Forever A Father

Anna scooted out of the room in her pink leggings and tutu, her sneakers squeaking on the tile. It was kind of cute, but he ignored the thought. Too damn painful. Instead he gave a sigh of relief that he was alone again and focused on his speech.

“I need help!” She used her outdoor voice, which startled him, and he jumped out of his chair to assist her by lifting her under the arms. Man, she was light, hardly weighed anything. So vulnerable and completely dependent on him. So trusting. Precious. She pushed the button for water, but her mop of curls got in the way. Her face got wet and she giggled. He almost smiled.

“Here,” he said, balancing her on his bent knee and thigh, and holding her hair out of the way with one hand. She slurped to her heart’s content, coming up only when she needed to breathe.

“Tastes good.”

He thought quickly. “I can fill up a cup for you. That’ll be easier.”

“No...” She dragged out the word. “I do it this way.”

And there he stood, letting his PT’s daughter drown herself in icy foun-tan water, braving brain freeze for fun.

“All done,” she finally said, so he set her down and felt immediate relief. Now maybe he could get back to work.

“I have to pee.”

He scrunched up his face, didn’t even try to hide his reaction. Was this really happening? “Do you know how to do that by yourself?” Because there was no way he was getting involved in that.

“I’m almost five!” Up went the hand.

“Okay.” Whatever that meant. He took her lifted hand, walked her to the unisex bathroom and nudged her inside. She gave him an exasperated glance, then pointed to the toilet seat cover container on the wall, too high for her to reach. He stepped inside, but only long enough to put the thin paper cover on the toilet, then turned to leave while again thinking how small she was and hoping she wouldn’t fall in. Before he closed the door, she was already pulling down her leggings and underpants.

“Wait, wait, wait!” He couldn’t help raising his voice, but seeing alarm on her face, he toned it down. “Let me leave first, okay?”

“Okeydoke.” So easily appeased.

He stood outside the bathroom door for what seemed like forever, marveling at the innocence of children and how they needed to be protected. There went the stab to his heart again. He checked his watch, listening to make sure she hadn’t fallen into that toilet bowl, but mostly wishing he was in his office doing what he was supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, his thoughts got stuck somewhere between loss and grief, pain and dangerously close to do-not-enter territory.

He pushed the feelings down, insisting he could do this. She was an innocent kid and he was the adult in the room. Soon he heard a flush. “I can’t reach it!” she yelled.

He tried to open the door. How had she managed to lock it without him hearing? “Let me in so I can help.”

“What?” she yelled over the running toilet water.

“Let me in.” Instead of raising his voice, he lowered it, not wanting to draw attention to the predicament, or alert Keela that he’d already screwed up.

With the toilet flushing, she spent a few seconds opening the door, long enough to have Daniel wondering where he kept the emergency bathroom key. Once it was open, she beamed up at him as if she’d just completed the most amazing undertaking of her life.

Daniel stepped into the small bathroom and immediately turned on the water. “I’m going to teach you a trick,” he said, putting the toilet lid down. “Stand on this.” Anything to avoid holding her again.

She crawled up, then leaned forward to use the adjacent sink.

“See? Isn’t that better?”

She tossed him a look that proved he was a true genius. But he still smarted from the last time he’d picked her up.

Anna clapped her hands beneath the stream of water. He jumped back to avoid getting wet, then guided her to the liquid soap and showed her how to lather up. “Make bubbles. That’s how we doctors do it.”

“You’re smart!” Why did everything she say come out like an exclamation? Still, her compliment caught him off guard and he cracked a smile for the first time that afternoon. Okay, so she was kind of cute.

He glanced at his watch again. All of fifteen minutes had passed since he’d been handed the job of childcare provider, and Keela wouldn’t be through until five. Now what should they do?

* * *

Keela stepped out of the therapy room, escorting her last patient back to the waiting room. She glanced in Daniel’s office as she passed, but he and Anna weren’t there. Worry flashed briefly. She followed the patient through the door and asked Abby where they were.

The receptionist didn’t have a chance to respond before the front doors of the clinic flew open and in waltzed Daniel and Anna, half-eaten ice cream cones in their hands. He looked up, and rather than seem guilty about feeding a child ice cream right before dinnertime, his expression clearly read Thank God you’re done.

Anna ran to her mother. “We had fun!”

“You did?” Surprised, she smiled, fixing her daughter’s hair, tightening the lopsided bow and only then daring to look at Daniel again—who stood licking the remnants of his cone, ignoring both of them.

“Okay. So my job here is done,” he said coolly, when he finally noticed her watching him. Then, business as usual, he walked to his office without another word.

She’d imposed her daughter on him, and what could she expect—that he’d love it? Thank the heavens it had ended well and she still had a job. But a flare of sadness made her think how Anna’s own father hardly ever wanted to spend time with her. At least Daniel had taken her for ice cream, maybe not because he wanted to, but because he was a decent guy. That alone made him different from her ex.

“Say thank you, Anna.” She guided her daughter to his office door, intent on showing her manners.

“Thank you!”

He looked surprised, maybe a little bothered by the interruption. Anything he’d done for her daughter had been purely out of duty, that was obvious. Maybe he wasn’t so different from Ron.

“You’re welcome. Okay, sport,” he said nonchalantly, “remember to pump your feet out when you go forward and in when you swing back. Then you can swing really high.” By the end of the sentence, he’d already gone back to focusing on his computer screen.

But that didn’t seem to faze Anna. She gathered her backpack, put her crayons and coloring book inside, then zipped it.

Did he just say swing really high? How high? Keela wondered, helping her daughter put her backpack over her shoulders. “Did you color Dad a picture?” she asked.

“No. We did lots of other stuff.” Anna reached for her mother’s hand, oblivious to Daniel’s lack of attention, then let Keela lead her out the door. “He taught me to swing so high! He said I shouldn’t ’spect him to do all the work.”

“I didn’t say it that mean,” he interjected, without lifting his head.

So he was listening. Keela glanced over her shoulder at Daniel, in his own world, clacking away on computer keys, pretending to ignore them. That guy taught you how to swing? They continued down the hall.

“We looked at bugs and he let me hold a caterpillar and...” She babbled on with a lengthening list of everything they’d done. A surprisingly long list, too. Daniel?

“Is that so,” Keela said, guiding her daughter toward the car.

Things didn’t add up. Daniel couldn’t have ignored Anna all afternoon and still won over her clear adoration. He’d taken her to the nearby park and bought her ice cream from the parlor three doors up. Shown her bugs and who knew what else. The child was practically dancing with joy. Of course, that could have something to do with the sugar high from the cone. Truth was, Anna never came home from the occasional visits with her father happy like this.

Keela tightened the belt on Anna’s car seat, closed the back door and slipped behind the steering wheel, turning the key on the old but dependable sedan.

She had been under the impression that Daniel Delaney was a man driven by his profession. All his time and effort seemed to focus on the clinic, and she respected him for it. She’d heard from Abby about a bad breakup before he’d opened the business, as well as the terrible experience with the last PT, and understood why he might be standoffish with her, or any woman, for that matter. But even when he spoke brusquely to her, she never took it personally. She understood pain and what it did to people. She was part of his staff and wanted to see him succeed, not just for him, but for her job security. They were a team. She and Ron were anything but.

She pulled onto Main Street, passing the ice cream parlor where Daniel had bought Anna her treat, heading for her neighborhood several blocks inland from the beach.

Ron hadn’t changed overnight. No, it had taken a couple years for his true personality to finally break through. He talked a good talk, but when it came to everyday living, the hard part of being a husband and providing for his family—for the woman he’d brought over from Ireland to be his lawfully wedded wife—he’d turned out to be selfish, demanding and miserable to be around. The fact that Anna hadn’t been Andrew seemed suspiciously part of the problem. But mostly, once Keela learned there was no making him happy, she’d quit trying. She’d also quit holding back from pointing out his shortfalls. Things got ugly between them, and he spent more and more time away from home.