Daddy

“I'm fine, sweetheart.” He touched the long blond hair and smiled. She was a sweet girl, and things were good between them again. She seemed to have settled down a lot since their move to New York, and she was closer to him again. Closer than she was to Sarah. “It was nice today, wasn't it?”

“Yes, it was.” And then, echoing his own thoughts, “What do you think of Grandpa's friend?”

“Margaret? I like her.”

“Do you think he'll marry her?” Mel seemed intrigued and Ollie smiled at her.

“I doubt it. He loved Grandma too much for that. You don't find that more than once in a lifetime.”

“I just wondered.” And then, with fresh concern, “Do you think Mom will marry Jean-Pierre? … he's so young for her …”Although she would never have said that to her mother.

“I don't think so, sweetheart. I think she's just having fun.”

Melissa nodded, relieved. “God, isn't poor Sandra awful?”

He nodded his agreement, suddenly amused that they were dissecting everyone after the guests left, the way married couples did. It made him feel less lonely. “It drives me crazy to see Benjamin wasting his life with her, working as a busboy to support her.”

“What'll they do with the baby?”

“God knows. I think they should give it up, but Benjamin insists they want it. And then what? I'll be damned if I'll let them get married.”

“I don't really think he wants to. He's just trying to be nice to her. But he looks pretty bored with her too. And she kept looking at the other guys who came by. I don't think she knows what she wants. God, Daddy … imagine being seventeen and having a baby!”

“Keep that in mind, my dear, if the call of the wild ever strikes!” He wagged a finger at her and she laughed, blushing in the darkness.

“Don't worry. I'm not that stupid.” He wasn't quite sure what that meant. If it meant she would never do it, or if she did, she would be more careful. He made a mental note to himself to have Daphne talk to her on the subject, before she went to France for the summer.

“Is Sam asleep?”

“Out like a light.”

“Maybe we should go to bed too.” He stood up and stretched and they walked slowly inside holding hands. It had been a beautiful day, sunny and hot, and now the night was cool. It was exactly the way he liked it.

He kissed her good night outside her room, and lay in his own bed that night, thinking of what the last year had been like. How much had changed, how different they all were. Only a year before, on the Fcurth of July, everything had been so different. Sarah had been there, his mother … Benjamin still seemed like a child. They had all grown up that year, or some of them anyway. He didn't know about Sarah. He suspected that she was still groping. But he felt as though he had found his feet at last, and as he drifted off to sleep, he found himself wondering again about his father and Margaret Porter.

Chapter 14

In July, Mel and Sam left for Europe with Sarah and her French friend, and Oliver moved back to the apartment in New York. There was no point commuting every night now with the kids gone. It was easier for him to stay late at work, and then go back to 84th Street. He and Daphne spent a lot of time working together, and they had a standing spaghetti date now on Monday and Friday nights. She was with her friend the other three weekday nights, and now and then she would talk to Ollie about him. “Why do you do that to yourself?” he scolded more than once. “At your age, you should get married and be with someone who can give you more than three nights a week. Daph, you deserve it.”

She always shrugged and laughed. She was happy as things were. He was a wonderful man, she said, and she didn't want more than that. He was intelligent and kind and generous to her, and she loved him. And without children, marriage didn't seem quite as important to her.

“You'll be sorry one day.”

But she didn't agree with him. What she had was right for her, even though she missed him when she wasn't with him. “I don't think so, Ollie.” He admitted to her how lonely it was being alone, without the kids. He missed having someone to talk to at night, and the companionship he had known for nearly twenty years with Sarah.

He only went out to Purchase now to visit Benjamin and his father. Sandra was getting bigger by the hour. And for the first time in his life, Benjamin looked pale to him. He never got out in the sun anymore. He was always working. He had two jobs now. One pumping gas, and the other at night as a busboy. He was trying to save enough money to get her decent maternity care, pay for the apartment they shared, and have enough on hand to support their baby. And when he had offered to help them, Benjamin had refused it.

“It's my responsibility now, Dad. Not yours.”