Worth the Drive (19 page)

They both watched as the father and daughter sat down and immediately picked up their menus, hiding their faces behind them. Katie smiled as she thought the scene similar to her and
Darío
. She sneaked a glance at
Darío
and saw him watching the little girl.

She was probably about ten, Katie guessed, with jet-black hair that probably made her stand out in her class of what would most likely be fair-headed Finns. Lizzie had stood out like that in their class years ago.

The little girl faced Katie, but Katie was only able to see the top of her head. Everything below her enormous green eyes was hidden by the menu. The little girl’s forehead was furrowed. In concentration, Katie wondered? That much work over the menu? But that wasn’t it, for soon, the little girl took a deep breath, braced the bony shoulders that stuck out of her pink tee-shirt and placed the menu down on the table. Her brow was still furrowed, but now Katie recognized the emotion. Determination.

“You know what you’re having, Peaches?” the father asked from behind his menu.

Katie saw the little girl’s grimace at her father’s pet name. She had probably outgrown it years ago, Katie thought, but the father didn’t realize it. Of course not, how could he possibly notice it when he doesn’t look at the girl?

“Yes
.
I’ll have the personal pizza, plain cheese.” Her voice was small, quiet, and Katie felt herself leaning toward the table to hear her. Catching herself, she took a sip of her water, sat
back and looked at
Darío
, only to find his gaze on the twosome as well.

She tried to think of something to say to him. “You had a great showing at the British last week. Another top ten, that’s great. I’m sort o
f surprised you’re back in the S
tates so soon. I would have thought you’d play a few more tournaments in Europe while you were over there,” Katie said.

Darío
turned his attention back to Katie as she spoke. He nodded at her congratulations. “
Sí
, it was a good tournament for me.” He paused, watching as the father finally put down his menu when the waiter came and took their order. “I usually do play in Europe from the British until the PGA, but, I decided to play over here instead,” he said.

It being a Wednesday, and
Darío
being
a
thousand miles from Connecticut where the Tour was playing this week, Katie deduced he was taking a week off. And had decided to spend part of that time in the Copper Country. Great. Just what she needed on top of her crappy day.

Not that she didn’t want to see
Darío
. She had to admit, her insides had done a tiny flip-flop when she’d opened the door and saw him standing there.
After his initial pronouncement, h
er eyes had gone straight to his forearms, even more deeply tanned than they’d been in Memphis. He’d followed her gaze and smiled that crooked smile. She hadn’t thought she could feel more vulnerable than she had earlier that day when she’d seen Ron in the aisle of Pat’s IGA, but seeing
Darío
at her door, in her hometown, on her turf, smiling at her, made her curse the hormones that coursed through her body.

“Not playing Hartford?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. He wouldn’t be here right now if he
were
teeing off in Hartford tomorrow morning.

“No, not playing this
week.” His attention was back on
the father and daughter, and Katie followed his gaze. The father was asking questions of the little girl. Stuff about her everyday life that he’d have known if he w
ere
in the house. A quick look at the man’s bare ring finger and Katie’s suspicions of a divorced father out with his daughter for their weekly Wednesday night dinner were confirmed.

“
So, Peaches, what’d you do today?” he asked his daughter.

“Um…played on the computer, watched a video,” she trailed off.

“You didn’t go swimming today? Not to the beach? It was a beautiful day,” the father said.

Katie agreed with the man. It had been one of those idyllic days in the Copper Country. Mid-eighties with a n
ice breeze coming off
Lake Superior, so no humidity. A day to be at the beach. Certainly not a day to go grocery shopping at Pat’s.

“There are
too many of us at daycare to go to the beach.” Peaches took a sip of her Mountain Dew. A pop that Peaches’ mother pr
obably wouldn’t have let her drink
so late in the evening, Katie thought, but how was the father to know that you didn’t let a ten-year-old have so much caffeine and sugar at nine o’clock at night.

And just why was this father feeding his daughter so late, anyway? Katie had a momentary pang for the mother who would be getting back a hyped up daughter well past her bedtime later on this evening. But then, Katie didn’t know the circumstances that surrounded this broken family.

She wondered how many single-parent mistakes she’d make out of necessity or just to keep her sanity. She decided to cut this father a little slack.

“Oh. Daycare, that’s right. Of course.” The father seemed disturbed that he hadn’t realized how his daughter spent her days during summer vacation. Katie’s heart thawed even more toward the father. There was no bad guy here, just a bad situation.

Katie and
Darío
’s food arrived, and they were again spared the need to speak to each other. Their silence was almost comfortable by now, certainly familiar, and the pizza was good. Moments later, Peaches’ pizza and her father’s burger arrived and their table fell into a hushed silence broken only by slurps of Peaches’ straw.

Both tables ate with deliberation, as if they didn’t want the meal to end. Katie knew it wasn’t because of the food – excellent as it was. For her part, she stalled
while eating
dinner because she didn’t want to hear why
Darío
was here, in the Copper Country.
He said
he’d come with papers of his own for her to sign. She couldn’t really blame him. He’d had some time to think about the situation, cool down after the initial bomb she’d dropped on him in Memphis, realized that marriage was indeed out of the question, and had come up with an agreement of his own. Instinctively, she knew it would be more than fair, and that she would
probably
sign it. She knew
Darío
would want to do the honorable thing by his child, his announcement about marriage had proven that, but common sense would prevail. He’d obviously seen that, in their case, honorable did not necessarily mean marriage.

When their table had been cleared and the suspense was near killing Katie, she began, “
Darío
, I think I know why you’re here, and…” she stopped when she realized he was not paying attention to her, but had once again turned his head to Peaches’ table.

Katie, happy for the reprieve, looked to see Peaches alone at the table, the father’s back disappearing down the hallway leading to the restrooms. But Peaches was talking. To herself.

She was nervously twisting her napkin beyond the point of recognition, the paper shredding about her place setting. Katie noticed several other napkins had also received the same fate and were littered across Peaches’ side of the table. Katie leaned a little to her right to be able to hear what the girl was saying to herself.

“You see, Dad. I really need a new pair of sneakers. And um…” she stopped, seemed to rethink her opening, and tried again. “Dad, it’s been almost a year since I got the shoes I’m wearing, and,” she stopped again. Peaches shook her little head, dismissing this latest try. Her hair lightly slapped her face as she shook and a clump of strands lodged in her open mouth, which she summarily began to chew on as she thought of her next approach.

Katie looked under the table and noticed the girl’s shoes. They were indeed worn. They were also Nikes. Katie wondered why, if money was such a problem would the girl would be wearing Nikes? She then remembered that the father was dressed very fashionably and expensively as well, and thought that maybe the rehearsing of a request for shoes wasn’t about money at all, but about not being able to communicate with your father.

Katie felt a chill go through her and instinctively placed her hand on her abdomen. She looked across at
Darío
and saw a questioning look on his face. He knew something was wrong with Peaches’ situation, he just hadn’t come to the conclusion that Katie did.

“Daddy, my shoes…” Peaches trailed off again. Katie, being a journalist and having a way with words, wanted to jump in and help the kid out, but the father was headed back to the table.

“Ready to go, Peaches?” he asked as he started reaching for his wallet with one hand and the check with the other.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” she said.

The father looked at his daughter’s empty glass and empty plate, but didn’t seem to notice the shredded napkins or the anxious look on his daughter’s face.
He saw his daughter was making no move to leave.
“Did you want some dessert, honey?” he asked.

“No. I mean, no thank you.”

Katie smiled at the girl’s remembrance of good manners. The kid was tied up in knots, but caught herself on the thank yous.

“Um, Daddy…” she tried. She had her father’s attention. He watched
and
waited patiently, trying to help her with the words, but he didn’t know what they were.

“Yes, honey, what is it?”

“Um…”

Katie and
Darío
squirmed in their seats, feeling as uncomfortable for so obviously eavesdropping as they felt for the father and daughter next to them. As if both realizing they were staring, they looked at each other, but their ears were tuned to Peaches and her father.

“Did you get enough to eat?” The father’s concern was genuine. He seemed to pick up on his daughter’s unease. He wanted to help her, he just didn’t know what she needed.

“Yeah. I mean, yes, thank you. Um…you see,” she had turned her voice to the sales pitch voice she’d been practicing while her father was away. “Um…” Her green eyes stared at her father. He looked back at her, waiting, a sympathetic look on his face.

Katie saw the moment the girl gave up. Her shoulders slumped. She reached for a clump of hair and began to chew it again. “The pizza was really good, Daddy, thanks. I’m ready to go, now.”

Katie watched as the father struggled with the decision to push his daughter into telling him what was wrong or to let it go. He looked bewildered and Katie’s heart, though none too pro-man on this day, went out to him. She saw nearly the same body movements of defeat come over the father that had just come over Peaches. All except the hair chewing.

“Okay, Peaches, let’s get you home to your mother, then.”

Katie watched them leave then turned to
Darío
, finally ready to hear what he had to say. Anything to take her mind off the heartbreaking scene she’d just witnessed.

“Do you think they can not afford new shoes?”
Darío
asked. “Do you know that family? Could we perhaps get the shoes for the little girl without their knowledge?”

Katie’s throat clenched with emotion. She took a long swallow of her water and waited for it to pass. She wasn’t sure if it would ever completely pass. She sensed that with impending motherhood she was destined to have her heart broken and then mended, daily.

“I don’t think it was about the money for the shoes. She was wearing expensive shoes and clothes and so was he.”

Darío
nodded, he’d apparently noticed the same thing. “So…?” he asked. Katie knew he was looking for an easy answer as to what had just happened, but she didn’t have one.

“I think…” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “I think she just doesn’t know how to talk to her father. Not beyond ‘yes please’ and ‘thank you’.”

Darío
continued nodding, his face drawn. His forehead, so tan until the top three inches where his hat rested while he golfed, was furrowed; much like Peaches’ had been when she’d been mustering up her courage. “And the father?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a divorce situation. Apparently, he can’t read his daughter any better than she can communicate with him.” Katie breathed deeply, to
ok another sip of water and placed
her hands on the table, as if to stea
dy them. “It’s very sad
.”

Darío
looked into her eyes, placed a large, dark hand on top of hers and said, “It is too sad, Katie. That must not happen to our child. That must not ever be our daughter.”

As Katie moved to answer,
Darío
cut her off with a soft squeeze of her hand under his. “Please,
Gata
, don’t let me ever be that father. Not knowing what his daughter needs. Only able
to watch helplessly.”

It wasn’t fair. It should be Ron’s child growing inside her. It should have been her child Ron pushed in the cart at the grocery store. And it should be easy for Peaches to ask her dad for gym shoes.