Marion Lennox - Misty and the Single Dad

‘I’m sorry. I should have given you the book and left. I didn’t mean to intrude.’

She was smart. She’d picked up on signals when he’d hardly sent them.

‘You didn’t intrude,’ he said, and this time he went the other way-he put more warmth into his tone than he intended. He gripped her hand, and that was a mistake. The warmth…

How long since he’d touched a woman?

And there was another dumb thought. He’d been shaking hands with nurses, doctors, therapists every day. Why was Misty different?

He couldn’t permit her to be different.

‘You want to tell me about Bailey?’ she asked and he did the withdrawal thing again. Released her hand, fast.

‘It’s on his medical form at school.’

‘Of course it is,’ she said, backing off again. ‘I left school in a hurry because I wanted to get to the vet’s, so I haven’t caught up with the forms yet. I’ll read them on Monday.’ She turned away, heading out of his life.

She’d see the forms on Monday…

Of course she would, he thought, and he’d been frank in what he’d written. He’d had no choice. There were a thousand ways that keeping what happened to Bailey from his classroom teacher could cause problems. Okay, boys and girls, let’s pretend to be pirates…

She had to know, and to force her to read the forms on Monday rather than telling her now… What was he trying to prove?

‘I can tell you now,’ he said.

He was all over the place.

He felt all over the place.

‘There’s no need…’

‘There is a need.’

Why did it feel as if he were stepping on eggshells? This was Bailey’s teacher. Treat her as such, he told himself harshly. Treat her professionally, with cool acceptance and with an admission that she needed to know things he’d rather not talk about.

‘I’m not handling this well,’ he admitted. ‘Today’s been stressful. In truth, the last year’s been stressful. Or maybe that’s an understatement. The last year’s been appalling.’ He paused then, wanting to retreat, but he had to say it.

‘I don’t want to interrupt your evening any more than I already have, but if you have the time… You’re Bailey’s teacher. You need to know what he’s been through.’

‘I guess I do,’ she said equably. ‘We both want what’s best for Bailey.’

That was good. It took the personal out of it. He was telling her-for Bailey.

He paused then and looked at her. She was a woman without guile, his kid’s teacher. She was standing on the veranda of the home he was preparing for his son. She was a warm, comforting presence. Sensible. Solid. Safe.

His parents would approve of her, he thought, and the idea sent a wave of emotion running through him so strongly that he felt ill. If he’d chosen a woman like this rather than Isabelle…

Someone safe.

Someone he could trust if he let his guard down.

When had he last let his guard down?

‘So tell me, then,’ she said-and he did.

There was no reason not to.

It took a while to start. Nick fetched lemonade. He said he’d rather be drinking beer but he hadn’t yet made it further than the supermarket. He apologised for there being no food but cornflakes. She said she didn’t need beer and she wasn’t hungry. She waited.

It was as if he had to find his mindset, as well as his place on the veranda.

Nick didn’t look like a man who spent a lot of time in an easy chair, Misty thought, and when he finally leaned his rangy frame on the veranda rail she wasn’t surprised. She was sitting on the veranda steps. The width of Bailey’s window was between them. Maybe that was deliberate.

For a while he didn’t say anything, but she was content to wait. She’d been teaching kids for years. Parents often needed to tell her things about their children; about their families. A lot of it wasn’t easy. But what Nick had to say…

‘Bailey’s mother was shot off the coast of Africa,’ he said at last, and the words were such a shock she almost dropped her lemonade.

No one ever got shot in Banksia Bay. And… off the coast of Africa?

If this was one of her students, she’d give them a sheet of art paper and say, ‘Paint it for me.’ Dreams needed expression.

But one look at this man’s face told her this was no dream. It might not happen in her world, but it did happen.

‘She was killed instantly,’ he said, and he was no longer looking at her. He was staring out at the blank wall of the fisherman’s co-op, but she knew he was seeing somewhere far off. Somewhere dreadful. ‘Bailey was shot as well,’ he told her. ‘It’s taken almost a year to get him this far. To see him safe.’

What to say after a statement like that? She tried not to blurt out a hundred questions, but she couldn’t think of the first one.

‘It’s a grim story,’ he said at last. ‘Stupidity at its finest. I’ve needed to tell so many people over the last year, but telling never gets easier.’

‘You’re not compelled to tell me.’

‘You’re Bailey’s teacher. You need to know.’

‘There is that,’ she said cautiously. If she didn’t know a child’s history, it was like walking through a minefield. ‘Oh, Nicholas…’

‘Nick,’ he said savagely, as if the name was important.

‘Nick,’ she said-and waited. ‘It’s okay,’ she said gently. ‘Just tell me as much as I need to know.’

He shrugged at that, a derisory gesture, half mocking. ‘Right. As much as you need to know. I was working on a contract in South Africa, Bailey and Isabelle were with Isabelle’s parents. They were on a boat coming to meet me, they were robbed and Isabelle and Bailey were shot.’

‘Oh, Nick…’

His face stopped her going any further. There was such emptiness.

‘What’s not obvious in that version is my stupidity,’ he said, and she sensed that she was about to get a story that he hadn’t told over and over. He no longer seemed to be talking to her. He seemed somewhere in his head, hating himself, feeding his hatred.

The hatred made her feel ill. She wanted to stop him, but there was no way she could.

If this man needed to talk, ugly or not, maybe she had to listen.

‘As a kid I was…overprotected,’ he said at last into the silence, and the impression that he wasn’t talking to her grew stronger. ‘Only child. Protected at every turn. So I rebelled. I did the modern day equivalent of running away to sea. I studied marine architecture. I designed boats, won prizes, made serious money. I built a series of experimental boats, and I took risks.’

‘Good for you,’ she murmured. Then she added, before she could help herself, ‘Half your luck.’

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Risks are stupid.’

‘It depends on the risks,’ she said, and thought of how many risks she’d ever encountered. Approximately none.

But then…this wasn’t about her, she reminded herself sharply. Listen.

‘My kind of risks were definitely the stupid kind,’ he said and, despite her interjection, she still had the impression he was talking to himself. ‘Black run skiing, ocean racing in boats built for speed rather than safety, scuba-diving, underwater caving… Fantastic stuff, but the more dangerous the better. And then I met Isabelle. She was like me but more so. Risks were like breathing to her. The stuff we did… Her parents were wealthy so she could indulge any whim, and Isabelle surely had whims. In time, I learned she was a little bit crazy. If I skied the hardest runs, she didn’t ski runs at all. She skied into the unknown. Together, we did crazy stuff.’

‘But you had fun?’ She was trying to keep the wistfulness from her voice, not sure if she was succeeding. Nick glanced at her as if he’d forgotten she was there, but he managed a wry nod.