Daisy's Back in Town (21 page)

Let me begin by saying simply that I have missed you, Jack. I don’t know if you have missed me or
forgiven me but I have missed my buddy. There have been many times in the past fifteen years when I have
wanted to call and talk to you. Many times I have laughed by myself thinking of the things we used to do. The
other day I saw two boys riding their bikes in the rain and I remembered the many times we used to ride our
bikes in real toad-stranglers Riding around Lovette, finding the deepest puddles to ride through. Or the times
sitting on my mother’s sofa, watching the old Andy Griffith shows, and laughing our asses off when Barney
locked himself in jail. I think that is when I miss you the most when I laugh alone. And I know it is my fault.

There have been many times I have felt the loneliness of losing you, my friend
I have never forgotten the last time we saw each other and the horrible things we said. I married Daisy, and you
loved her. But I loved her too, Jack I still do. After all these years I love her as much as the day I married her. I
know she loves me. I know she has always loved me and yet some times she gets a very far away look in her
eyes, and I wonder if she is thinking about you. I wonder if she is thinking that she is sorry she chose to come
with me to Seattle. I wonder if she thinks what her life might have been like with you, and I wonder if she still
loves you like she did. If is any consolation, then know that I have suffered a bit hell because I know how much
she loved you once and perhaps still does.

The night we left Lovette, Daisy was three months pregnant with your child. She's no doubt told you all of
this by now when she came to me and told me she was carrying your baby, she was very afraid and believed
that you didn't love her any longer. I let her believe it even though I knew it probably wasn’t true. She believed
not telling you about the baby was for the best. She didn’t think you could handle the pressure of having a child
at that time in your life. I let her believe that too. I told her that she was right, that you couldn’t, but I knew it
wasn’t true. I knew you could do anything you set your mind to doing. So I married her and took her away from
you. I know that I should regret what I did, but I can’t. I don’t regret one day that I spent with her and Nathan.

But I do regret the way in which things were done and not telling you about Nathan sooner.

Nathan is a good boy. He is a lot like you. Fearless and inpatient and buries everything deep. I know that
Daisy will do her absolute to raise him, but I believe he needs you. It has been my pleasure to raise him, and of
all my regrets in this life, and there are many, I regret that I will not get to see him grow into a man. I would
have liked to have seen that.

In closing, I ask that you forgive me, Jack. I know that is perhaps asking too much of you, but I’m aski9ng
anyway. I am asking so you can let go the bitterness and go on with your life. On a purely selfish level, I am
asking with the hope that you will forgive me so that I can die with a clearer conscience. And so that when I see
you on the other side, we can embrace as fiends once more. If you can’t forgive me, I understand. I don’t know
that I could ever forgive you if I were in your place. I took a lot from you, Jack. But maybe you can occasionally
look back and laugh at the good times we had together.

Steven

The letter and photograph of his father fell to the counter as Jack struggled to catch his breath. His insides felt sliced up, just as they had fifteen years ago.

“Is he yours?”

Jack nodded.

“That’s goddamn evil,” Billy said. “She’s a damn evil bitch.”

For years he’d felt betrayal because his best buddy had married his girlfriend. He hadn’t even known the half of it. It had never occurred to him that when they left, they’d taken his child. It had not occurred to him that the betrayal ran so deep.

“What are you going to do?”

He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from the waistband of his pants. “Talk to Daisy.”

“I thought you just said she was an evil bitch.”

“She is. I’m not even going to ask you if you want to be a part of Nathan’s life, because I know You. I know how you are. I know that you’re hurt and angry, and you have every damn right to feel that way. But she’s his mama and she could just pack him up and take him away.”

For years he'd pushed it back and locked it away. He'd walled up all the pain and anger. Since Daisy had been back, it had seeped out a little. But nothing like this morning. This morning the walls he'd built were blown all to hell.

"Jack, promise you won't go medieval?"

He wasn't promising a damn thing.

Chapter Twelve

Daisy laid Pippen on her mother's bed and partially closed the door behind her. His little world was chaotic and he'd been so tired and cranky for the past few days. Daisy had taken him to the hospital to see Lily this morning, and he hadn't wanted to leave. He was scared and upset and had cried all the way home, finally falling asleep as they pulled into the driveway. Her mother was still at the hospital with Lily, waiting for news from the doctors as to when Lily might come home.

Daisy changed into her dark green tank top and khaki shorts. She swept her hair up off the back of her neck and secured it with a big black claw. She was exhausted and in serious need of caffeine. She might have curled up beside Pippen, but Nathan wasn't home and she didn't want to be asleep when he returned.

She moved down the stairs to the kitchen and grabbed a Coke out of the refrigerator. Nathan had stuck a note to the refrigerator door with a little magnet in the shape of Texas. He wrote that he was out riding his skateboard.

The note didn't say when he'd be back, though. She had wanted to remind him that he needed to estimate when he'd be back, so she wouldn't worry so much.

This was Lovett, she reminded herself. There really wasn't that much to worry about. There weren't that many places he could get into trouble, but if there was one thing she'd learned from having a boy, it was that if there wasn't trouble, they'd invent it. If there was a puddle, they'd jump in the middle of it. A rock, they'd throw it. A Coke can, they'd smash it. A bird, they'd pretend to shoot it. A handrail on a set of five or more cement steps, they'd ride it on a skateboard, fall and need stitches.

The doorbell rang as Daisy popped the top to her Coke. She took a long drink as she moved through the living room. A bowl of glass fruit sat on a wooden end table and she placed the can next to it. She opened the door and half expected to see Nathan playing a silly joke by making her answer the door. He was like that sometimes.

Wanting to be treated as an adult, yet at times acting like her little boy. But it wasn't her son.

Jack stood on her mother's porch, sunlight overhead. The shadow of his straw cowboy hat concealed the top half of his face. A little flutter tickled her chest and before she could think better of it, the corners of her lips turned up. "Hey there."

"Are you alone?" he asked, and her smile fell at the flat tone in his voice and grim line of his mouth.

He knows, was her first thought, but just as quickly she dismissed the thought. He couldn't know. "Pippen's here but he's asleep."

"Where is Nathan?"

Oh, God. The fluttering in her chest picked up a notch or two. "He's riding his skateboard."

He didn't wait for her to invite him in. "No. He's not," he said as he walked into the house, bringing with him the scent of a warm Texas morning on his skin. He handed her Nathan's board as he passed.

She took it from him and held it against her breasts. A ribbed T-shirt hugged the muscles of Jack's arms and chest and made him appear bigger and badder than usual. "Where is he?"

He turned and looked at her for several nerve-racking moments before he said, "I don't know."

"How did you get this?"

"He came to see me this morning."

"He did?” Nathan's going to the garage wasn't a coincidence. It was a surprise, but not a real shock. Nathan was the kind of kid who jumped into things first and thought later. A lot like Jack had been.

"He left the board on his way out."

She didn't think that he'd said anything to Jack about being his biological child. Of course, it hadn't occurred to her that he'd ever show up at the garage on his own either. "What did he say?"

"He talked about Steven and about 'Monster Garage.'"

Maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he was being a hard-ass for a totally different reason. This was Jack, after all.

The king of hard-asses. "That's it?"

"I think he really came by to get a good look at me." He pushed up the brim of his straw hat and she got a good look at him. If the glittering rage in his green eyes hadn't removed all doubt about what he knew or suspected, the next words out of his mouth did. "I read Steven's letter."

Now she was shocked. "How did you get Steven's letter?"

"You left it Saturday."

Had she? She didn't remember. A lot had happened Saturday. "You just read it today?"

"I didn't want to read it at all." His voice was deadly calm when he said, "Tell me, Daisy. I want to hear you say it. After all these years."

His veneer of calm did not fool her for a second. His anger rolled off him like heat waves rolling across asphalt.

Her speeding heart fell right to the pit of her stomach. She'd waited fifteen years for this moment. Knew it had to happen at some point, and there was no other way to say it but, "He's your son, Jack."

His expression didn't change. "Does he know?"

"Yes. He's known most of his life."

"So, I'm the only one who wasn't told."

"Yes."

"Do you have any idea," he said in that same awful calm tone, "what I'd like to do to you?"

Yes, she had a pretty good idea. She didn't think Jack would hurt her, but she took a step back. "I was going to tell you."

"Is that so?" One brow lifted up his forehead. "When?"

"The first night I saw you. I came to your house to tell you, but Gina was there. I told you I needed to speak with you about something important. I told you that night and the night of Shay's wedding, and at the pizza place, and at Slims." Her face felt hot, and she took another step back and tossed the skateboard on her mother's blue floral couch. "I came to the garage to tell you Saturday, but then ... Lily ran her car into Ronnie's living room. Which is why I guess I forgot all about leaving Steven's letter." She pulled the claw from the back of her hair and took a deep breath. He had a right to his anger. She should have told him years ago. She was a coward.

"That's why I'm in town. I'm here to tell you that you have a son."

His gaze locked with her. "He's fifteen."

She swept her hair back up, twisted it, and secured it once more. "Yes, he is."

"You're telling me fifteen years too goddamn late. You should have told me when you missed your first period."

He thought a moment then added, "Unless you didn't know whose it was back then."

"I knew." Now he was just being mean. "You were the first person I was ever with. How could you think such a horrible thing?"

"Maybe because up until a few days before you married my best friend, you were having sex with me. How do I know that you weren't doing us both at the same time?"

"You know I wasn't. You're just being ugly now."

"You don't know ugly," he said and his temper finally rose to the surface. He took a step toward her and stared down into her face. His eyes narrowed and the line of his jaw hardened. "You did the lowest thing a woman can do to a man. You had my child and kept him from me. I should have been there when he was born. I should have been there to see hint To see him take his first steps and ride his first bike. I should have been there to hear his first words, but I wasn't. Steven was, though. Steven got to hear him say Daddy, not me." He was dead serious when he added, "It's a good thing you're not a man, because I'd beat the hell out of you. I'd enjoy it, too."

One of the hardest things she'd ever done was stand there toe-to-toe with Jack and not take another step back or look away from his angry eyes. "You have to understand that we never meant to hurt you. We both loved you."

"Bullshit."

"It's the truth."

"If that's what you do to people you love, I can't imagine what you have in store for people you hate."

Her head began to pound and she put a hand to her brow, but she didn't remove her gaze from his. "You have to remember what it was like between you and me back then. We were fighting and making up all the time. That first month, I was so scared, and I told myself I was just late. Then the second month I told myself not to think about it, but by the third month, I had to face it." She dropped her hand. "Your parents had just died and you were going through such a bad time. The night I came to tell you I was pregnant, you said you needed a break from me. I didn't think you loved me anymore. I didn't know what to do." The backs of her eyes stung but she refused to give in to tears. "I didn't have anyone to talk to about it but Steven. I went to him and he asked me to marry him. He said he'd take care of me and my baby."

"You keep forgetting that the baby was mine. That I should have been told about it before the two of you ran off to Seattle."

"We talked about telling you, but we thought that if you knew, you'd want to marry me out of obligation, but Jack, you were in no position to take care of me and a baby. You were only eighteen and already dealing with so much. It seemed like the only solution."

"No, it was the easy way out for you. Steven had money and I had nothing."

"That's not why I married him. You know that I always loved Steven. If you weren't so angry, you'd remember that you loved him too." She placed her hands on his bare arms. Jack might never forgive her, but she had to make him understand. "I married him because I was scared. You didn't love me anymore, and I didn't know what to do."