CHAPTER TWO.
She’s your daughter’s teacher for God’s sake. Pull yourself together.
With Faith seated beside him plugged into her iPhone, Jack drove toward the twin’s day care centre, cursing himself thoroughly.
She's not your type, Jack.
When he first saw Desiree, he was a little taken aback with her tattoos and piercings, although he kept his thoughts hidden behind a pleasant facade. It didn’t do to judge people before you knew them. Desiree had turned out to be caring and sympathetic. She seemed to have amazing rapport with Faith, which Jack was relieved about. And he knew she had really helped his daughter through some difficult times.
He knew Desiree hadn’t meant to be accusing, but her words bit at him, mainly because he knew they were true. He wasn’t there for Faith, or the twins. And his guilt over that ate at him constantly.
His thoughts turned to her blush when retracting her hand. She didn’t seem the kind of woman to blush easily, but it was very attractive on her.
It had been a while since Jack had been with a woman, what with traveling and caring for the kids. So it was no surprise to him that the blush of a beautiful woman had his body hardening. He thought about her sympathetic green eyes as she listened to his tale of woe, her hand resting over his. Her lovely oval face with its look of concern. And he wondered whether under the desk she had long, smooth legs that matched what was on show above the desk.
Stop it, Jack. Jesus. Your daughter is sitting right there beside you.
He glanced over at Faith. She was busily texting one of her friends, or instagramming or whatever it was kids did these days instead of having actual conversations. She hadn’t noticed the colour creeping up his neck and into his face, nor the shortening of his breath. Thank the Lord.
With a sigh, he stopped at the lights, and poked Faith. She looked at him questioningly, and he indicated that she should take the earphones out of her ears, which she did, albeit begrudgingly.
“How was school today?” he asked.
Faith glanced back at her iPhone screen, and said, “Fine.”
“That’s not an answer.” He raised an eyebrow at her, and she blew out an impatient breath and turned off her phone, looking back up at her dad.
“It was fine, Dad.”
“And what about you, chickadee? How are you doing?”
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, okay. I just…”
“Yeah?”
“I guess everything is harder than it was before.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry Dad.” A sad smile crossed her face. “I just wish Mama would come back.”
Like that’s going to happen.
Susan had left them to take up a position as a resident in a posh, private North Shore hospital in Sydney. There was no way she would be returning to her previous life. She had made that very clear during the few times Jack had spoken to her.
And even if she did express a desire to come back, Jack wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her for abandoning her family the way she did. If it had been just Jack, it would have been different. But she left three confused and terrified children behind as well, and in Jack’s mind, that was unforgivable.
Jack didn’t know how to reassure his daughter, and it tore him up inside. He couldn’t feed her platitudes; she was far too smart for that. So he just rubbed her arm and when she turned back to him, gave her a smile that was more of a grimace. She grimaced back, and resumed looking out of the window. A few moments later, she put her earphones back in, and switched her iPhone back on. Jack sighed, and went back to driving.
They pulled into the day care parking lot and Jack got out of the car. Pushing the door open, Jack was greeted by two mini whirlwinds.
“Dad! We made pancakes!”
“I drew on Tommy’s picture and he yelled at me!”
“I played in the cubby!”
“We went outside on the oval!”
The day care supervisor hurried over to Jack, as she did every day. She stood a little too close and smiled at him a little too fondly and he returned the smile uncomfortably, feeling like a side of beef being sized up for the table. “The boys were really good today,” she said warmly.
Jack threw a real smile at his sons, then with a quick glance at her name tag, said, “Thanks Janine. I hope they weren’t too much of a handful.”
“Never,” Janine said, scruffling Danny’s hair. He ducked out from under her hand and said loudly, “Can we go now Dad?”
Jack said, “Sure, buddy. Grab your bags, and we can get on home.”
After signing the boys out, Jack hustled them out to the car. They got in, both of them talking non-stop as if they were trying to outdo each other. Jack checked their seat belts, then returned to the driver’s seat.
Faith turned around to ask the boys how their day had been. They told her all the things they had told Jack, only she engaged them – asking for more details and being suitably impressed with their childish accomplishments.
He felt a pang of unexpected pride in his kids. Life had dealt them a fairly harsh blow this past eighteen months, but they had rallied. Plenty of people had told him that kids were resilient, but they didn’t tell him how much it would hurt to watch them needing to develop that resilience. A lump formed in his throat as he listened to his little tribe chatting amongst themselves, relaxed and happy to see each other.
He blinked away tears and took a deep breath, before shouting, “McDonald's for dinner!”
His words were drowned out by the enthusiastic “Yay!” from his three amazing kids.