Chapter 3

“We should make a gingerbread house, Mama.” Glory sat at the table slowly making her way through the final spear of broccoli because she liked to get the yucky stuff out of the way first so she could enjoy the rest of her meal in peace.

“We can practice different styles and then we’ll be ready to enter the coolest gingerbread house contest during the Winter Parade.” The town had named the weeklong celebration after the parade that closed it out. It was just another quirk of living in Blissful. “What do you think?”

“What if we our house is the worst one and we lose?” She angrily stabbed that broccoli, taking much longer than any person should, while her blue eyes shot her mom a sad look.

“First of all, our house could never be the worst, do you know who your mama is?”

She pretended to think about it for a second and frowned. “The bestest?”

Ally nodded. “Thanks kiddo. Our house will look awesome, don’t doubt that. But we might still lose. I’m okay with that, are you?” She’d learned years ago that life rarely turned out how you thought it would or how you expected. She learned to adapt.

Glory thought about it for several long moments. “I’m okay with it Mama. Can we do a gingerbread castle?”

“We can try. But that means we really have to practice.” Not that either female would find it a hardship to have to eat more gingerbread. She wondered if she could turn some of the attempts into gingerbread cereal.

“Okay Mama. If you say so.” With a brave look on her face, Glory gave herself a mental pep talk and shoved the picked over broccoli spear into her mouth. She groaned and chewed, looking relieved when she choked the last of it down. “All done.” A quick tongue check and she picked up her turkey burger and took a big bite.

The doorbell rang and Glory shot out of her chair, with Ally struggling to catch up to the energetic little girl. “Don’t you even think about opening that door Glory!”

Moments later Ally heard the squeak of the door hinges she’d been meaning to oil for weeks now, and then her daughter’s friendly voice. “Who are you?” Still full of turkey burger.

Great, a stranger. “My name is Archer. Is your mother home?” She froze at the sound of that familiar, yet all too unfamiliar voice.

“My name is Glory.” There was a long pause and then her daughter’s exasperated voice again. “You’re ‘sposed to shake my hand.”

Archer chuckled and Ally suppressed the urge to join in as her feet began to move again. “Sorry, I forgot my manners. It’s nice to meet you, Glory.”

“Why were you staring at us the other day?” It had only been the day before but Ally couldn’t help grinning at her daughter’s blunt questions. She asked whatever she wanted to know, no matter how many times Ally tried to tell her there were times she shouldn’t ask.

“Because I’d never seen such pretty girls before.”

She rolled her eyes as she rounded the corner and found Archer crouched down so he and Glory were blue eyes to blue eyes. Looking like twins. Her chest pinched but she pushed it down as she always did when her emotions were too close to the surface.

“Mama says I’m as pretty as any princess.” She held her head perfectly still, the way she’d practiced for a full day last year.

Ally placed a hand on her daughter’s scrawny shoulder. “That’s because you are honey, even if you do open the door for strangers when Mama tells you not to.”

She huffed, fiery blue eyes trained on her mom. “But Mama, Archer isn’t a stranger. It’s Archer.”

She wouldn’t get out of trouble by being cute today. “What have I told you?”

She sighed with the heaviness of a girl at least sixteen years old. “Don’t open the door. Ever.”

“Exactly. Go finish up your dinner and think of what kind of castle we’ll make.” That perked her right up and she skipped back to the kitchen.

“Okay!” She skipped a few steps and then paused, turning back to the door to stare at their visitor. “See ya later, Archer.”

“Bye, Glory.”

I will not be moved by this moment, no matter how tender it is, dammit. Hands on her hips, Ally turned to him. “Is there something I can help you with Archer?”

He raked a hand through his hair, wearing that nervous smile she used to love so much, thinking it showed some kind of vulnerability. She’d been so wrong. “It’s good to see you, Ally. Really good.”

She ignored the warmth that spread at his words. What he thought didn’t matter. Not anymore. Not even if she hadn’t been complimented by a man that handsome in at least a year. “Well?”

He straightened to his full six and a half feet of solid steel, but today she wouldn’t be intimidated. “Is that how it’s going to be?”

“How what is going to be? I’m still trying to figure out why you’re here.” They both knew it was a lie, mostly. She really didn’t know why he’d shown up, even if Cindy had told him about Glory. He’d known there could have been consequences yet he’d chosen to walkway without looking back.

“Ma told me.”

“I figured she would.” She hadn’t expected him to run straight to her house, for who knew what. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You know why I’m here.” He used his stern solider voice that she imagined made everyone jump to do his bidding.

Well, not me. “No, I don’t. Years ago, I expected you. When Glory turned one, I stopped expecting anything of you at all.” That had hurt more than she would ever admit to another living soul. To know that she’d wasted her heart, her love, her youth on a man who hadn’t been worth it.

“I would like to meet her.”

“Once? A few times?” She tried very hard to keep her anger in check but listening to him speak so casually about Glory as if he had the right, it pissed her off.

“Hell, Ally, I don’t know.”

“Well when you figure out, maybe we’ll have something to talk about.” She wrapped her hand around the knob, squeezing it until her knuckles turned white. “Until then, stay away.” She slammed the door and leaned against it, grateful when he didn’t pound on the door and insist on coming in. Her heart raced, hands shook at the most unsatisfying reunion in history. Damn you Archer Black.

“You okay Mama?”

Ally nodded and used the door to slide to a standing position, fixing a smile on her face. “Yeah, Mama’s just tired honey. I hope someone didn’t eat my fries.”

She fixed the most innocent look possible on her face and shook her head, inky pigtails flying side to side as she shook her head in denial. “But I’m gonna!”

“Oh no you’re not!” Ally chased after her giggling daughter, letting the worries on her shoulders sit there for a while. She would deal with them later.

If she had to.

 

 

Archer walked into the house, shaking off the cold from spending the past couple hours outside, cleaning gutters and covering his mom’s prized flower and vegetable gardens before the chill set in. He shook the dirt from his well-worn boots and hung his jacket on the hooks that had always been there. Now they were bigger, thicker and pinker. “Ma?”

“In here,” she called over a low hum he instantly recognized as her sewing machine.

He grabbed a beer and went to the living room where he dropped into his favorite recliner. At least this used to be my favorite recliner. As his ass settled he realized it was newer. Plusher. Softer. “This chair is new,” he grumbled, more pissed off than he had a right to be, but spoiling for a fight anyway.

“Furniture tends to wear over the years,” she replied back and waited a beat before humming along with the endless stream of Christmas carols playing all around the room.

Archer stared at her, bent over the sewing machine and humming. Looking content while his whole world shifted on its axis. “You could have said something before now.”

She kept going for a while, sliding the fabric through the machine as though he wasn’t sitting there, stewing. “I could have,” she conceded easily. Too easily. “Then again you could have come home to visit, or maybe check in on the woman you dated for most of your life. Oh, and presumably had unprotected sex with at least once.”

“I didn’t know she came back to Blissful. That hadn’t been part of our plan.” They’d planned to spend a few years living in the city and making names for themselves in their respective careers, working hard and playing harder. When it was time to start their family, they’d planned to move back to Blissful or a town just like it.

“But the military was part of your plan?”

No. He sighed, uncertain how to answer truthfully. “No that hadn’t been part of our plan. At least until it became part of my plan.” He didn’t know how to explain his need to do something more than living the life of a carefree twenty year old. “I thought I was doing the right thing by not contacting her.” At first because he didn’t want to deal with her anger or her tears. Then because he didn’t know what to say until, eventually, he just stopped making excuses to not make the call, and just had never made it.

She snorted and held up the fabric, flipping it quickly and sliding it back through the machine. “Convenient, I’d say. How the right thing for her was the easy thing for you.”

“Ma this isn’t some damn lesson, it’s a child. My child!” Even saying that made his chest swell and ache with a fierceness he’d never felt. How could he not have known he’d created a life? That a child with half his DNA was out in the world? Weren’t fathers supposed to have some awareness of their children? “How do I explain to her why I haven’t been around?”

Her green eyes softened when she looked up. “You?” She shook her head with a small smile. “You’re a stranger, no offense. If anyone will explain it will be the person who’s been doing all the explaining from the get go.”

Ally. “I’m sure she has great things to say,” he scoffed, hating the bitter tone of his voice. But he felt bitter. And angry. And sad. Dammit.

“I really hope you get to find out for yourself, son. I really do,” she sighed and set the fabric in her lap. Archer sighed and settled in for a patented Cindy Black lecture. “You seem to be under the impression that you’re owed something, Archer, when you’re not. If you want in Glory’s life then you have to play nice. You can’t make demands and you have to actually mean it when you say you’re sorry. Prove you plan to be there for that little girl. If you do, that is.”

“How could I not want that? She’s my kid.”

“It’s not always the same for men. Your father, he was a changed man after you were born. So in love with you and being a father, it made me tear up just to see it. But some men feel no connection with their children at all and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just take some time to think about it. Be sure.”

“No, Ma. Don’t hold back.” Did his own mother think he couldn’t cut it as a father?

“I’m sorry, Archer. I love you with all my heart but it’s been hard watching Glory long for a daddy and knowing she might never get you. But if you don’t want to do it, or don’t think you can, leave her be.”

“Ouch.” He rubbed at his chest, feeling a flame flicker to life and burn deep, causing an inexplainable ache down to his bones. “What are you making?”

She smirked at his clumsy change of subject. “A dress for Glory. We saw the most adorable dress when we were out to lunch and I thought this would be a great present for Christmas Eve.” The red and green fabric looked soft and vibrant but he didn’t see a dress anywhere. “She’s going to look so beautiful.”

He nodded. The little girl was beautiful without a doubt, but he wanted to know more. Her favorite cartoons and what she ate for breakfast. If she hated peas as much as he did. But he had to get past Ally which meant he needed to play nice. If she let him get that far. “Tori’s dead.”

Cindy nodded, clutching the fabric to her chest as her eyes misted over. “Damn junkie. She’d already given him the money and I’m sure that made her mad enough. But he was twitchy and the gun went off when he tried to snatch the bag of cash from her. She died before the ambulance made it to the hospital.” She shook her head, several tears streaming down her cheeks. “Poor Ally was devastated. She had to bury her only family with a newborn on her chest. Heartbreaking.” Cindy laid a hand over her heart and bowed her head for the woman who’d been like a sister to her.

And the hips kept coming. He couldn’t have felt any worse if someone walked up to him and sank a Buck knife into his chest. Archer thought he’d already been through the worst shit of his life. Losing his father. Watching two of his buddies get blown away in the fucking desert, so messed up they couldn’t make the final journey home. But this felt worse. He couldn’t stop seeing it, Ally holding an infant, grieving, and completely on her own. “Shit.”

“Language,” she said automatically. “She made it through and learned she was a hell of a lot stronger than she realized.”

“Thanks, Ma. For being here for both of them when I couldn’t.” He owed her more than he could possibly say and he had no idea how to repay such a huge debt.

“It’s been my pleasure. You know I’ve always loved Ally. I thought she would be my daughter one day.”

“Yeah.”

“Does this mean you’re sticking around Blissful?”

He had no reason to leave and every reason to stay. But he still didn’t know if he could do it. If Ally would let him do it. “What if I can’t do it, Ma?”

“You can. You have done everything you set out to do. Make a plan and execute it.”

“Just like that? I don’t know, Ma. Ally is probably going to be a huge obstacle in all this.”

“Then you should find a way to make that obstacle into an ally.”

He laughed.

Easier said than done.