3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
“It seemed more believable than a stork.”
Friday had finally arrived, and Cassandra had made it through the last three days, successfully avoiding Wes as much as possible. She was lost in thought as she drove through the light traffic on the way home.
Bailey nudged her. “Mom.”
“What?” She glanced at her daughter. “Did you say something?”
“I said that going out with Ian was a mistake.”
Cassandra patted Bailey’s hand. “I’m glad you finally realized that.”
“You knew it was a mistake and didn’t tell me?”
“If I had, it would’ve taken you longer to see it for yourself.”
Bailey sighed. “I hate being the daughter of a child psychologist.”
Cassandra laughed. “Sorry. We all make mistakes, especially when we’re young. I sure made a couple of…doozies.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s get home. I’m really glad it’s Friday.”
“You’ve only worked three days, and you’re already tired of your job?”
“No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. It’s a new job with different responsibilities and…” She turned onto their street. “What should we have for dinner?”
“Mom, you’re being weird. What’s going on?”
Cassandra pulled into the driveway. “Mr. Buchanan and I have…some history. But we’re working through it.” She opened her door, and Bailey put a hand on her arm.
“What kind of history?”
“Um…let’s go inside.”
Bailey followed Cassandra into the house, then dropped her backpack by the door. “Mom. What kind of history? Did you two work together before?”
“No.” Cassandra put down the old leather briefcase she’d inherited from her father, then removed her jacket and hung it on the coat rack. “Let’s see what we have in the refrigerator.”
Bailey trailed after Cassandra as she headed for the kitchen. “Oh my gosh, you dated him. When? Since you divorced Dad? Did you have an affair? Did you get divorced because—”
“Bailey! Goodness, stop. Take a breath. Nothing nearly that dramatic.”
“What then?”
Cassandra motioned toward the table. “Sit down.” She took a bottle of root beer from the refrigerator and set it on the table. “I suppose you’re old enough to hear this story.”
On Sunday morning, Wes sat at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee, watching Frank pick through his breakfast. Frank was a pure white, twenty-pound Maine Coon with a severe attitude problem. He ate only one brand of cat food, with chicken broth poured over it.
Frank backed up from the bowl, sat, and looked over his shoulder at Wes.
“I’m not putting any more broth on it. You just need to deal with it.”
Frank scowled. When he first started scowling a few months ago, no one believed Wes when he told them. But once they saw it, there was no denying it. The cat could scowl.
“Either eat it or walk away.”
Frank contemplated the bowl again. It held about ten pieces of cat food that hadn’t soaked up broth. The cat walked away from it and lay down on the rug in front of the sink with a grunt.
The plan for the day was to mow the front lawn, but Wes hadn’t yet found the motivation to get outside and follow through. As he was considering a second cup of coffee, someone knocked on the door. Frank, who was also a coward, jumped up and ran into the laundry room.
Wes stood and went to the living room. He was surprised to find Bailey on the other side of it. “Bailey?”
“Hi, Mr. B.”
“You really shouldn’t be here at my house.”
“I’m sorry.” She often wore a hoodie, no matter the temperature, and she tugged on the ends of her sleeves, pulling them over her hands. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“Come see me in my office tomorrow.”
“This isn’t really a school thing.”
Wes had students teepee his house, leave Christmas gifts, and shovel snow from his sidewalk. But he’d never had one come to the door with a problem.
“Um…still.” He glanced at the neighbor’s house, then looked at the empty street.
“Please. I just have a question, then I’ll leave.”
Wes stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
He’d paid more attention to Bailey than he should’ve when she started high school four years ago, but she was Cassandra’s daughter, and he couldn’t help himself.
Bailey was an artist and a musician. She was shy and had only a couple of friends.
She looked a lot like her mother, but young Cassandra was adventurous and outgoing.
“What is it?”
Bailey looked at the ground for a moment as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other a couple of times. Then she looked up at him. “Are you my father?”
Pretty much the last thing he expected her to ask him. “No. Why would you think that?”
She tugged at her sleeves again and twisted them in her hands. “Mom… she told me about… you guys dating. Ew. And that she was cheating on both you and Dad. Double ew. I can’t believe she did that.”
“O…kay.”
“And it’s no secret that I was born seven months after she and Dad got married.”
“I wasn’t aware, but I still don’t…”
“If you and she were…you know, right before her wedding…” She covered her face with her hands. “So gross.”
“Bailey. Your mother and I broke up six months before she got married. Nick is your father. There is no doubt about that.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Wes folded his arms across his chest. “Why do you doubt that Nick is your father? Is there something going on aside from what your mother told you about me? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She shrugged. “We’re just so different. He’s…”
Boring, pretentious, aggressively ambitious. “Nothing like you?”
“Yes.”
Wes decided to tell the girl what he thought she wanted to hear. “Bailey. I don’t know you well, but from what I do know, you’re a lot like your mother.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Creative, generous, and selfless.”
She looked at him for a moment. “She said you didn’t like her very much.”
“I don’t.” He held up a hand. “We have a complicated past. But I can still appreciate the type of person she is. I am surprised that she told you about our past relationship, though.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. She told me if it got out, she’d know where it came from and I’d be grounded until I graduate.”
“Ah…okay.”
“Seriously, I won’t say anything. It’s way too embarrassing, anyway.”
“Right.”
She looked at him. “Not that it’s you. It’s just…”
“I get it. When I was younger, I told myself my brothers and I were dropped on my parents’ doorstep.”
She smiled. “By the stork?”
“No. Fairies, actually.”
“Fairies?”
He shrugged. “It seemed more believable than a stork.”
Bailey laughed. “You’re quite cool for an adult, Mr. B.”
“Um…thank you.”
“I’ll go now. I’m sorry I came to your house.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
“If you ever need to talk…”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “At school, of course.”
“Yeah. That would be best.”
Bailey gave him a little wave as she backed away. Then she turned, walked across the grass, and got into an older model Honda. She gave him another wave before driving away.
“What the hell?” He went back inside and returned to the kitchen. After pouring out the coffee in his cup, he refilled it and sat back down at the table. “It’s safe to come out now, Frank.”
Frank crept out of the laundry room a few minutes later, checked his bowl, then returned to the rug in front of the sink.
It was his spot, and once he was there, he would not budge, even when Wes was doing the dishes.
Unless, of course, someone knocked on the door, the phone rang, or the refrigerator's compressor kicked on. He was afraid of that, too.
Wes managed to stall all day and avoid mowing the lawn.
He did get some work done on the wooden boat he was building in the garage.
He’d been working on it for two years now, using only hand tools.
It started as a hobby he never expected to finish.
But he fell in love with working with the wood and making every board perfect.
That need for perfection was why, two years in, he had just finished the hull. Now he was working on the deck.
Working on the boat had kept his mind off his morning visitor. But twice he took out his phone to call Cassandra, before deciding against it. He’d talk to her tomorrow at work.
On Monday morning, after he’d had his second cup of coffee, Wes went to Cassandra’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
He opened it. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course.” She eyed him suspiciously as she pushed her glasses to the top of her head.
“I promise, I’m not here to harass you.”
“Okay.”
“Bailey came to see me yesterday.”
Cassandra got to her feet. “She did what?”
“She came to my door yesterday morning.”
“Why? She knows better than that.”
Wes folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame. Cassandra had transformed Bishop’s messy office into a tidy space with minimal clutter and three plants. The music festival poster hung on the wall behind her desk. He looked at her for a moment. “You told her about us.”
“Oh my gosh, I’m going to…that’s it. She’s grounded.”
“That’s not what she came to talk to me about. Not directly, anyway.”
Cassandra shook her head, then sat back down. “Just tell me.” She removed her glasses and dropped them on the desk.
“She asked if I was her father.”
Cassandra stood again. “She didn’t.”
“She did.”
“I told her it was over long before Nick and I got married.”
“Apparently, she missed that part.”
She studied him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Is she having some issues with her dad?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He pushed away from the door frame. “I beg to differ. When she comes to my door on a Sunday morning, I think I have a right to know what prompted it.”
Cassandra went to the front of her desk and sat on the edge. “Nick is…” She glanced at him. “He’s not the most involved father. I guess when I told her about you, she… Most kids, from time to time, wish they had different parents.”
“I never did.”
“Well, sure. We don’t all have superparents.”
“Why did you tell her about us?”
Cassandra sighed. “We were talking about dating and mistakes. It just came out. I didn’t set out to tell her.”
“So, I was a mistake?”
She stood and took a few steps toward him. “You were the only part of that year that wasn’t a mistake.”
Wes cleared his throat. “Do you think that maybe you made the wrong choice?”
“I think about it every day.”
Wes fiddled with his tie. “Okay.”
Cassandra stood and returned to her seat. “Are we done here?”
“Um…sure.”
“And don’t worry about Bailey spilling the beans on this.”
“She told me you threatened her with long-term grounding.”
“I did.”
Wes nodded. “I’ll let you get back to work.
” He returned to his office and sat in his chair.
If he wasn’t the mistake, that meant Nick was.
Wes stared at the screensaver bouncing around his screen.
Mistake or not, there was no getting past the fact that she had dated him for over a year while being engaged to Nick.