Chapter Ten #2
Jane moved her cup along the edge of the tiles. “I think so. She doesn’t understand what we told her. Not really. That will come later. I hope—” she sighed “—I hope she can forgive me.”
“For what?”
“You were right last night. I lied to her, for her whole life. I wouldn’t talk about her father. It would have been one thing if I hadn’t known where he was, but I knew you were here. She’s going to figure that out.”
He felt vaguely uncomfortable. He didn’t want to hear Jane’s side of the story; he only wanted to be angry at her.
Besides, if the truth were told, he didn’t mind if Billie was irritated with her mother for a couple of days.
“Maybe you should have thought about that when you chose to stay away all those years. You only have yourself to blame.”
* * *
The long morning got longer. Jane glanced out the kitchen window and saw Billie sitting under their chestnut tree. The girl had been there for almost an hour. The only time Billie stayed still voluntarily was when she was sick. Even asleep she tossed and turned like a puppy having a dream.
Jane pushed opened the back door and walked down the steps. When she reached the shade, she knelt on the grass and laced her fingers together on her lap.
“How you doing?” she asked.
“Okay.” Billie turned her softball over and over in her hand. The bill of her cap hid most of her face.
“You want to play catch?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll just sit here.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“Uh-uh.”
Now what? Jane wondered. “We gave you a lot to think about.”
Billie nodded. “Is Adam really my dad?”
“Yes.”
“Are you divorced from him?”
Jane grimaced. She hadn’t seen that one coming. “No, honey. Adam and I didn’t get married.”
Billie looked up. Her mouth twisted as she wrinkled her nose. It was her I-can’t-solve-this-problem expression. “Don’t you have to be married to have a baby?”
“Not always. Adam and I were going to get married. But then we decided we shouldn’t.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, she told herself. Besides, the truth was difficult for her to understand, let alone an eight-year-old.
Billie rolled her ball along the ground. It stopped in front of Jane and she rolled it back. “You didn’t marry Adam, but you had me, anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you.”
Billie picked up the ball. “And Adam didn’t?”
“Adam didn’t know about you, honey.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know when I left.”
“But you knew later?”
“Yes.”
Billie stood up and stuffed her ball into her pocket. “Every Sunday when we went to church, I always asked God for a dad. He gave me one. I guess I’m happy.”
“I know it’s a lot to get used to.”
Billie nodded. “I’m going for a walk, Mom.”
“Lunch is in an hour.”
Billie shuffled off deeper into the backyard.
Jane watched her go. This quiet sedate child wasn’t hers.
Had telling Billie been a mistake? Was the damage permanent?
She wanted to run after her and hug her and love her until all the questions and fears disappeared.
It didn’t work that way. Billie had to figure this thing out on her own. Nothing would be the same again.
Jane made her way back to the house. Should she invite Adam over for lunch?
How were they going to handle that now? Coming home and reuniting father and daughter had seemed like such a good idea in San Francisco.
But she’d never thought through all the logistical problems. Where did they go from here?
* * *
It was almost two o’clock when Jane burst into Adam’s study. “She’s not here, is she?”
He looked up from his work and frowned. “Billie? I haven’t seen her since this morning. I was going to call you later and see if you thought we could all have dinner.”
She turned toward Charlene who was standing behind her. “She’s not here. That’s it, then. She’s run away.”
“Who’s run away?”
“Your daughter.” Jane rubbed her temples. “I last saw her about three hours ago in the backyard. We had a talk about, well, you know. I told her lunch was in an hour. When I went out to get her, I couldn’t find her.”
Billie? Gone? He glanced at his watch. “And you’re just now coming to find me?”
“I wanted to check the yard and then the house. Charlene looked around here while I went to the park.”
“And?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“No one’s seen her.”
He’d been a parent less than twenty-four hours and it had been one crisis after another. His first inclination was to tear out of the room and begin a search of his own. “Let’s keep calm,” he said, as much to himself as to them.
“Calm?” Jane shrieked. “Calm? My daughter is out there. Alone. And you want to stay calm?”
“Jane, please, dear. This isn’t helping.” Charlene took her arm and ushered her into the room. “Have a seat and we’ll all think this through. She can’t have gone that far.”
“You don’t know Billie. She’s very resourceful.”
“She’s also a little girl. And that is what she’s going to act like. Now, think. Where would Billie go?”
Jane crumpled into the chair in front of his desk. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t think. Oh, God, she’s lost and it’s all my fault.”
Charlene looked at him. “Adam?”
He came around the desk and crouched in front of Jane. Taking her hands in his, he squeezed them reassuringly. Her skin felt icy to the touch. “This isn’t helping Billie. Please, Jane. You must get a grip on yourself. Where would Billie go?”
“I don’t know.” Her hazel eyes, wide and unfocused, swept the room frantically, as if her child might be concealed in some corner. A shiver racked her body. “She’s never done this before.”
“She probably wants time to think. Where does she go when that happens?”
Jane jerked her hands free and tried to stand up. “Get out of my way. We need to call the police.”
“Not yet.” A memory walked along the edge of his consciousness. It stayed tantalizingly out of reach, but there was something familiar. A sense of having been through this before. Dani had disappeared after his parents’ funeral. He’d searched for hours until—
“Did you try the old tree house?” he asked.
“What?” Jane stared at him. “Is it still there?”
“Pieces. I think Billie mentioned something about it the day you arrived. You’d told her stories. Maybe she’s there.”
Hope brightened her pale face. “You think so?”
“There’s one way to find out. Come on.”
He grabbed her hand and led her out of the study.
Charlene followed on their heels. Most of the two-acre backyard had been landscaped, but a patch of woods still existed in the southwest corner.
Adam went first along the overgrown trail.
Billie had spent part of her days exploring his yard; it wasn’t unreasonable to assume she’d found the tree house.
He kept repeating the thought over and over as if thinking it enough would make it true. The real truth was that he was as anxious as Jane. But after years of dealing with crises at home and at the bank, he was better at hiding his feelings. Be all right, Billie, he repeated like a prayer.
As they neared the tree house, he motioned for them to move more quietly.
He wanted to get close enough to see her before she spotted them.
He didn’t want to give her the chance to run.
Jane held on to his hand as if it were her lifeline.
He returned her pressure and glanced over his shoulder to give her a reassuring smile.
They rounded a curve in the path. The old cottonwood stood like a battle-scarred warrior among the newer saplings and willows. A ladder hugged the trunk of the eighty-foot tree. Stout branches fanned out. The thickest, about fifteen feet off the ground, supported the remains of a tree house.
At first he didn’t see anything. Then the sun caught a flash of red among the leaves. He closed his eyes and pictured her at breakfast that morning. Red T-shirt, denim shorts.
“She’s there.”
Jane sagged against him.
“Do you want to go talk to her?” he asked.
“We should go together.” Jane glanced back at Charlene, as if to confirm her opinion.
“I agree. I’ll wait here.”
Adam stepped along the path. When they were almost at the tall tree, he stepped on a fallen branch. It snapped. Billie stuck her head over the side of the tree house.
She wasn’t crying, but she didn’t smile at them, either. “I’m in trouble, huh?”
“You bet,” he said, finally realizing the extent of his worry as relief flooded his body. “You’re not allowed to go off without telling someone.”
She frowned. “How’d you know that?”
“It makes sense.”
She nodded and looked past him to her mother. “Am I going to get a whippin’?”
Jane tried to laugh. It came out sounding a little shaky. “I’ve never hit you.”
“I was just checking.” Billie adjusted her baseball cap. “You probably want me to come down.”
Adam released Jane’s hand. “I’ll come up.”
“Be careful,” Jane said, touching his arm.
“I will. I’ve been climbing this tree since I was younger than Billie.”
“When was the last time?”
He hoisted himself onto the first step and looked back. “About nine years ago. Are you saying I’m too old?”
“I’m saying be careful.”
He climbed the rungs leading up to the tree house. As he pivoted and lowered himself onto the floor of the open platform, he gave Billie a smile. “Nice view.”
“Yeah.” She took her ball out of her pocket and studied it.
“With the walls gone, it’s not safe up here for you. If you’d like, I’ll put the walls back.”
She shook her head. “I won’t be allowed up here. My mom won’t like it.”
“How do you know?”
She shrugged. “She just won’t.”
“Maybe I can talk to her about it.”
“Really?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Is that a dad thing?”
Was it? Now he shrugged. “I used to play up here when I was your age. I had a lot of fun. I’d like the same for you.”
She offered her first smile since she’d heard the news. “Sometimes famous pitchers need a place to play.”
“I bet. I’ll talk with your mother in a couple of days. Right now, though, I’d like you to come down with me. Can I give you a piggyback ride to the bottom?”
“Okay.”
She walked over to him and leaned against his back. After stuffing her ball back into her pocket, she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.
So small, he thought, fighting the sudden tightness in his throat. So young and fragile. His daughter. His child.
“All set?”
“Uh-huh.”
He stepped back onto the ladder and quickly brought them to the ground. Jane met them at the bottom. She pulled Billie off Adam and hugged her close.
“I was so frightened,” she said, burying her cheek against her daughter’s hair. “Don’t scare me like that again.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m in trouble, huh?”
Jane continued to hold her tight. “No. You’re not in trouble.”
Adam expected several reactions, but not for Billie to start crying. The tears fell fast and furious down her face, but she made almost no noise.
“Mommy,” she said. She squirmed to get closer. Her hat fell to the ground.
“Hush, Billie. You’re safe now. You’ll always be safe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
The sobs continued, as if the child’s most precious possession had been torn from her. Adam stood helplessly beside the two of them and watched as Billie suffered a pain he couldn’t begin to understand. He thought about offering comfort, but to whom? And for what?
Charlene walked over and touched his arm. “We’d better head back.”
He shook off her hand. “I don’t want to.”
“Adam!”
He glanced at her.
“Let Jane handle this.”
“She’s my daughter, too.”
“In name only. Right now Billie needs her mother.”
Jane looked up and nodded. “Please, just a couple of hours. Come by around five and we’ll talk over dinner.”
It was Billie who made the decision for him. He reached over to pat her back, but she shrank out of reach and clung tighter to her mother. It hurt, he acknowledged, allowing Charlene to lead him back to the house. Telling himself Billie was a child and simply reacting to the situation didn’t help.
When he reached the curve in the path, he turned and stared at Jane and Billie.
The woman who should have been his wife, holding the child that belonged to him.
In a moment of passion, he and Jane had made that precious girl.
He didn’t understand all the ramifications of being a parent, but he would die for that child.
As Jane’s gaze met his, then slid away, he realized something else.
The risk he took. He couldn’t stop Billie from finding a place in his heart.
It was too late for that; the process had already begun.
He had to find a way to keep her from disappearing from his life.
He knew the rule; if you love something, it leaves you. He couldn’t let that happen now.