Janice Johnson - Finding Her Dad

She had done her best to convince herself that he could just as well be a cardboard cutout, with no more substance.

Except that he did have an excellent record on the job. The current sheriff had endorsed him rather than his opponent.

But then she saw the shields he erected when Sierra told him she believed he was her father. There was an instant of understandable shock, then…nothing. Blank. Except Lucy had the sense that he had immediately begun to calculate the pros and cons and develop a strategy. Would this pretty daughter be an asset or a huge detriment? His gaze had flicked over Sierra’s piercings, lingered briefly on her bright blue hair. None of which could be good, in his view. If he admitted he was her father, could the fact be kept secret? Would she go away if he made no admissions?

So okay. Wham. Wham. Lucy didn’t actually know that he’d thought anything of the sort. He was a cop. Of course he was good at hiding what he was thinking. She shouldn’t succumb to her own prejudices.

But oh, it was very hard not to.

Sierra had been watching in silence, but now she said wistfully, “How much time should I give him?”

“As much as he needs. Unless you plan to pester him?” Lucy took the salad dressing from the refrigerator, then handed it and the bowl of salad over the breakfast bar. “Put this on the table.”

Sierra took the bowl. “I said I wouldn’t,” she said, looking offended. “Just because he’s probably my dad doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he never wanted to have kids.”

Then he should have kept his sperm to himself, Lucy thought but didn’t say.

“I was hoping,” Sierra said. “That’s all.”

Lucy set the casserole dish on the table. She half wished she’d heated some rolls or a baguette, but she didn’t really need bread, too. She must have put on ten pounds in the past year. The financial risk and long hours required to get a small business off the ground added up to stress. Lots of stress. Lucy ate when she was stressed. She’d vowed to lose those ten pounds this year. One pound a month. How hard could that be?

The phone rang. Sierra quivered, but didn’t move.

“Do you want to get it?” Lucy asked.

“It’s probably for you.” Head bowed, Sierra stirred casserole around on her plate.

Lucy looked at her thoughtfully. Sierra was boisterous, cheerful and bold. Vulnerable yes, but she hid it well.

Usually Lucy ignored calls during dinner. Although she carried a cell phone, she didn’t believe everyone should be available 24/7 to any demands. But if there was a chance the caller was Captain Brenner…

“Excuse me,” she said, and went to the kitchen. She caught the phone on the fifth ring, before it went to voice mail. “Hello?”

There was a momentary silence. “Ms. Malone?”

Oh, Lord. It was him.

“Yes?” she said cautiously.

“This is Jonathan Brenner. I called to speak to Sierra.”

Lucy kept her back to the dining room and her voice low. “I hope you intend to be kind.”

After another pause, he said, “You weren’t predisposed to like me, were you?”

She hesitated, a little embarrassed to have been so obvious. “That’s not it,” she said finally. “I’m sorry if I’ve given that impression. I actually, um, felt a little bit sorry for you, blindsided that way.”

“Then why the hostility?”

Because my father was a sperm donor of a different kind. A one-night stand. But she wasn’t going to say that.

She felt herself making an apologetic face, which, of course, he couldn’t see. “I’m scared for Sierra. I suppose I was…”

When she didn’t finish, he did it for her. “Striking preemptively?”

Chagrined, Lucy admitted, “Something like that.”

He sighed. “I hurt her feelings. I lay there in bed last night thinking about the expression on her face. When you were in my office, I was too stunned to be as sensitive to her feelings as maybe I should have been. Part of me was thinking it all might be nonsense, or even a con. Maybe I wanted to think that. I don’t know. But…” He was the one who didn’t finish this time.

“She looks like you.”

“Yeah. Enough that…it’s possible. I looked at the DNA results, and she’s definitely a close relation to my mother.”

“Does your mother have siblings?”

“Three. Two of them have sons somewhere in the right age range. And there are probably second cousins. I don’t know.”

“So Sierra jumped to conclusions,” Lucy said slowly.

This silence shimmered with tension. His voice was tight when he said, “But seventeen years ago I gave sperm. What are the odds that any of my male cousins did?”

Startled at the admission, Lucy only murmured, “Oh.”

“May I speak to Sierra, Ms. Malone?”

“Lucy,” she heard herself say. “You can call me Lucy.”

“Not Lucia?”

“No.” She’d never gone by Lucia, although it was her legal name. Her mother told her it was a tribute to her Hispanic heritage. She didn’t want anything to do with the father who didn’t want her. Lucy wasn’t sure why she’d said Lucia and not Lucy when she first met him.

“I go by Jon,” he said, sounding…gentle, as he hadn’t been earlier. Less wary, anyway.

She took a breath, on the verge of asking what he was going to say to her foster daughter, but instead said, “I’ll get Sierra.”

“Thank you.”

She took the phone with her to the dining room. She mouthed, “It’s him,” and handed it to Sierra, who had a deer-in-the-headlights look. In a normal voice Lucy said, “If you want to take the phone to your room, that’s okay.”

Sierra sat frozen. The hand gripping the receiver was white-knuckled. After a moment she gulped. “No, that’s okay. I—I don’t mind you listening.” She visibly girded herself, then put the phone to her ear and said, “Hello?”

She listened. Lucy could hear the low rumble of his voice, but not his words. Surely, surely he wasn’t brushing Sierra off, not after admitting to her that he might be Sierra’s father. Not after the way his voice had softened.

She ate a few bites, chewed and swallowed, and she might as well have been putting foam packing peanuts into her mouth. Expressions washed over Sierra’s young face with such rapidity, Lucy couldn’t pin any one down.

“I— Yes.” She nodded. “Uh-huh.” Listened some more. “No, Mom never said.” Pause. “Okay. I—” More rumbles from Jon. At last Sierra said shakily, “Thank you. Okay. Um, bye.”

She dropped the phone, which clunked on the tabletop. Tears welled in her big blue eyes. “That was him!”

Smiling, Lucy said, “I know.”

“He…he… Oh, Lucy!” Her mouth trembled.

Oh, Lord. He hadn’t rejected Sierra after all, had he? Lucy jumped up and circled the table to hug the teenager. “What did he say, sweetie?”

Sierra buried her face against Lucy’s shoulder and hugged her fiercely. “That he’s going to call the clinic,” she mumbled. “He thinks that, with both of us giving permission, they’ll tell me who my father is. At least, they will if it’s him.”

Lucy laid her cheek against Sierra’s bright hair and closed her eyes in relief. Mostly relief. She was surprised to discover some other emotion tunneling beneath. It felt furtive, as if she should be ashamed of herself. In astonishment, she wondered if she could be jealous.

“Oh, Lucy,” Sierra whispered. “I’m so happy. He was really nice.”

The position was awkward, but Lucy held her tight as she sobbed. Maybe, she thought, I am a little jealous, but mostly I’m glad. If Sierra really had found her father, if he accepted her—no, wanted her—that was the best thing in the world for a girl who eight months ago had been left with no one at all.