In A Heartbeat

Anna had never imagined being so close to having no home at all.

* * *

THE ONLY LIGHTS in the family room were one standing lamp and the ever-shifting colors of the TV. Through the window, Nate saw the glitter of lights across the lake in Seattle and a few sparkling on the mast of a boat gliding through the dark water.

Staying unnoticed in the doorway, he glanced at the TV to see what Molly was watching. The Lego Movie. Amusing, as he recalled.

He switched his attention to his daughter, who had curled into the smallest possible ball in the corner of the sofa. She clutched a throw pillow in her arms as if it was a flotation device—all that would keep her from drowning. He’d swear she hadn’t blinked in at least a minute. She was either mesmerized by the movie or not seeing it at all.

At least she wasn’t watching Moana again. That one, with the tense father/daughter thing going, made him uncomfortable.

All she’d wanted since he’d picked her up this morning was to watch a succession of DVDs. Having a waterfront home on Lake Washington used to be a plus. Today, she’d been careful to keep her back to the view of the lake. Okay, that was understandable, but she hadn’t wanted to ride her bike, which he kept in his garage, either, or play a board game. He’d bought two skateboards a while back, one child-sized, one adult, along with pads for knees and elbows and helmets. Sonja didn’t approve, of course, but skateboarding on the driveway was one of the few activities done with her father that had delighted Molly. Today? “No, thank you, Daddy.”

After thanking him politely and refusing to go out to a pizza place they both liked, she nibbled at what he put in front of her for lunch and dinner. She hadn’t talked any more than she absolutely had to.

Abruptly, he’d had enough.

He flicked on the overhead light and strode to the sofa, where he grabbed the remote and turned off both DVD player and television.

Molly sat up. “Daddy!”

“That’s enough, honey. You haven’t taken your eyes off that TV all day. You and I need to talk.” He sat on the middle cushion, within reach of his kid.

Her lower lip pooched out. “I was watching the movie!”

“How many times have you seen it?” Unsurprised that she didn’t answer, he said, “Often enough to know how it ends.”

She bent her head and stared at her lap.

He reached over and gently tipped up her chin. Her big eyes, a vivid green, finally met his.

“I know falling in the river scared you. But keeping everything you feel inside isn’t healthy. You haven’t told me yet what really did happen.”

She mumbled something about her mother.

“I need you to talk to me, too.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Mr. Grainger is dead,” she whispered. “Like Tuffet.”

Tuffet had been her cat, named because he’d let her lie on him whenever she wanted. When Sonja had moved out, she’d taken the cat along with Molly. According to Molly, Tuffet got sick and died. Sonja had admitted to him that the cat had somehow slipped out and been hit by a car.

“I know,” Nate said now, tugging Molly over to lean on him.

“Mommy says it’s your fault, because it was hard to watch so many kids at the same time.” Even her intonations parroted her mother’s. “If you were there, you coulda watched me.”

“That’s true,” he had to say, “but most of the kids only had one parent along, didn’t they? And were assigned three other kids.”

After a hesitation, her head bobbed against him.

His eyes stung from unfamiliar grief mixed with the rare joy at holding her in his arms. He’d loved his little carrottop with unexpected ferocity from the minute the doctor had handed over the beet-red, squalling newborn. If she’d drowned... Even as he shied away from an inner vision of her limp, lifeless, pallid body, his heart cramped painfully.

“Mommy said it’s my fault, too, ’cuz I did something I wasn’t s’posed to.”

Sharp anger supplanted the pain. Molly was old enough to take responsibility for her actions, but not to confront that kind of guilt. What the hell was Sonja thinking?

“Okay.” He shifted to allow him to see her face, wet with tears. “Here’s the thing. Kids break rules all the time. They hide from their parents, or they run from them because it’s fun to be chased. They sneak an extra cookie, or feed an icky food to the cat instead of eating it the way Mommy said they had to.”

She’d quit blinking again, but she was listening.

“I broke my arm when I wasn’t much older than you because I climbed a tree after my dad said I couldn’t. My brother and I used to climb out a skylight to sit on the roof at night, too.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you fall off?”

“No, and your grandma and grandad never caught us.” Of course, there was the time Adam had jumped off, but that was another story.

Her forehead crinkled, and she gave a small nod.

Give your kid ideas, why don’t you?

“The point is, kids don’t always do what their parents or other adults say. Once in a while, they even hurt themselves, like I did when I broke my arm. But it would never have occurred to me that someone else might get hurt because of what I did. That’s because it almost never happens. You didn’t mean it to happen.”

Nate was disconcerted to realize he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He forged on, anyway.

“Why did you sneak away?”

She didn’t want to answer, but finally said, “I was bored. I was s’posed to stay with the other girls Mommy had to watch, but they didn’t want to play with me. And anyway—” she began to sound indignant “—Melissa said we were going to the river, but instead there was this big, boring field, and I didn’t want to play soccer or run dumb three-legged races or just sit there. Mommy wasn’t any fun, ’cuz she was—” She shrank from him in alarm at what she’d almost said.

Sonja was what? He decided not to press; asking Molly to betray her mother, if that was the case, would only do more damage.

“I would give anything to have been able to come with you that day,” he said finally. “But I can’t go back and make a different decision.”

She nodded solemnly.

“I bet you feel the same.”

Her face crumpled and she swallowed, but nodded again.

“Same deal. You can’t go back. I’m more grateful than I can say to Mr. Grainger. I can’t imagine losing you.”

“But...Josh and his little sister lost their dad.” Tears fell anew. “Because of me. And...and I can swim.”

“Mr. Grainger knew that a girl your size couldn’t possibly be a strong enough swimmer to get out of the current. It pulled you away from the bank, didn’t it?”

Her head bobbed. “I was so scared, Daddy.”

“I doubt he expected to die. He probably thought he’d be able to put his feet down, because rivers aren’t deep like the lake, especially at this time of year. Or he hoped to reach a gravel bar or a snag he could grab. But because he wasn’t a good swimmer, he must also have known that he might be giving his life to save yours. And you know what?”

She waited.