Keeping Faith

“They were.” The bartender picked up another glass. “One of them called a while ago to say the girl singer was sick. Strung out on drugs, or something, would be my guess. Anyway, tonight’s going to be karaoke.”

Hannah bit her lip. Okay, this was a sign. A warning that maybe her mother was right. Maybe nothing good could come from seeing him again. Margaret had been crying when Hannah left the house. “Think of what’s best for Faith,” Margaret had begged her. “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” she’d replied.

Now she wasn’t so sure. What was the point of having Liam breeze in and out of Faith’s life? And why risk all the rebuilding she’d done of her own life? Why upset everyone and everything? Because she owed it to him. Simple as that. He’d been lied to and the least she could do was try to make some kind of amends.

“Do you have any idea where I can find him?” she asked the bartender.

“Him?” The bartender grinned. “The singer? Liam something or other?”

She nodded and felt her face heat up. God, this was embarrassing. “Look, it’s not what you’re thinking…”

“Hey.” He flicked the towel across the top of the bar. “I’m not paid to think. All I can tell you is what I told the other girls who came in asking about him. I think the band’s staying at some place in Huntington Harbor.

Hannah checked the urge to ask, What other girls? How many other girls? Liam had always drawn girls. Well, so what? He could bed a different girl every night, and she wouldn’t care.

“Do you have the address?” she asked.

“Yeah…” The bartender grabbed a napkin and drew a map of Huntington Harbor. “There’s a party there tomorrow, that’s how I know where they are. Huge house on the water with a yacht the size of the Queen Mary on the dock outside. Some big cheese from L.A. owns the place. A record promoter, or something.” He winked. “Told me to invite hot-looking chicks.”

Go home, Hannah thought. You don’t need this.

“Hell…” With a sigh, he threw down the pen he’d been using and reached for another one. “I should probably photocopy these damn directions.” He handed her the napkin. “You’ll probably have to take a number.”

“BRID WILL BE FINE, Liam.” Miranda Payton, the record producer’s wife, sat next to him, feet dangling in a pool that had been built to look like a tropical lagoon. “I sent my own daughter to Casa Pacifica when I realized she was spending half her life in the bathroom with her finger stuck down her throat. They straightened her out in no time. Quit worrying about her and enjoy yourself.” She brought a frosted glass to her lips, eyed him over the rim and smiled. “You could be in a lot worse places.”

Liam laughed. An understatement if he’d ever heard one. Beyond the purple bougainvillea-covered wall that separated the property from the private beach, he could see the Pacific Ocean. The sun was hot on his back, and Miranda had brought out a jug of something icy that tasted like rum and bananas. The exotic scent of it mingled with the suntan lotion she was massaging into her legs. If he had to take a week off in the middle of a tour, this definitely wasn’t a bad place to while away the time. Certainly none of the band had complained. A couple of them were off taking surfing lessons, the others had gone to see the sights.

He’d thought about calling Hannah again. Thought constantly about his daughter, whose name he still didn’t know. Off on a trip, Hannah’s mother had said. Another lie?

“You’re soooo serious.” Miranda trailed one perfectly manicured fingernail down his arm. “Are you always this way?”

“Always,” Liam said. “A right wet blanket, that’s me. I cast a pall on any party I go to.”

Miranda laughed with disproportionate enthusiasm. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re just deep.”

“Wrong,” Liam said. “Shallow as a puddle. Ask anyone who knows me.” He reached for his shirt. Miranda was making him uneasy. She was about forty, thin, tan and attractive in what Brid would call a high-maintenance way. Lots of curly hair streaked in different shades of blond, plum-colored lips and nails. She was Bert Payton’s third wife, considerably younger and obviously bored. Which definitely wasn’t his problem. He got up and started for the house.

Miranda followed him. Her hand at the small of his back, they made their way through the open French doors into the blue-and-white living room just as a housekeeper was leading Hannah into the room through a door off the hallway.

Startled, they all eyed each other. Hannah’s focus went from Miranda, who was clutching her bikini top as though she’d been caught in risqué underwear, to Liam’s opened shirt and bathing trunks.

Hannah had on a short, sleeveless cotton dress patterned with small pink and orange flowers. Her hair was pulled back in a band and she looked young and a little uncertain. He wanted to tell her the thing with Miranda wasn’t what she thought it was, which was a bit stupid because he had no idea what she thought and what difference did it make anyway?

He started to speak just as Hannah did, and then Miranda chimed in and there was a flurry of introductions. Hannah, he noticed, was avoiding eye contact with him.

“I wanted to talk to you.” She addressed his left shoulder. “If this isn’t a good time…”

“It’s fine.” He looked at Miranda, who fluttered her fingers at him and disappeared. “So…” He waved at the cluster of wicker armchairs upholstered in blue canvas. “Pick a seat.” She did and he sat down opposite her. Music drifted in from somewhere in the house. Hannah sat with her knees close together, her hands in her lap. A silence hung in the air between them, thick with ghosts and recriminations. Hannah. Hannie. Hannah. Formal as a stranger now.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I just want to explain—”

“What’s her name?” he asked. “What’s my daughter’s name?”

“Faith.”

Faith. He said it again to himself. Then he looked at Hannah. “Why? Where did that come from?”

“When I was in the hospital having her…everything seemed so hopeless. You’d walked out—well, I thought you had—and my world was falling apart. And then I saw her and…” Her face colored. “I know it sounds kind of hokey, but she gave me the faith to believe in myself again.”

He leaned his head against the high back of the wicker chair and stared up at the white-painted ceiling beams. So many questions were rattling around in his brain. Where to start? Finally he looked back at Hannah.

“Do you have any pictures with you?”

She pulled an envelope from her bag and handed it to him.

“She looks like me,” he said after he’d studied the first one. “A right little terror, I bet.” He looked to Hannah for confirmation.

She smiled. “She can be pretty strong willed.”

Slowly he leafed through the stack. Pictures of a baby Faith in a cradle, on a rug gazing wide-eyed at a Christmas tree. School pictures of a little girl, smiling obediently for the camera. A snapshot—recent, he guessed—of Faith riding a red bike. Laughing, the wind in her hair. Unable not to, he smiled at the image. God, how incredible to look at this child and see his own face reflected in hers. And yet, beneath the wonder, an old anger, smoldering now with new intensity. She’d been stolen from him.

He should have been there. He should have been the one teaching her to ride the bloody bike, not sitting here now looking at pictures. They’d stolen her from him, robbed him of her childhood. And then a voice in his head spoke up. Ah, catch yourself, it scoffed. Can you really see yourself playing the suburban daddy? Bikes and kiddies and lawn mowers. Telly and slippers and “keep the music down, love, you’re waking the baby.” That’s not you and it never will be. Without a word, he returned the pictures to the envelope and held it out to Hannah.

“They’re yours,” she said. “I brought them for you.”

He stuffed the envelope into the pocket of his shirt and felt her watching him as he did. In the first few weeks of their marriage, he’d come home one day and found her ironing his shirts. He’d started laughing. Never in his life had he worn an ironed shirt, and the sight of her carefully pressing the creases in the sleeves struck him as so touchingly funny, he couldn’t help himself. Now he had an urge to apologize for hurting her feelings.

“What does she know about me?” he asked. “What have you told her?”

Hannah looked at him for such a long time that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “She thinks you’re in heaven,” she finally said.

“In heaven?”

“See, we didn’t think she’d ever see you and—”

“No…” He shook his head, no explanation needed. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the scenario. Given the lie he’d been told, he could well imagine that her family had believed they’d seen the last of him. Certainly his parting shot to Hannah’s father would guarantee he’d never be welcome in their home again. And truth was, it was probably kinder than letting Faith think she had a father who had no interest in her. But heaven. Of all the places to pack him off to. He felt a grin spread across his face. “My God, Hannah. Wouldn’t it have been more like them to tell her I was in hell?”

“Yeah, well…” She smiled back at him, clearly relieved by his reaction.

“That’s no doubt where your da would consign me.”

“My father died,” she said. “A few months after you left. A heart attack. Needless to say, my mom was pretty devastated. The family were all there for her, of course, but she still gets lonely.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.” He recalled meeting her father for the first time, the look of clear disapproval on the man’s face. A tall, imposing man, obviously accustomed to having control over most things, including his family. Which must have made it pretty tough when his daughter ran off and married a ne’er-do-well Irish musician.

“You never tried to contact me,” she said.

“I was too furious with you. I thought you’d had an abortion. Why didn’t you ever try to reach me?”