Chapter 4
Clay wished he shared his daughter’s enthusiasm for visiting Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
At the end of the two-hour drive Friday evening, he pulled the truck up along the curb in front of the home he’d grown up in, and Payton shot out of the backseat.
She ran around to the backyard, where the rest of the family were likely already relaxing.
If Clay had his way, they’d take their time getting there.
Towering oak trees that were older than Clay shaded the sprawling yard.
A multilevel deck offered an ideal setting for entertaining, which the Marlows used frequently for social and business functions.
For family gatherings, they tended to congregate on the stone terrace next to the grill and outdoor kitchen, so that Clay’s mother, Della, could remain involved in all the action and conversations.
Clay’s father, Vince, sat in his favorite Adirondack chair. Bridget and Reid shared a double bench to his right, and Laurel, the oldest Marlow sibling, and her husband were to the left. Laurel and Charles’s three boys played a high-contact version of keep-away toward the back of the lawn.
“Grandma!” Payton ran directly to Clay’s mother.
The woman was in her realm—the gourmet outdoor kitchen her husband had built for her several years back, as the family expanded with marriages and births.
When she heard her granddaughter’s voice, she set down her utensils and wiped her hands on her apron.
“How’s my girl?” Della said, wrapping her arms around Payton.
“I’m fine!” She said it with so much enthusiasm that everyone laughed.
“Don’t you go giving all your hugs to your grandma,” Clay’s dad said.
Payton giggled and skipped over to him. As the only granddaughter in the family so far, and the youngest of the grandchildren, she’d become plenty spoiled in the few times Clay had been able to bring her to the weekly family dinner.
Clay kissed his mom, then took a seat next to Bridget. Laurel, Bridget, and Reid were engaged in conversation, but Charles said hello. Clay’s dad merely nodded and Clay did the same in return.
“It sounds like an interesting project,” Laurel, the family’s surgical prodigy, was saying to Bridget.
“The more we learn about motivating teenagers…” Bridget said, “I’d like to think that could lead to better learning solutions for kids who don’t get straight As, underachievers, those with discipline issues.”
“The kind of kids who cause explosions in the chemistry lab, for instance?” Laurel finally acknowledged Clay with smug amusement.
“Exactly that kind of kid.” Bridget relaxed against the back of the wooden bench she shared with Reid and grinned at Clay.
“Really?” Clay said, trying to smile at Laurel and act like this wasn’t a sore spot. “You’re going to bring that up again?”
“How can we not?” Laurel said. “It’s such a classic.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard this one before,” Bridget’s boyfriend said.
“You really don’t want to,” Clay said.
“It was Clay’s junior year in high school,” Laurel began, almost as if she was reading a script. She’d told the story that many times.
“Clay wasn’t exactly a motivated student,” Bridget added.
“You were too young to even understand what motivated meant.” Clay leaned back in his lawn chair and rubbed his eyebrows with his index finger and thumb.
“He and a buddy couldn’t be bothered to study for their chemistry class,” Laurel continued, “but that didn’t stop them from breaking into the lab after school one day to mix up some gunpowder, thinking they’d concoct their own fireworks.”
“You didn’t,” Reid said.
“Turns out they made something more powerful than they thought.” Laurel could barely get the story out, she was laughing so hard.
“They blew up a couple of beakers, ruined some equipment, and set off the sprinkler system throughout the school,” Bridget said. “Our boy got himself suspended for ten days.”
“All that ambition and only a D in chemistry.” Laurel shook her head.
Clay happened to glance at his father at that moment, when everyone else around the circle was in hysterics. The disappointment Clay was so well acquainted with made only a brief appearance.
Yep, that was him. Dad’s major letdown.
He looked back at his sisters and their significant others, who’d all gotten a kick out of the rehashing of the story.
He forced himself to laugh with them, though he found nothing amusing about being the one who’d always caused trouble, always embarrassed his father.
The chemistry lab story was just one of many examples that his high-IQ sisters liked to tease him about.
Not only was he the nonacademic of the family, but he’d regularly gotten picked up by the cops. Back then, he couldn’t have cared less.
He’d grown up in a heartbeat when he’d learned he was a father though. He’d dramatically changed his lifestyle, but his family still saw him as the black sheep.
Payton edged over to Clay and climbed up on his lap, as if she sensed he was uncomfortable. He kissed the top of her head and smiled to reassure her.
Clay wrapped one arm around Payton and used the other to run his fingers through her soft, little-girl hair.
In truth, she brought him as much comfort as he tried to give her.
He caught snippets of the conversation that carried on here and there: Laurel’s life-saving surgery, Bridget’s studies as she worked toward a doctorate degree in psychology.
Their mother filled them in on the other two siblings’ successes as well—Gwen, the software developer, who lived in Seattle, and Izzie, the biology professor and researcher, who’d taken a job on the East Coast a year ago.
Clay loved his sisters, but he’d never been close to any of them except Bridget.
He was too different from them—always had been, and it went beyond gender.
His new closeness to Bridget had been brought about because they both lived on the island.
He’d always been the misfit, the lone blue-collar guy in a circle of brainiacs.
After several minutes of sitting quietly, Payton started squirming. Clay welcomed the excuse to escape. He challenged her to race him to the tire swing, making a show of trying his best to keep up with her, then lifting her over his shoulder and tickling her when he finally did.
“What happened to the big happy dad who was chasing his daughter around like an overgrown kid?” Bridget asked Clay after dinner.
He was leaning his elbows on the stone wall at the very back of the parklike yard, gazing over at the trickle of water in the ravine that bordered the property.
“Got a phone call with bad news,” he said, not looking at her.
Bridget copied his stance at the wall. “What news, Clay?”
He shook his head.
“You can’t tell me you got bad news and then not explain,” Bridget said. “Is somebody sick? Is it Payton?”
“It’s the custody hearing. My lawyer called to tell me they changed the judge.” He straightened and watched a pair of birds chase each other in a nearby tree. “Apparently the one we got has a rep for being tough on single fathers. Believes a mother is the better option for a kid.”
“But it’s obvious Robin isn’t. She’s an addict.”
“We’re worried she’ll see the rehab stay as Robin’s valiant effort to be the best mom she can be.”
Bridget nodded. “I guess it could be, if you disregard the way she’s treated Payton for the past three years. Your lawyer’s good. He’ll fight this.”
Clay nodded unenthusiastically. He’d been confident before the first custody hearing back when Payton was a baby.
It was painfully obvious to him that Robin was not cut out to be a mom.
But that had been twisted and buried by Robin’s lawyer, her uncle.
Now Clay knew it was an uphill battle even with a fair judge.
“Is this why you were so quiet at dinner?” Bridget asked.
“Guess so.”
“Why didn’t you tell us right away, Clay? We’re your family. We’re on your side.”
“You think so?”
She faced him. “How can you doubt me?”
“I don’t doubt you, Bridge. But the others…you know how things are between Dad and me. He’s said before a child needs her mother.”
“When?”
He shrugged. “Couple years ago. Before the second hearing.”
“He actually said that?”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a couple of minutes, lost in thought. “His opinion has probably changed. He’s seen you with Payton. How could he ever think Robin would be better for her?”
“It’s not so much that Robin’s good. He just doubts I’m the best solution.”
“I think you’re wrong, Clay.”
“There’s no love lost. You know that. He doesn’t talk to me, can barely say hello. It’s awkward as hell coming over here, but I want Payton to get acquainted with her family. She deserves their love.”
“She does,” Bridget agreed. “So do you. And you both have it.”
He checked his watch. “I need to get Payton home and to bed. See you Sunday morning?”
She nodded, not able to hide her concern.
“I’m fine, Bridget. I don’t need his approval.
” His dad’s approval would be nice—unimaginable but nice—but he could live without it.
He had for years now. The only person he had to do right by was Payton.
He worried, night and day, that he’d do the wrong thing for her.
But he would move mountains to figure this parenting thing out. Whatever it took.
Somehow, he and the lawyer needed to figure out a way to make the judge see that Payton would be better off living with him than with her half-there drug-addict mother.