The Good Father. Diane Chamberlain

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СКАЧАТЬ somebody else to finish up the work on those cabinets in the oceanfront house. There’d been about a hundred guys waiting to step into my shoes.

      The thing that really sucked was that I’d been getting paid under the table for my work. That meant cash, and my most recent pay envelope had been in the house. Four hundred bucks, up in smoke. I’d had about a hundred dollars in my wallet when the house burned down. That was what stood between Bella and me and starvation now.

      Ahead of me on the beach, Bella squatted down and picked up something I couldn’t see from where I stood. She ran back to me, holding it and her lamb against her chest with both hands. The lamb fell to the sand and when she bent over to pick it up, the object she was carrying fell, too, and I had to laugh.

      “Need some help?” I asked as I walked toward her.

      “I can do it!” she said as she picked up her lamb. By that time, I’d reached her and saw that the object was a huge pale gray whelk, the biggest I’d seen on our beach, and I’d seen some big ones over the years.

      “Wow, Bella, you hit the jackpot.”

      “It’s a whelk,” she said. She gave up trying to hold both the shell and the lamb and sat down on the beach instead.

      I sat down, too, and examined the shell. Busycon Carica. It was nearly one and a half times the length of my hand and totally flawless, the interior the pale peachy color of a sunrise. I was so glad she’d found it. We’d been collecting shells on the beach since she was a toddler, but most of them had been ruined in the fire and now we were starting over.

      “Do you remember what lived inside?” I asked.

      “A snail!” she said. She sat cross-legged, gently touching the knobby shoulders of the shell with her fingertips.

      “Right. An animal like a snail,” I said.

      “That’s right.” Like me, she loved hearing anything about marine life. I felt my own father’s spirit inside me when I was on the beach with Bella, teaching her something. I’d hear his voice coming out of my mouth. I wish they’d had a chance to know each other, my dad and Bella. They would have gotten along so well.

      “It liked to eat clams!” Bella said.

      “Very good. What else did it like to eat?”

      She scrunched up her face, thinking. Her nose was a little pink. I’d forgotten sunscreen. “Scabbits?” she tried, and I managed not to laugh.

      “Scallops.” She could never get that word right. Someday, she’d be able to and I’d miss the way she said it now.

      She petted the shell like it was a puppy. “Is this the one, Daddy, where the boys turn into girls?” she asked.

      I let out a little sigh. Franny was right; I gave this kid way too much information. She really didn’t need to know about hermaphroditic gastropods at age three. Almost four. I’d probably been seven or eight when my father gave me that bit of mind-boggling information.

      “That’s right,” I said simply. “Should I put it in the bag and we can look for more?” Over my shoulder, I carried the canvas tote bag we always used for the shells we found.

      “Okay!” She hopped to her feet and took off ahead of me down the beach. I followed a few steps behind, moving closer to the water to let it swish over my feet. There was one big difference between my dad and me, I thought. He’d been a plumber with his own successful business and he kept me fed and clothed. I might not have grown up rich, but I never went without. He didn’t fail me the way I felt I was now failing Bella. I wanted more than anything to be the kind of man who would make my father proud. I wasn’t doing such a great job of it right now.

      Honestly, if Robin’s father had still been alive, I might have asked him for help. He had plenty of money. The contract he’d made me sign said I would never contact Robin herself—and I was still so pissed at her that she was the last person I’d turn to for help anyway—but I didn’t think her father would be cruel enough to turn his back on his own granddaughter if she was starving. Didn’t matter. He was dead. Mom had been an obituary reader, always checking to make sure her friends were still above ground. I’d felt kind of numb, hearing that he was dead. That man and I had never liked each other. The first time I held Bella in my arms, though, I sort of got where he was coming from. I felt this awesome need to protect her. I’d do anything to keep her safe. That’s all Robin’s father had been trying to do. Protect his daughter. I got it then, even if I still hated the dude.

      Bella and I watched the dolphins and pelicans for a while, then started walking home. I’d been feeling so content on the beach, so far away from my problems, that I started heading in the direction of our burned-down house before I remembered and turned toward Franny’s. The tote bag on my shoulder was a little heavier than when we’d started out. Walking away from the beach and back toward my real life, everything felt a little heavier.

       6 Robin

       2004

      DR. MCINTYRE HELPED ME DOWN FROM THE examining table. “Have a seat in the lounge while I chat with your father,” he said. I’d been seeing him for years and he always ended my examinations with a private talk with my father, but something felt different this time. Daddy held the door open for me and as I walked past him, his face looked a hundred years old. He hadn’t quite closed the door behind me when I heard Dr. McIntyre say, “I believe her condition’s significantly worse than your wife’s was at this age.” The door closed before I could hear my father’s response, but it would have been lost on me anyway. I was shocked. I walked down the hall to the lounge, my legs feeling like they were moving through mud. I’d known, hadn’t I? Deep down inside, wasn’t I worried that my mother’s fate—death at twenty-five—would be my own? I knew I was worse off than I’d been even six months ago. I’d never been able to run as fast as my friends or ride my bike for miles like they could. But now, any teensy little bit of exertion left me winded and dizzy. Just the day before, my friends and I were dancing around my bedroom and after two seconds, I had to sit down. From my seat on the bed, I watched them laugh together as they perfected their moves and it was like I could actually feel them drifting away from me.

      Now I sank into one of the leather chairs in the lounge and waited. Even if I hadn’t heard what Dr. McIntyre said, I would have figured it out because by the time my father walked into the lounge, his eyes were red. He motioned for me to walk with him and he held my hand tightly as we headed through the double doors and out to the parking lot. Neither one of us said a word until we reached our car. I don’t think either of us could speak.

      “I love you so much, Robin,” he said finally, as he opened the car door for me. “I want everything good for you.”

      “I heard what Dr. McIntyre said,” I admitted, “about my heart being worse than Mom’s. Does that mean I won’t live as long as she did?” I’d just turned fifteen. That gave me ten years, max.

      “You’ll live longer,” my father said quickly. “Probably even a normal lifespan, because the doctors know more about your condition now than they did ten years ago, and more people are signing those donor cards, so when you need a heart, you’ll get a heart.”

      I wasn’t stupid. I knew it wasn’t that easy. I slid into the passenger seat and my father shut the door and walked around the rear of the car while I stared at the dashboard.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ