“Well…” Helen smiled as if to say that particular subject was over. She looked at Faith. “Listen, sweetie, if you’ll go bring me my purse over there on the couch, I’ve got a little surprise for you.” Faith darted across the room and returned with a large canvas bag. “Let’s see what we have here.” Helen reached into the bag. “James and the Giant Peach and Sleeping Beauty.”
“Oh, wow.” All smiles, Faith clutched the books. “My absolute favorites.”
“I knew they would be.” Helen dropped a kiss on Faith’s nose. “Now why don’t you run off and read them? The grown-ups want to talk about really boring things.” She gave Faith a few moments to leave the room, then produced a newspaper clipping from the bag. “This is probably something we should discuss.”
Hannah felt her stomach tense. She watched Margaret, who was sitting next to Helen, reach for the clipping. Waited for the shock to register on her mother’s face. The room felt hot and still suddenly. Margaret carefully set the clipping down on the table. Fingers over her lips, she looked at Hannah.
“Did you know Liam was coming back?”
“I just saw the announcement in the paper yesterday.” She drank some water. They were all watching her. “It’s no big deal, Mom.” She looked at Margaret. “Really, don’t worry about it.”
Margaret drank some wine. “You’re not planning to see him, are you?”
“Of course Hannah doesn’t want to see him,” Helen said.
“Why would Hannah give a hoot about Liam?” Rose asked. “She’s got this hotty attorney boyfriend. Liam’s ancient history. Right, Hannah?”
“ANY PLANS FOR A WEEK, Saturday?” Allan asked Hannah Wednesday morning when he dropped off his son at La Petite Ecole. “I have symphony tickets.”
“Saturday?” She’d been sitting at one of the small painted tables selecting books for the afternoon’s story session and she stood so that he wouldn’t tower over her. Actually, she could stand on a table and he’d still tower over her. Allan was tall. She wasn’t. Flustered now, mostly because next Saturday was Faith’s birthday party and she was wavering back and forth about inviting him, she tried to find a way around the question. “Saturday.” She frowned as though trying to picture her extensive social calendar. “Let me think.”
Allan smiled indulgently. Allan always smiled indulgently. It was one reason she had trouble picturing them walking into the sunset together. That, and he called her “Kiddo.” On the plus side, he was thoughtful, patient and sweetly romantic. As her Aunt Rose would say, she could do a lot worse. And, as her mother would add, in a not-too-subtle jab, she already had.
Allan and his ex-wife shared custody of four-year-old Douglas, who was in Hannah’s class. A fastidious little boy, Douglas disliked getting his hands dirty and insisted on using a straw to sip his milk because he worried about germs on the glass. She’d been talking to Allan about his son’s phobias during a parent-teacher conference and then somehow they’d moved on from Douglas to foreign films and she found herself accepting Allan’s invitation to a festival. Half a dozen or so dates later, he was talking about moving in together. She felt him watching her, waiting for an answer.
“Actually, next Saturday is Faith’s birthday party,” she finally said, because she couldn’t think of any way around it. “If you weren’t busy…”
His smile broadened. “I’ll give the tickets away. I’d love to meet your family and get to know your daughter.”
“Well, I’m not sure you’ll have much opportunity to get to know her. At last count, I think there were about fifty kids coming.”
“Hey, it sounds like fun,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
She smiled back at him. He really was kind of sweet, even if he didn’t exactly make her heart turn over. “Okay, but don’t pay any attention to my mother and aunts. They have this thing about me getting married, so they’ll start asking you pointed questions about your intentions.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “Really?”
“Yeah, so tell them you’re just out for a good time and the last thing you’d ever want to do is settle down.”
“But what if that’s not true?” His eyes searched her face. “What if I tell them you’re exactly what I’m looking for?”
“Uh…” She felt her face go warm. “Please don’t, okay?”
He smiled. “Are we a little gun-shy, kiddo?”
“Not a little, and Allan…please don’t call me ‘kiddo.’” She picked at a piece of skin on her finger. “Look, I screwed up once. I’m not about to jump into it again.”
“Perhaps you just married the wrong guy.”
Hannah shrugged. Inviting him had definitely sent the wrong message, she could see that now.
“One bad apple doesn’t mean the whole barrel is bad.” Allan also mangled metaphors. “Any man who could just turn his back on a daughter like Faith obviously has a severe character flaw. She’s a wonderful young lady.”
“You’ve never even met her,” Hannah pointed out.
“She’s your daughter. How could she be anything but wonderful?” With a quick glance over his shoulder, he kissed Hannah softly on the lips. “And I’ve always wanted a daughter.”
AFTER ALLAN LEFT, Hannah couldn’t get his words out of her head. I’ve always wanted a daughter. And he probably would be a terrific father to Faith. Attentive, conscientious. There for her. Everything her real father wasn’t. With a sigh, she opened the book she’d selected to read to the kids. A story about a cow who decides to be an opera singer and moves to New York to take voice lessons from Placido Domingo. As she held up the book to show the kids the picture of the cow, all dolled up in a sequined evening gown and warbling an aria, she sneaked a quick glance at her watch.
Nearly noon. Right now, Liam was probably setting up the instruments. No, he’d be sleeping still. Liam always slept late.
“Timothy is picking his nose, Ms. Riley,” Morgan Montgomery said. “It’s revolting.”
Hannah put aside the book to look at Timothy. He sat cross-legged on the floor, hands clasped on top of his copper-colored curls, an expression of angelic innocence on his freckled face.
“He was, Ms. Riley. I think I’m going to vomit.”
Morgan clutched her stomach dramatically. She had glossy brown hair, a heart-shaped face and, at four, was frighteningly precocious. Her parents were both psychiatrists and when they came to school to discuss Morgan’s progress, Hannah always had the feeling they were analyzing her.
“He flicked it at me,” she said.
“Did not,” Timothy said.
Hannah watched Morgan pick up her floor pillow and move ostentatiously to the opposite side of the room, where she settled back on the floor with a flounce of her GapKids tartan skirt. After a moment, Hannah started reading again. She had discussed Timothy’s nose-picking problem with his parents and knew she hadn’t handled this latest incident very well. The La Petite Ecole method would have been to engage him in open discussion of social manners, but she felt distracted and irritable and in no mood for talk about boogers. Why the hell did she really want to see Liam?
At noon, she sat with Jen Bailey on the steps in the sun, eating a microwaved Lean Cuisine lunch and watching the kids wrestle around on the grass, hitting each other with paisley-patterned beanbags. Jen was the other teacher for the three-to-four-year-old group. She had cropped burgundy hair and a nose ring and lived in a funky apartment in Huntington Beach with her boyfriend who played in a band and designed surfwear. The only reason Jen was hired, she’d told Hannah,