Janice Macdonald - Keeping Faith

Everywhere, reminders of what fathers were supposed to be and what Liam wasn’t.

MIRANDA’S HOUSE WAS a nonstop party scene. Booze and, Liam assumed, pretty much anything else a person might want. Girls coming in and out at all hours. Twice over the weekend, he’d started to phone Hannah then changed his mind. That afternoon he’d finished the pitcher of banana rum punch that Miranda had made, then wandered up to his room and fallen asleep. When he woke up, it was dark outside and the party was going full swing downstairs.

He rolled over onto his back and held the pillow over his head, trying to block out the noise as well as the image of Hannah climbing into her little red car and driving away.

But nothing blocked out the noise or the thoughts. Hannah and Faith, hands extended, had even invaded his dreams. He stumbled out of bed, splashed water on his face and wandered, bleary-eyed downstairs.

Miranda spotted him immediately and thrust a cold beer in his hand.

“Party pooper.” She wore black leather trousers and a black silk shirt, and her hair was piled up on her head, strands of it down around her neck and shoulders. “Where have you been, you naughty boy?”

“Escaping,” he said.

“Escaping?” She gave him a pouty-mouthed smile. “Not from me, I hope.”

“From me.”

She laughed. “Why would you want to escape from you?”

“Because I’m a no-good, lily-livered coward.” He’d heard John Wayne or someone say it on a Western. It seemed applicable. “A pathetic, quivering mass of indecision,” he added for good measure.

Miranda laughed louder. “Oh my. Well, not to worry. No-good, lily-livered cowards are my favorite type of men.”

Liam drank some beer. Through the windows on the far end of the room he could see the sparks from bonfires on the beach, glowing and sputtering like fireworks in the dark night. Miranda had invited half a dozen or so bands, including his own, and the music throbbed from everywhere in the house. He stared at a girl with long, white-blond hair, who was drinking tequila straight from the bottle. She looked very young, sixteen or seventeen maybe. A thought buzzed across his brain. Someone’s daughter. Abandoned by her father, too?

“Okay, I’m dying of curiosity.” Miranda smiled her sultry, insinuating smile, keeping her voice low so he had to move closer to hear. “Who was that girl who came here to see you?”

“She used to be my wife,” Liam said.

“Your wife.” She took a step backward, her eyes widened. “Oh my. I wouldn’t take you for the marrying kind.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Which is why she used to be my wife.”

Miranda appeared to be absorbing this new piece of information. “She’s cute,” she said after a moment. “Although I wouldn’t have thought she was your type.”

“How is that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Miranda’s eyes narrowed as she considered. “She seemed sweet and wholesome. A homebody. You strike me as a more adventurous type. Dark and mysterious.”

Liam laughed. “Right, that’s me all over. But terrible husband material.” Terrible father material, too. I have a daughter who is going to be six tomorrow. She’s having a birthday party, but I’m scared to meet her. “My wife’s lucky she got out when she did,” he said.

“Oh, I think perhaps you’re being a little too hard on yourself,” Miranda said. “You’re obviously concerned about Brid. That says something.”

“All it says is I need her for the band. If it weren’t for that, Brid could starve herself to death for all I care.” It wasn’t true, but he felt so bloody awful about himself at the moment, he didn’t want Miranda, or anyone else, trying to make him into something he wasn’t.

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