiptoe around each other as if every simple comment came with a threat to sweep us away in the undertow and to drown us in our past.
I turned back to Natalie in hope of a safer topic. “What do you do, Natalie?”
Her brown eyes lit up as she jumped into a detailed account of the last four years of her life—her goals, school, meeting Matthew. While she was young and viewed the world through an almost childlike awe, there was stil a depth to her. I liked her and could easily count her as a friend. “So right now I’m taking classes in the mornings to finish up my bachelor’s and taking care of this sweet little thing in the afternoons.” She poked Lizzie in the bel y with her finger, causing Lizzie to squeal.
Matthew watched his wife with tenderness, his face glowing as she spoke. I glanced at Elizabeth, then back at him, searching for any sort of unease with the interaction while wondering how their lives seemed so simple when the situation was anything but. Elizabeth merely watched them both with fondness. Maybe when I had seen Matthew at Elizabeth’s side that night I’d been too blinded by my own self-pity to see clearly, but I could plainly see it now.
He’d stood beside Elizabeth devoted as a protector, her guardian, but his touch had lacked what poured from him when he looked at his wife.
He’d never loved Elizabeth—not the way I did, not the way he loved Natalie.
I was such fool, every realization an amplification of the mistakes I’d made.
For the remainder of breakfast, I listened and learned.
Matthew directed nothing toward me other than an occasional penetrating stare as if he would give anything to know my thoughts.
Elizabeth’s little family carried on the way I imagined they always did, relaxed, enjoying each other, and chatting about what had happened throughout their week.
Elizabeth laughed.
And the world was right.
“Can I help with anything?” I stood in the doorway of Elizabeth’s kitchen as she loaded the dishwasher with the aftermath of Sunday morning. I’d just come downstairs from Lizzie’s room where I’d spent the last hour, playing with her on the floor—everything from dol s, to cars, to a game that required me to wear plastic earrings and a princess tiara.
I won.
Elizabeth smiled over her shoulder. “Nope, just finishing up.” She closed the dishwasher and twisted the di
al to start.
“This was great, Elizabeth. Thank-you.”
She shook her head indicating it wasn’t a problem.
“I’m glad you were here.”
“I’m glad I was, too.” More than she could ever know.
Seeing Lizzie three days in a row had been wonderful, and even though I was aware this request would count as pushing again, I couldn’t imagine not seeing her for an entire week. “So, I was thinking . . . maybe I could pick Lizzie up on Tuesday from school to take her to lunch?” I felt nervous, shifting my feet, worried of her reaction. So I rambled. “I’d only keep her for a couple of hours, and I could bring her back to Natalie. You wouldn’t even know she was gone.”
She didn’t hesitate. “I don’t see why not. Just let me check with Nat.”
Natalie agreed, which didn’t surprise me. She seemed thril ed with the idea. The arrangement would be for me to pick Lizzie up from school and then drop her back at Natalie and Matthew’s house afterward. I typed the address Natalie had given me into my phone while she and Matthew hugged and kissed Elizabeth and Lizzie goodbye, their affection great as they promised they’d see each other tomorrow.
Natalie hugged me. At first it caught me off guard, but I was quick to reciprocate with a murmured thank-you low against her ear. She nodded and squeezed me harder in return, a clear understanding taking place between us.
The greater shock was when Matthew stepped forward and extended his hand. I accepted it, though my grip was weak and unsure. He shook it, firm and without reproach.
“Thanks for being there last night.”
I nodded even though I didn’t want his thanks. No father should need to be thanked for participating in what was his responsibility, but I had to accept that my past choices resulted in the judgment of my actions now.
“Al right, we’re outta here.” Natalie tugged on Matthew’s arm, taking his hand. With a final goodbye, they filed out the front door, their departure signaling that my time here today had ended as wel .
“I guess I’d better head out, too.” My tone was less than enthusiastic.
I knelt in front of my daughter and gathered her in my arms. There was nothing worse than tel ing her goodbye. “I love you, baby girl. Daddy’s going to pick you up from school on Tuesday.” I smoothed her hair and drank in her eyes. “Would you like that?”
“Yes!” She squeezed her arms around my neck.
“You’re the best daddy in the world!”
Her perception of me was so skewed, so far removed from the truth, but there would be no good purpose in correcting her now. I needed to talk to her about it, I knew, just as much as I needed to talk to her mother, but not as I was walking out the door. So I drew her closer, held her tight.
“Goodbye, princess.” In disinclination, I let her go and stood to leave.
“Bye, Daddy.”
Elizabeth regarded us from where she stood, leaning against the wal under the stairs, a new sadness on her face. It was a sadness I knew al too wel . I wore it al the time.
“Goodbye, Elizabeth. Thanks for everything.”
“Goodbye, Christian.”
I opened the door and stepped out into the warmth of the summer sun.
Elizabeth fol owed me to the doorway to see me out.
“Elizabeth?” I turned to her, pausing on her stoop. This wasn’t an afterthought. It’d been on my mind, weighing on me since last night. “Why didn’t you come back to class?” She stil ed as the meaning of my question dawned on her face. Her voice was quiet and cracked when she answered. “I was sick.”
Closing my eyes, I nodded as I rode out the suffocating wave of guilt, and in my shame, I turned and left Elizabeth with no further words.
The preschool was a large, white building with colorful letters splashed across the front and shrubs growing against its wal s. A wrought iron fence painted bright blue encompassed the grounds, and playground equipment fil ed the yard that was protected from the heat by a matching blue sunshade.
At exactly noon, I walked through the door and into the office, feeling a bit out of sorts and nervous. The room was mostly quiet; only the distorted sound of playful children seeped through the thin wal s. The young woman behind the counter asked if she could help me.
“Yes, I’m here to pick up Lizzie Ayers.” Her face lit in recognition. “Oh, yes, we were told to expect you.” She thumbed through a stack of files on her desk and produced a folder with Lizzie’s name on the tab.
She pul ed a sheet from it, passed it across to me, and set a pen on top of it. “I just need you to fil this out, and I need your driver’s license for verification.” Most of the form had been fil ed out by Elizabeth, her distinct handwriting adding me to the list of people authorized to pick Lizzie up from school. There was only a smal section where I needed to add my personal information.
My heart palpitated as I realized the huge leap of faith Elizabeth had taken in me.
I now had control of signing my daughter in and out of school.
With a shaky hand, I added the information and passed the form back to the receptionist along with my license.
She looked it over, put up a finger, and said, “Just a minute.”
She made a photocopy, added it to the file, and showed me where to sign out my daughter. Then she led me down the hal to Lizzie’s classroom.
“Daddy!” Lizzie spotted me the second we walked through the door and ran across the room with outstretched arms.
“Hi, sweetheart.” I picked her up and kissed her on the forehead, rocking her as I held her to my chest. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Daddy.”
“Come on, let’s get your things.”
Lizzie showed me her cubby stuffed with her day’s work, proud as she presented me with a picture she’d painted. Although the picture had been drawn with the crudeness of the hand of a five-year-old, the two adults and one child standing hand-in-hand, one with yel ow and two with black hair, made it clear who she’d drawn.
“This is beautiful, Lizzie.” So beautiful.
I helped her wriggle her backpack over the sling she stil wore on her arm and then took her good hand and led her out.
“Where to, Lizzie?” I looked at her through the rearview mirror where she was buckled in her booster in the backseat of my car.
“I want pizza!”
Then pizza it was.
Soon we were seated at a round table for two at the smal pizza parlor I’d looked up on my phone. It was the kind of place where the owner cooked in the back while he yel ed orders to his employees up front, a place where a person could order pizza by the slice and sit at tables covered in red and white checked cloths, a place where the intoxicating smel of fresh-baked dough hung in the air.
Lizzie sat on her knees, sipping a clear, bubbly soda through a straw, the two of us conversing about our day.
She told me of the fight between two little boys on the playground, her voice disapproving as she described how they had to sit in time out for the whole recess.
I chuckled and then told her about the board meeting I’d had to sit through the entire morning, leaving out al the boring details and tel ing her how I’d spent the entire time gazing out on the sailboats on the water while thinking of only her.
The server arrived with our food and refil ed our drinks.
The slices of pizza were huge and dripping with grease, and I convinced Lizzie to al ow me to cut it into pieces so she could eat it with a fork rather than trying to balance it with her one good hand.
“Thank-you, Daddy,” she said with a soft expression of appreciation on her face, as I set her plate back in front of her and handed her a fork.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” I smiled as she speared a piece of her cheese pizza and popped it into her mouth. Only then did I turn to wrestle the huge piece in front of me.
We ate in peace for a couple of minutes while I contemplated the best way to bring up a discussion I was certain would be one of the hardest of m
y life, but one I couldn’t put off any longer.
“Lizzie, honey?”
Grinning, she looked up from her plate and across the table at me.
“Are you happy Daddy’s here . . . now?” Real y, I knew what she would say. I just didn’t know a better way to break into the conversation.
She nodded as she took another bite. “Uh-huh.”
“Did your mom ever talk to you about why I wasn’t with you when you were younger?”
She shrugged one shoulder as if it didn’t matter at al .
“You didn’t want me.”
I wanted to pass out from the dizzying pain her answer brought me. Swal owing the lump in my throat, I held onto the table in front of me, forcing myself to speak. “Lizzie, I’m so sorry.” Even if it hadn’t always been the case, even if I’d spent the first five years of her life wondering about her, longing for her, there had been a day I’d believed this child would ruin my life.
“It’s okay, Daddy.”
There was nothing okay about what I’d done, but I accepted it as her way of tel ing me she’d already forgiven me.
I leaned heavily against the table, lowering myself so I could look up at my child’s face. “I need you to know, Lizzie, that as long as I live I wil never leave you again. Do you understand?”
She smiled a simple smile, one of sincerity and trust. “I know that, Daddy.” She grinned and asked if she could have another soda.
It was just after three when I pul ed into the spot with my name engraved on a silver plaque in the parking garage of my building. I jammed the up button several times, wil ing the elevator to hurry. I’d been due for another round of board meetings at three o’clock. After spending the hour after lunch at a nearby park, I’d dropped Lizzie off at the smal , one-level house Natalie and Matthew shared. With a smile, Natalie had invited me in. She’d enveloped me in an encouraging embrace when I explained I had to get back to the office.
What felt like five minutes passed, which in reality was only about thirty seconds, before the elevator doors slid open. I breathed a sigh of relief when I stepped out onto our floor a minute later, rushing to my office to grab the files I needed for the meeting.