Daddy To Be Determined. Muriel Jensen

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      Chapter One

      Ben Griffin lifted five-year-old Roxanne out of the bathtub and wrapped her in a thick blue towel. He sat on the closed lid of the john with her and helped her dry off. She had his dark eyes and hair, though hers hung in thick ringlets—when it wasn’t snarled in knots.

      “I wanted to wash my hair,” she complained as she held tightly to Betsy, a small rag doll with black button eyes and a painted heart-shaped mouth. “Julie Callahan Griffin made that,” he used to remind himself when the pain of her loss had been so enormous he had to say her name or burst. The doll was never more than a hand’s span away from Roxie, awake or sleeping.

      “We washed your hair yesterday,” Ben reminded her.

      “Vannie gets to wash her hair every day,” she argued.

      “Vannie has very short hair. And she blows it dry.” Vanessa was seven, and the decision to cut her hair had come at the end of the summer, when she’d returned from camp. She hadn’t explained why she wanted to cut her long, golden-brown hair, but she’d been adamant.

      Since their mother had died a year and a half ago, Ben had done his best to allow them whatever was in his power and wouldn’t hurt them.

      Roxie swung her head from side to side so that her long hair flew out. It would have slapped him in the face if he hadn’t drawn back.

      She giggled, then declared, “I don’t want to cut my hair.”

      “I don’t blame you,” he said, helping her into lavender flannel pajamas patterned with pink kittens and blue puppies. “It’s very pretty.”

      “Can I wear lipstick to Marianne’s tomorrow?”

      Marianne Beasley owned and operated the day care where Roxie spent several hours every day.

      “Nope,” Ben replied. She asked this question every night. “Sorry.”

      “Can I get my ears pierced?”

      This was a new question. Having finished putting her pajamas on, he turned her toward him to look into her eyes. They were bright and frighteningly intelligent. “Do you even know what that is?”

      “Yeah,” she said, pulling her little lobe out for him to see. “A lady sticks it with a needle and it doesn’t even hurt! She puts a little hole right there and you can wear different earrings in them every day.”

      “No,” he said, knowing he had to say it firmly or she’d be cajoling him all night long. “You have to wait until you grow up a little more.”

      She looked indignant. “I’m five! Paloma has pierced ears, and she’s only four!”

      “I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”

      “Can I have ice cream before bed?”

      He lifted her onto his hip and carried her downstairs, wondering if part of her strategy was to ask for the impossible, knowing she could bargain him down. Ice cream at night sometimes gave her a stomachache, but tonight he’d risk it in the interest of making her feel less deprived.

      The telephone rang when he was halfway down the stairs.

      “I’ll get it!” Vanessa shouted.

      When he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw that she was already dressed for bed. She used his bathroom at night and always got herself ready without fuss. He wondered if she was the only second-grader in the world with a tidy sock drawer and clothes on hangers instead of all over her room.

      He worried a little about her efficiency at such a tender age but reminded himself that Julie had been a stickler for tidiness and order. Vanessa came by it naturally.

      “He’s right here, Grandma.” Vanessa put her hand over the mouthpiece and handed the telephone to him. “Grandma’s having trouble with a guest,” she whispered.

      “Thank you.” He put Roxie on her feet. “Van, can you scoop up some ice cream for you and Roxie?”

      She looked surprised. “At night?”

      “Just tonight.”

      “How come?”

      “Because I said so.”

      With a shrug, Vanessa pulled open the door of the side-by-side refrigerator and delved into the freezer at the bottom.

      “Ha!” his mother said into his ear. “You used to get upset when I gave you that answer, and now you’re doing it. The best revenge is watching you become me.”

      “Thanks to the gender difference,” he said, backing onto a stool near the counter, “that’ll only go so far. What’s up?”

      “Well…” She made a small sound of distress. “I’m not entirely sure. Do you know Natalie Browning?”

      “No,” he replied. He’d never been СКАЧАТЬ