Valerie Taylor - The World's Best Dad

“But can I stay there if I want?”

“If you want to?”

“Grandma says if I stay overnight at her house, we can go to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch.”

Ben bit back a smile. Should have known food figured somewhere in all this. “Is that what you want to do?”

“Can you come, too?”

“Well, probably not. I’d stay here and work.”

Joe thought for a moment. “Then can we go to Chuck E. Cheese?”

Ben laughed. “Sure, we’ll go one of these days.” He slid Joe under the covers and tucked them snug around his shoulders, then leaned down for a kiss good-night. “Who’s my favorite kid in the whole wide world?”

Joe grinned and wiggled under the covers. “I am!”

“You’re right.”

“An’ who’s my favorite daddy?” Joe had added this lately, probably with a little help from Maggie. She really did have Joe’s best interests at heart. Feeling a little guilty at his earlier anger with her, he grinned at his son. “I am.”

“That’s right.” That was Joe’s favorite part, and he always added a few decibels for emphasis.

Ben switched on the night-light and turned off the lamp. “Night, Joe. I love you.”

In the darkened room, he could see through Joe’s bedroom window to Julie’s house. Maybe he’d call over there, apologize again for the sandbox incident. Then he saw her friend’s car was still parked in the driveway.

Well, no rush. If she’d been dating someone, the guy would have been there today, helping her out. Ben had all the time in the world to get close.

THE FOLLOWING Monday morning, Julie locked the door and led a subdued Marisa across the driveway to Ben’s house.

As Julie knocked on the door, she said, “Honey, preschool’s going to be okay.” Marisa shook her head, and Julie’s heart sank. Joe, still in his pajamas, opened the door.

“My dad’s upstairs.”

“Julie, that you?” Ben came to the top of the stairs, Joe’s shoes in his hand. “Joe just needs to get himself dressed.” He walked down the steps and handed Joe his shoes. “Now get dressed and get your shoes on, or I’m turning off the TV.”

An exasperated sigh from Joe. “Oh, Okay.” He grabbed the shoes and trudged into the living room.

Marisa looked up at Julie, anxious, and Julie set a hand on her shoulder. “Go ahead, honey, I’ll be right here. I won’t leave without you, I promise.” She bit her lip as Marisa reluctantly parted from her and slowly followed Joe into the living room. Julie could hear the Rugrats theme playing. Maybe Marisa’s favorite show would distract her from her anxiety.

“Cup of coffee? It’ll take him a few minutes.” Ben shook his head. “I can do it for him, but I’ve been trying to get him to dress himself in the morning.”

“No hurry, we’re early. But yeah, I’d love another cup of coffee.”

He led her into the kitchen and poured her a cup. “Marisa’s first day at preschool. She doesn’t seem too excited about it.”

That was an understatement. “She’s hiding it as best she can, I think, but she’s terrified. Thank goodness Joe’s school had room for her. It would have been so much worse if she didn’t know someone.” Julie dropped into a chair beside the table as Ben poured her a cup of coffee and set it in front of her. “I feel terrible. This is really my fault. If I—” She shook her head and took a sip from her mug.

“If you what?”

Julie looked up at him. “If I’d only thought about the ramifications of doing this alone. I had every chance. Everyone and their brother pointed it out to me.”

Ben looked mystified.

Julie shook her head in exasperation with herself. “It’s a long story, I’m afraid.” She gave him a wry smile.

Ben sat down with his cup. “Believe me, it’ll take Joe at least ten minutes to get dressed. But don’t let me pry.”

“Not at all.” Julie glanced through the kitchen door into the dining room and living room beyond, where both kids were sitting on the couch absorbed in yet another devious plan by the spoiled-rotten Angelica to ruin the babies’ fun. “Marisa and I are just getting to know one another. She still doesn’t quite believe that this is for keeps. She was bounced around so much in the past four years.”

“So she thinks maybe this whole day-care thing is just another way to get rid of her?”

“I think maybe she does. I’ve tried to explain that I’d much rather stay with her all the time but that I don’t have any choice, I have to work. I don’t think she’s buying it.”

Ben gazed at her, thoughtful, giving her some of his calm. “I’ll bet it’s pretty important that I pick them up right on time, isn’t it?”

Grateful, Julie smiled in relief. “I didn’t know how to bring that up.” Already he understood a lot about Marisa.

He grinned. He had a dimple immediately to the left of his mouth. Just the one side, giving him a consistently wry smile. “Afraid it would sound a bit rude to remind me to be punctual? I know how hard you work at being a good mom. If you ever have any other concerns like that, don’t worry about being rude, okay?”

“It’s just that there were so many obstacles to the adoption, and I never knew, right up until the day the papers were finalized, whether or not it would go through.” She shook her head in remembered frustration. “So I didn’t know what to tell Marisa.”

“Why was it so difficult? Because you’re single?”

“That, and that I work long hours sometimes. And I’m younger than most adoptive parents. When I applied to adopt her, I became an interested party, so I couldn’t continue as Marisa’s guardian ad litem. I’d been representing her needs in court for four years, and now they had to assign someone new, who had to do her own investigation.” She sighed. “And Marisa’s last foster mother thought the whole idea was nuts.”

“Helpful of her.”

Julie shook her head. “She did have a point, though. I’d gone over to take Marisa out for the day, and her foster mother told me she and her husband couldn’t keep Marisa any longer. She was trying to talk me into fostering Marisa for a few weeks, so she wouldn’t have to go to a temporary care facility while social services found a new foster home for her.” Julie swallowed hard as the memory ate at her. “I was listing all the reasons it was a bad idea. And then I heard something out in the hallway behind us.”

“Marisa?”

Julie nodded. “I walked into the hall, and she was sitting there on the steps. She’d overheard the whole thing. Or, at least, enough to figure out she’d been rejected again, by both of us.”

The whole horrible scene played out in Julie’s mind as she told Ben the story.

JULIE HAD TAKEN a step toward Marisa and put her hand up to the little girl’s tear-soaked cheek. “You heard us talking.”

Marisa had nodded, her dark eyes filling again with tears.

“What did you hear?”

“I got to go somewhere new.” She’d sobbed, a low keening Julie felt in her own chest.

“Oh, sweetie.” Julie had walked around the railing and up the stairs, climbing to where Marisa sat midway down the flight. She sat down next to the little girl and pulled her into her lap, kissing the part in her shiny dark hair.

“I was good though! I was good! I always picked up my room at cleanup time, and I tried not to splash too much.”

“Marisa, it’s nothing you did.”

“Then why do I got to go somewhere new?”

She hugged Marisa a bit tighter. “Marisa, this could turn out great. Going to a new home means maybe some nice couple might foster you, someone who can adopt you someday.” It didn’t feel right, saying that, but how could she tell the poor kid how unlikely that was?