Keeping Faith

“Because…” She shrugged. “I just figured it was over. I didn’t especially want to hear you confirm it. I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “For everything.”

So am I, he thought. For everything. They sat in silence for a while. The memories were all coming back to her, he guessed, just as they were for him. The cheap apartment, the car that spent more time up on blocks than on the road, tins of beans and fried-egg sandwiches for supper. Happy enough until those last few weeks, or so he’d thought. One night he’d woken from a dream about Ireland, starving for the sort of lamb stew he remembered his gran making. He’d roused Hannah out of sleep, and at two in the morning they’d found an all-night market and spent all the money they had on the stuff to make it. By the time they’d got everything home, he was no longer in the mood for stew, and they’d made love on the kitchen floor instead.

“What happened?” he asked her now.

Hannah traced a bit of the wicker weave on the arm of the chair. “Short version?”

“Let’s begin with that.”

“I fell apart, and my family had me hospitalized. That’s where I was when you came to look for me.”

“Let’s hear the longer version,” he said.

She covered her face with her hands, took a deep breath then took her hands away. “Oh God, Liam, I don’t know. I was such a mess. I hated your being gone all the time. I hated the clubs and the girls always hanging around. I was miserable, lonely. I missed having my family around me. Mostly I was terrified of going back to Ireland where I didn’t know anyone. My life would have been tagging around after you, or staying home by myself.”

He looked at her, wanting to argue but resisting. He knew his version of what went wrong; he wanted to hear hers.

“Not that we didn’t have some good times,” she said. “I don’t mean that. It was just…I felt like I was disappearing. That last tour you had in San Francisco, I stayed home, remember? In our apartment, I mean. Anyway, I started going through the drawers in your dresser, and I found these letters from some girl…”

“God, Hannah—”

“No, let me finish. It’s a chapter in my life that I’d just as soon never think about again, but I want you to know so you understand…about Faith and everything. I just went to pieces. Everything is a kind of blur. I guess I called my mom and she was on her way over to pick me up, but I’d already left. I don’t even know what I was thinking. She found me walking along the freeway. At that point, she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

He thought of those last couple of months with her. He’d come home late from a gig to find her sleeping. She’d be sleeping still when he went off again the next day. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was crying. For days on end it seemed she’d do nothing but sleep or cry. He’d alternate between racking his brain to figure out why she was unhappy and losing patience with her for doing nothing to help herself. “For God’s sake, snap out of it,” he’d say. “Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself.” And then he’d blow money they didn’t have on hothouse roses.

Her expression clouded, and she picked at the fabric on her dress. “The thing is, my family still worries about me and Faith. My mom especially. Although lately, the tables have kind of turned and it seems I’m always worrying about her…” She smiled slightly. “Another story. Anyway, they all know how bad things were after we split. I mean if it hadn’t been for them…”

If it hadn’t been for them, he’d know his daughter today. On the other hand, he hadn’t recognized the severity of her depression and they had, so maybe he didn’t deserve to know his daughter. He stood, restless, fighting a barrage of competing emotions.

“I was a real mess,” she said again. “I couldn’t even take care of Faith. So now, every time I feel smothered by my family, I remind myself of that.” She laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Or they do.”

“But you’re all right now?” He turned to face her again, studied her for a moment. There was a confidence and strength about her that she hadn’t had before. “You look great,” he said. She smiled and he was reminded again of all the good times they’d shared. “No, I mean it. Back then, a good wind would have blown you away. You’ve…filled out.”

Her grin widened. “Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, not at all. And I like your hair the way you have it now. It suits you.”

“You used to like waist-length, white-blond hair.”

“Ah, well, we all change.”

“Listen, Liam…” She leaned forward in her chair. “About Faith. It’s her birthday next Saturday, a week from today. We’re having a party for her. If there’s some way you can make it…”

He looked at her for a moment, tried to imagine himself in a room full of six-year-olds, one of them his daughter. Tried to imagine what he would say to her. Happy birthday! You don’t know me, but I’m your daddy. Thought I was in heaven, didn’t you? Well, surprise! Sorry I can’t stick around to see you grow up. Nice meeting you though. Drop by if ever you’re in Ireland.

Hannah was watching him. He felt the tension, hers and his own, as she waited for his response. “Listen, I um…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s better we leave things as they are.”

“You don’t want to see her?” A moment passed. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“Right.” He hardened himself against the look in her eyes. “Thanks for inviting me, though.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LIAM HAD REJECTED HIS DAUGHTER. The thought lodged in Hannah’s brain for the rest of the weekend and was still there Monday even as she sat through another session with Taylor Becker’s mother, who absolutely could not understand why she wouldn’t be allowed to sit in on her son’s prekindergarten readiness test.

Hannah tried to keep her voice free of irritation. Her personal problems didn’t belong in the classroom, but it just seemed so damned ironic that she was dealing with parents who made themselves crazy trying to be perfect while her own daughter had a father who didn’t give a damn.

That night, she took Faith to see Harry Potter, a movie Faith had been clamoring to see since the day it came out. Afterward they went for Faith’s favorite cheese-and-sausage pizza with extra mozzarella. Dairy Queen brownie sundaes, another of Faith’s favorites, were planned for dessert. A splurge, but tonight Hannah wasn’t dwelling on economics. Liam had rejected his daughter.

Hannah sprinkled hot pepper flakes onto her slice of pizza. Not that Faith knew anything was wrong, but it seemed important to compensate for Liam’s lack of paternal interest. She smiled across the table at her daughter. You don’t need him anyway, sweetheart. I can love you enough for both of us.

Faith, in a pair of sixty-dollar denim overalls purchased by Helen “Just because she’s our own little princess,” grinned at Hannah across the table, a study in perpetual motion. Up on her knees to carefully pick up a piece of pizza, then down to a sitting position, her head swiveling to watch a man with two small children in the booth on the other side of the aisle.

And then her smile dimmed and the slice of pizza in her hand dripped a sticky stalactite of mozzarella. She lifted the pizza high above her head and opened her mouth wide to catch the cheese. Her expression contemplative, she chewed in silence for a while. Then she put the pizza down. “Mommy, Grandma was sad today.”

Hannah sipped at a glass of Diet Coke, thought guiltily of Margaret’s tearful entreaties not to be mad at her. “My only thought was what was best for you,” she’d said last night and again this morning. And then Rose had taken up her sister’s cause. “Give your mom a hug and tell her you love her,” Rose had urged. “Between Debra’s pregnancy and your no-good ex-husband, the poor thing’s going out of her mind.”

“People get sad sometimes, sweetie, for all kinds of reasons,” Hannah told Faith.

“I was sad two days ago,” Faith said.

“You were?” Hannah thought back over the last couple of days to what might have made her daughter sad. Nothing came to mind. “How come?”

“Because Beth wouldn’t play with me. It made me feel sad.”

I hate Beth, Hannah thought. She reached for another slice of pizza, then decided she wasn’t hungry. I hate Liam, too. She watched the man who had caught Faith’s attention a moment ago bundle a small child into a sweater, watched Faith staring at him buttoning up the sweater. The child said something and the man bent down and kissed the end of her nose. Something squeezed at Hannah’s heart, and she looked away.

“Maybe Beth just felt like playing with someone else that day, honey,” she said.

“But I’m her best friend.” Faith stabbed at her chest. “She’s supposed to play with me. She hurt my feelings.”

“Ah…” Not trusting her voice, Hannah reached across the table, and caught her daughter’s face in her hands. “People do that sometimes, sweetie,” she said as Faith wriggled out of her grasp. “They behave in ways that hurt and make us feel sad. We don’t always know why they do it, but it’s kind of how life is.”

“I have another best friend now.” Faith’s expression cleared. “Her name is Tiffany.”

“Tiffany’s a pretty name,” Hannah said. God, it was uncanny how exactly like Liam Faith looked right then. Serious one moment and then a smile like a sudden burst of sunshine dissipating the clouds. She banished his image.

“Don’t be sad, Mommy.” Faith leaned across the table, bringing her face up close to Hannah’s. “Tiffany’s only my friend. I still love you best.”

“And I love you best.” Hannah felt her voice crack and she covered with a wide smile. “You’re my very best sunshine girl, and I love you better than anything else in the world.”

“Better than three million chocolate bars?”

“Three million chocolate bars with almonds,” Hannah said.

Faith grinned. This was her favorite game. “Three million and one hundred million chocolate bars and two million Little Debbies?” she asked.

“Well, now you’re making it difficult.” Hannah pretended to consider. “What kind of Little Debbies?”