674Author's note: I don't necessarily have a point in the canon after which this story occurs except for it is definitely post-Twelve Sharp. There may or may not be references to books after that, but honestly I don't think it matters. The story is from Ranger's POV, but I'll probably give Stephanie a couple of chapters from her own perspective later on.
It was a million tiny things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together…and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home…only to no home I'd ever known…I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like…magic.
~Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle
I grew up in a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom house in the West Ward of Newark until I was fourteen and hadn't lived in it a day since. The neighborhood consisted of mostly Latino and Caribbean families who worked hard in the service industries or owned small businesses. The neighborhood was modest, holding its own against the gang-controlled streets a few blocks over. My parents had always kept the house looking neat, though it had been far too small for our family of eight. My father had managed to convert the attic into something resembling livable space where my brother and I had slept, though it had been chronically uncomfortable. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and once you were more than five feet tall, too short to walk through without needing to hunch over. Memories of my childhood in that house had consisted of my exhausted parents passing each other in the kitchen as my mother came back from her nightshift as a nurse at the nearby hospital and my father left for his long day of building houses in nicer neighborhoods than ours, of my four sisters either yelling at me to go away or using me as a model for their latest make-up and hair styles, and of my brother referring to me as Carla and introducing me to pictures of naked women long before I had any sexual interest. My childhood hadn't been bad. By standards for the neighborhood it had been fairly normal, even what most would have deemed good. As an adult I can see that I had a decent childhood, definitely one free from the horrors of abuse and poverty, but I had hated my life as a kid. I had felt perpetually ignored, which is an occupational hazard of being the youngest of six children and an introvert. With the exception of my sister Aurelia, everyone else was outgoing and busy with friends. Aurelia hadn't cared if anyone noticed her. She was content with her books and the piano. She still didn't care to be noticed. I no longer cared to be noticed either, but as a boy and teenager it had been all I wanted.
As I stood in the kitchen next to my older brother, I wished I still had the ability to be as invisible as I had when I was little. Tradition in my parents' household dictated that the women prepared the meals and the men cleaned up afterwards. Sometimes I suspected they made enormous messes while cooking just to fuck with us. We had been washing dishes and cleaning up for nearly two hours and it felt like no end was in sight. My brother had indulged in too much whiskey during the meal and was singing Christmas songs at the top of his lungs, which meant I was at risk for a burst eardrum. Laughter from the women in my family rang out from the living room, though not enough to drown out Emilio's second round of Feliz Navidad. My father had managed to disappear at some point and my three teenage nephews were glued to their cell phones. Andres, my sister Celia's husband, was helping, though Sofia's husband Tony, who is only a few years younger than my parents, was sitting at the table, asleep with his chin propped up on one hand. We were going to be here until Christmas, and then it would start all over again.
"Hey," I said, managing to elicit a millisecond of eye contact from one of the boys. "Start drying and putting the dishes away or your phones are going in the water. But only after I've shown your mothers the pictures you have on there."
I suspected it was threat of showing their mothers the pictures of their dicks that they'd sent to girls more than the threat of water-logged phones that spurred them into action, but they put their phones in pockets and started drying dishes without complaint. I intimidated them, which I used only when needed. I wasn't the type of uncle who was going to take them to strip clubs or show them how to roll a joint – Emilio was that uncle –but I hoped they felt like they could call on me if they were in trouble. I'd rather drive an hour to pick their drunk asses up from some party and spend half the night sobering them up than serve as a pall bearer at their funeral.
My sister Silvia came into the kitchen to see what we were doing, making critical comments over everything from the temperature of the water used to rinse the dishes to the way Andres wiped down counters. Silvia is eighteen months older than me and a generally miserable person. She loved little more than to inflict some of her misery onto the rest of us. She had gotten pregnant at fifteen, refused to name a father, and ran away from home two weeks after she gave birth with her newborn in tow. She made no attempts at contact for nearly six years, until she showed up on my sister Celia's doorstep a week after her twenty-first birthday with my nephew, who was almost six, and heavily pregnant with her second child, which had been conceived while she had worked evenings as an exotic dancer and picked up extra cash by entertaining more attentive patrons in the backseat of her car. She had lived with Celia, Andres, and the two children they had at the time for nearly a year until she found a job as a janitor, cleaning law offices in the evenings. She had that job for a little over a year until a senior partner at the law firm had stopped by late one evening to get some paperwork to find her being bent over a desk by a married junior partner. She was already three months' pregnant with the lawyer's baby when she was fired, and was able to collect a hefty sum of child support after a paternity test proved he was the father. She moved to Philadelphia not long after her second son was born to work at a youth shelter where she had stayed after running away from our parents' house. She was now the director of that shelter, had gone on to have what had seemed like a decent relationship with a man named Kyle for several years and a second daughter, only to have him die from cancer five years ago when their daughter was only two. While she was generally given a wide-berth by most of the family and her attitude was tolerated with silence and discreet eye rolls, I had gotten along with her well enough until Kyle died. After that it seemed she didn't want to try to get along with anyone, including her children. Her oldest son Jamil had joined the Army as soon as he turned eighteen. He was twenty-two now and stationed in South Korea. Her sixteen-year-old daughter Mara was five months' pregnant and living with her boyfriend's family after Silvia had called her a slut and Mara had told her mother she didn't have any right to be calling anyone a slut considering there was no idea who Jamil's or Mara's respective fathers might be. Her fourteen-year-old son Luis had gone to live with his father and new stepmother in Elizabeth because of bullying back in Philadelphia. Only seven-year-old Ana Maria was left at home with her mother, and I pitied the girl because I suspected Silvia spent most of her evenings drunk on cheap wine. I didn't know much about girls that age, but I suspected most of them weren't as capable of taking care of themselves as she was.
"Carlos, your phone keeps ringing," my mother said, my iPhone in her hand as she stood in the kitchen doorway. "It's the same number that keeps calling and they've left a couple of voicemails and text messages."
I dried my hands and took the phone from my mother. There were five missed calls, two voicemails, and three text messages from a number with a 260 area code. I had to type in my security code since my fingerprints were distorted from being in the water. I opened the text messages first.
1:32PM KJ: This is Katie Johnson. I'm friends with Stephanie Plum. Please call me back immediately.
2:04 PM KJ: I know you haven't heard from her in a long time, but please call me. She told me to call you if there was ever an emergency.
2:38 PM KJ: I'm trying to reach Carlos Manoso. If this is the wrong number, please let me know.
Seeing Stephanie's name on my phone had felt like a punch to the gut. I hadn't heard anything from or about her since she had left my apartment– and Trenton – nearly four years earlier. Her mother used to call me periodically to see if I had heard from her, but I hadn't had a call from Helen Plum in over two years. The last time she spoke to me she had asked why I hadn't tried looking for Stephanie. She hadn't appreciated my response that Stephanie had asked me to stay out of her life and that I had decided it was better for all involved that I keep my distance.
I opened the phone app and selected the number that had been used to call me. The location information said the phone number was from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The person on the other end answered on the first ring.
"This is Carlos Manoso," I said when a woman's voice answered, stepping out of the kitchen and into my parents' tiny laundry room. "Is this Katie Johnson?"
"Yes, oh thank God you called back. I thought I had the wrong number," she replied, relief evident in her voice along with a slight upper Midwest accent. "Stephanie has been in an accident. A bad one. She was brought into the ER with head trauma and internal injuries. She's in surgery right now. I used to be a nurse here at the hospital and they know we're friends so they called me right away."
Every time Stephanie had been in danger when she had been in bond enforcement my pulse had picked up, my brain fired on all cylinders, and I was ready to leap into action to save her. It was happening again, like muscle memory. Even after all this time. Even after everything that had gone down.
"Why did she want you to call me?" I asked after taking a second to process my feelings. "As you seem to know, I haven't seen or heard from her in almost four years."
The woman let out a heavy sigh that bordered on disgust. "I'm sorry you have to find out from me when she is the one who should be telling you this, but– the thing is– you're the father of her little girl, Stella," she finished quickly, stumbling over her words slightly as she spoke. "Stella was in the car with her."
I felt my body go numb. I tried to remember the last time I had felt that way, but couldn't think of it. Katie kept talking in my ear, but I couldn't focus enough to hear what she was saying. I had a child with Stephanie. A daughter. Stephanie had been pregnant with my child as she told me she hated me and to stay away from her that last day in my apartment.
"Carlos? Are you there?" Katie said, the sound of my name bringing me back to the moment.
"I'm here. Can you repeat what you were saying?" I said, running a hand through my hair and noticing for the first time that my mother had been standing nearby and was watching with concern written all over her face.
"Stella has a broken arm and a mild concussion along with some bumps and bruises, but is otherwise fine. Obviously scared and keeps asking where Stephanie is. The hospital is going to release her to me because I'm a nurse practitioner and can keep an eye on her medically and also because Stephanie has me listed as a power-of-attorney for both herself and Stella. You are also listed as a power-of-attorney for Stella, so there shouldn't be a problem with you being here making decisions for her until you can get the legal stuff worked out," Katie said. I could hear the sound of an intercom in the background and voices. It sounded like she was walking through halls. "I'm leaving work early so I can take care of Stella. I'm going to take her up to the surgical waiting room until I find out more about Stephanie. Once she is out of surgery and as long as–," Katie's voice broke slightly for the first time. "–as long as we aren't going to have to say goodbye, I'll take Stella back to her house."
"Where are you?" I asked after taking a moment to compose myself. "I'll see if I can fly out. If I can't get anything faster, then I'll drive." The thought of Stephanie dying without anyone except her friend and her – our – daughter there made me physically sick. Not to mention the idea of me not being there with Stella if Stephanie didn't make it.
"We're at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Stephanie works here, and we live in the same neighborhood. It's about a ten-minute drive from the hospital. We aren't far from the airport. A friend of mine is going over to Stephanie's to get Stella some toys and clothes. The doctors said she'll likely be in surgery for several hours." I heard different noise in the background now, which included a child's voice. A little girl's voice.
"Stella, my friend Sara went to your house to get you some clean clothes and a few toys because we have to wait here at the hospital for a while," Katie said, her voice sounding distant as though she had moved the phone away from her mouth. "But I'm on the phone with your daddy and he's going to come out as soon as he can."
"My daddy?" The sound of her voice sent a chill through me. It was sweet and innocent, scared and slightly mystified at the same time. Goddamn Stephanie. She had better survive, if for nothing more than to explain what the hell she had been thinking.
"Yep. He's in New Jersey, but he's going to get out here as fast as he can to be with you and Mommy," Katie replied. Her voice got closer to the phone again. "I can text you all of the information you need. I have a few things to get done with Stella so we can get out of the ER. Sara should be back any minute."
"Thank you," I replied. "Keep me updated on Stephanie's condition. Once I know my travel plans, I'll let you know when I should be there. And I'll contact her parents."
I disconnected from Katie and immediately called Tank, holding up a finger as my mother came up to me. "What's happened, Carlos?" she asked.
"I need the fastest way out to Fort Wayne, Indiana," I told Tank as soon as he answered. "If the fastest way there is to drive, that's fine. I just need the information as soon as possible. Plan for a couple of additional passengers on flights just in case. I don't care if it's private or commercial. Tell Ella to pack a bag for me for the next week. Mostly casual, but include a suit as well. Also my computer and iPad. I'm going to need to be offline at least for the next few days, but it could be longer. Route all calls through you. I'll hopefully know more information tonight or tomorrow."
"What the hell's going on in Indiana?" Tank asked.
"I'll explain later," I said. "I need to call Stephanie's parents and I need to talk to my own family. Let me know what you find."
"Stephanie? Seriously? She's in Indiana?"
"I'll give you the details later," I said and disconnected. I turned to my mother, who looked as though she might punch me if I didn't tell her something. "That person calling me was a friend of Stephanie's. She has been living in Indiana and she was in a car accident earlier. It's serious. Head trauma and internal injuries. She is expected to be in surgery for the next several hours."
My mother, a nurse for forty years, immediately went into her professional mode. It helped keep emotion at bay. "That's terrible. I hope she pulls through. But I don't understand why you have to be out there. She left you, and you haven't had any contact with her since. Why are you rushing out there?"
"Because her friend also told me that I have a daughter with her. Stephanie had given her my contact information in case of an emergency," I replied, the words surprising me just as much as they had when Katie had said them.
My mother's professional demeanor disappeared and she steadied herself against the doorway. "Stephanie was pregnant when she left?" she said in a whisper, as shocked as myself.
"Apparently. She was also in the car, but made it out with a broken arm, a mild concussion, and some bumps and bruises. The friend is a nurse practitioner, so the hospital is releasing Stella to her for observation. Stephanie had a power-of-attorney document in place that gives her friend and myself the ability to take care of and make decisions for Stella if she couldn't." I blew out the breath that I hadn't realized I was holding, and my mother and I stood in silence for a few moments.
"I need to call the Plums," I said after a minute. "Can you update everyone? I'm hoping to hear about my travel plans shortly."
My mother disappeared and I left the laundry room and opted to call the Plums from the back porch. I was only in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, but the cold air was refreshing. It helped clear my head as I searched for the Plums' home number in my contacts list. Even though she had left, and I knew for a fact that her number was no longer in service, I still had Stephanie's information in my phone, where it fell alphabetically just after her parents. I hit the number and was surprised when an automated message told me the number was no longer in service. Likely they had gotten rid of the landline and were strictly using cell phones these days. My own parents, who three years ago didn't know the difference between a smart phone and flip phone, now only used iPhones. I didn't have mobile numbers for either Plum, so I called Tank and added that particular task to his list.
"So far we've struck out on flights," Tank replied after I relayed my request. "Nothing commercial is available until tomorrow around ten and nothing private out of the area until tomorrow afternoon. It's about a ten-hour drive from here to Fort Wayne, so even if you left in a couple of hours, you could be there early in the morning. But Matt has a couple of private companies out of New York he's going to look into. If they don't produce, then you'll be driving."
"That's fine. Let me know about the Plums," I said. I hesitated slightly, but decided since I couldn't call the Plums until he found the numbers I could update him. "Stephanie was in an accident and hurt pretty badly. And I have a daughter with her."
I had been able to hear Tank's fingers moving across his keyboard, but they stopped abruptly. "Are you serious? You two have a kid?
"Yeah. I can't believe she kept it from me," I said, pacing back and forth on the old wooden porch.
Tank was silent, but I heard his fingers return to the keyboard. "She'd better fucking survive to explain herself."
My feelings exactly.
"Whoa," Tank said after a minute.
"What?"
"Apparently Frank and Helen Plum got divorced two years ago. I've got him living in Florida with some chick half his age and Helen is living with a man named Paul Giancarlo in the Burg."
"I wasn't expecting that. Did you get a number for either of them?"
Tank said he'd text me mobile numbers for Helen and Frank and disconnected. The numbers came through a few seconds later. I decided to call Helen first. I didn't want to talk to her; I'd much rather talk to Frank, but when it came to the health and well-being of their youngest daughter, my instinct was to defer to her mother. The phone went straight to voicemail. I left a message asking Helen to call me immediately, that it was an emergency regarding Stephanie, and disconnected. I tried Frank, but it also went straight to voicemail. I left him the same message. I opted to stay outside to wait on return calls. I wasn't ready to face my entire family and the questions they were going to have.
My mother came outside after a few minutes and wrapped her arms around her body. "Did you talk to Stephanie's parents?"
I shook my head. "I just found out that her parents divorced two years ago. Her father is in Florida and her mother is still in Trenton. I've left voicemails for both of them. If I don't hear back soon, I'll try her sister."
"And your travel plans?"
"Not sure yet. I may have to drive. The holiday is making it hard to get even a private flight out."
I could feel my mother scrutinizing me even though I had my back to her. "I'm coming with you," she said after a minute.
"You don't need to do that," I replied. "I'll be fine. Besides, you have to work."
"The office is closed tomorrow. I'll text the office manager and tell her I'm going to be out of town for a family emergency for a few days. She'll call in one of our subs. One of the perks of working in an office instead of a hospital," she replied. My mother had worked as a nurse on the labor and delivery unit of the local hospital for twenty-eight years. She had loved her job until the day twelve years ago when a woman had come to the hospital to give birth, and her boyfriend had subsequently strangled the one-hour old child because he had realized he wasn't the father. My mother had run into the room after hearing the mother's scream to find the man dangling the baby in the air, one large hand wrapped around its neck. She had managed to get the baby away from the man and she and the doctor tried to save it, but the boyfriend had nearly decapitated it. My mother quit her job that day and spent the next month locked in the house. Her priest eventually convinced her to go to therapy, and she went on to take a job at a pediatrician's office a year later. She was still there and loved it.
There was no point in trying to shake her off, and although I didn't want to admit it to myself, I was glad she wanted to come along. I suspected I was going to need her help. I wasn't a complete idiot when it came to children, but I also had no experience trying to take care of one for more than a few hours on my own. I knew I could attend to Stella's physical needs, but felt less confident in my abilities to provide for her emotional needs.
"You should start packing," I said. "Once I find out how we are getting there I'll either pick up my bags on the way or will have them brought to me. I'm hoping we'll be able to leave by five at the latest. Preferably sooner."
My phone rang seconds after my mother closed the door behind her.
"You'll have to drive," Tank told me. "Ella has your bags packed. Do you want me to send Miguel up with them or are you going to pick them up on your way?"
I checked my watch. It was three-thirty. Had it really been less than hour since I had spoken to Katie? I felt like days.
"Send Miguel. My mother is coming with me so it'll give her time to pack. We can leave as soon as he gets here. Get me Valerie Kloughn's number. I haven't been able to get ahold of their parents. I'd rather not leave town without someone in Stephanie's family knowing what has happened."
Tank said he'd text me the number and we disconnected. I called Valerie as soon as the number came through and was relieved when she answered. It still felt unreal as I relayed the information about Stephanie and Stella for the third time. Valerie was shocked and emotional, rambling on about how she and Stephanie had never been very close and even though they hadn't spoken in five years it would kill her if Stephanie didn't make it. Valerie and Albert had taken the children to California so that the older two girls could spend the holiday with their father, who had recently made more of an effort to be involved in their lives. She told me that Helen and her boyfriend had gone to Jamaica for the week and that Frank generally forgot to charge his phone, but that she would call the resort and Frank's girlfriend Cynthia to get ahold of her respective parents. Once the call was over, I headed back into the house. The kitchen was finally clean and everyone was congregated in the living and dining rooms.
"What the hell is going on?" Celia asked, stepping in my path so quickly that I nearly knocked her over. "Mom said you and Stephanie have a little girl together and you're just now finding out because she's badly hurt?"
"That sums it up," I said, attempting to step around her, but she blocked me.
"Did you ever suspect that she was pregnant when she left?"
"Do you think for one second that I wouldn't have found out for sure if I'd had any suspicions?" I asked coldly, daring her to make one comment about the situation with Julie. My family hadn't exactly been supportive of the decisions I had made regarding her. They had gotten used to it all in the thirteen years since Ron had adopted Julie, but every now and then someone would make a comment about it.
Celia eyed me for a moment, but said nothing. She sensed that I wasn't in the mood to be messed with. She got out of my way and I made it into a less crowded part of the room and plugged the address for the hospital into my GPS. Two different routes were offered, though both took me through central Pennsylvania and into northern Ohio before reaching Indiana. The city wasn't far over the state line. Katie had also sent me Stephanie's home address. I mapped it out in relation to the hospital and used Google Earth to look at the house. It was a ranch-style home with gray siding and black shutters, a double-width driveway, and a single car garage. The photograph had been taken in the spring or summer, as it was bright and colorful flowers bloomed in neat landscaping out front. I used the app to look around the neighborhood and found similar houses surrounding Stephanie's. It was a quiet, middle-class neighborhood. Trucks, minivans, and sedans were parked in driveways. I saw a few swing sets in backyards as I scanned the street. It was a neighborhood of families and probably a few middle-aged or elderly couples. Nothing flashy, but people were getting by well enough. I sent Tank a text message to run a full background check on Stephanie since she left Trenton and to email it to me when he was finished.
On a clear day, with light traffic, and if you adhere to the speed limits, it is possible to get from the Rangeman office to my parents' house in about an hour and ten minutes. Three years ago when my mother called me at two in the morning to say my father had just had a massive heart attack and was headed into emergency surgery, I managed to get from my office to the hospital that was three blocks from their house in forty-five minutes. Today, in the middle of the afternoon on Thanksgiving day after a light snowfall, Miguel was knocking on my parents' back door forty minutes after I told Tank to send him up to Newark with my luggage.
"Did you sprout wings and fly here?" I asked as I followed him out the Rangeman vehicle parked behind my Cayenne.
"No, but I did have to shake a cop on the Turnpike," he said. "Hopefully he didn't close enough to check my plates."
I transferred my suitcase, a garment bag containing a suit, and computer bag into the Cayenne, and advised Miguel to take an alternate route home since the police would likely be looking for him on the Turnpike.
My father was carrying my mother's suitcase down the steps as I headed towards the house. My mother was clad in a winter coat and held my own out to me.
"I figured you would want to get going," she said as I pulled on the wool coat. I nodded and headed to the car while she kissed my father goodbye. The time on my phone said four-fifteen as I pulled it out to send Katie a text message.
4:15 PM CM: Getting ready to leave. Driving because there were no flights available. Hoping to be in Fort Wayne by 3 AM. My mother is coming with me.
4:16 PM KJ: Okay. Still no word on Steph. Stella and I are in the surgical waiting room. Plan on going to Steph's unless you hear otherwise. Were you able to get ahold of her parents?
4:17 PM CM: Had to leave voicemails for both. Talked to her sister, who will keep trying their parents. They're divorced now. Mother is in Jamaica on vacation, father is living in Florida.
4:18 PM KJ: Okay. I'll call you once I get an update.
My mother finally climbed into the passenger seat and we were pulling out of her driveway by the time the clock on the dash said four-nineteen. The GPS estimated that our drive time would be nine hours and fifty-three minutes, but there were numerous construction zones along the way that would slow things down with restricted lanes and lowered speed limits. My mother was silent and distracted, looking out the window as we drove west on the interstate. Her perfume, the same one she had been wearing since I was little, quickly enveloped the interior of the car.
"Why do you think she kept this from you?" she asked quietly as we crossed the state line into Pennsylvania an hour later.
I didn't answer right away. My parents had met Stephanie while we were together, and she had come to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with me that year. Everyone had loved her, with the obvious exception of Celia, who hated anyone being happy. They had been surprised and expressed their disappointed when I'd told them that she had left. But I had never gone into great detail about our relationship. My mother didn't know how complicated things had been between Stephanie and me in the years leading up to the ten glorious months when we had been a couple.
"One of the reasons it took so long for us to be together was because I had told her more than once that marriage and children weren't in the plans for me," I answered. "She left me because I told her that I wasn't sure if I'd ever want to get married, but I still wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."
"Why didn't you want to get married?" my mother asked, seeming surprised by my answer. "You were very obviously in love with her. And happy. I don't think I've ever seen you so happy as you were when you were with her."
I took a minute to formulate my response. It was a question I had asked myself plenty of times over the past few years. Because I had been happy, happier than I had ever been at any point in my life before or since.
"I was afraid of disappointing her. Being her husband came with different expectations than just being her boyfriend. I was afraid of fucking up as a husband and losing her."
"So you fucked up as a boyfriend and lost her anyway," my mother responded, surprising me with her casual use of the word fuck. Just when you thought you knew someone.
"Pretty much."
"What would you have done if she had told you she was pregnant?"
"I would have been there for her and the baby," I said immediately. "I would have done whatever she wanted."
"Do you think that's why she wanted to get married?"
"Maybe. But my gut says she would have told me she was pregnant if that were the case. She would have been freaked out. Having kids wasn't high on her priorities list. She wasn't entirely sure if she ever wanted to have kids. And I don't remember her seeming any different. Nothing that would have made me suspect she might be pregnant." I did remember her being sick one night a couple of days before she left, but she had suspected the sandwich she had gotten at a Stark Street deli earlier that day might have been bad and there had been no reason to question it. "I lean more towards her finding out after she left."
"What are you going to do about Stella?" my mother asked.
"Establish myself as her father first, then take care of her until we know what is going to happen with Stephanie," I replied.
"And if Stephanie makes a complete recovery? Then what?"
"Are you asking if I'm going to step back out of her life like I did with Julie? Because the answer is no," I responded. "Even if Stephanie makes a full recovery and refuses to come back to New Jersey, I'm going to be a part of her life. I'm going to be a father, even if I have to do it from six-hundred miles away."
Now if I could just figure out how to be a father.
"I'm glad you're going to be responsible about it," she stated, and the tone in her voice got under my skin the same way it had when I'd been thirteen years old. "A child needs a father."
"I was responsible when it came to Julie," I replied shortly. "I married her mother so she wouldn't be born out of wedlock. I let another man adopt her so he could be the father to her that I wasn't capable of being at that time, and because Rachel preferred I not be a big part of her life. I still pay child support even though I'm not longer legally required to do so, and I visit as often as they ask. So stop acting like I haven't been responsible."
My mother didn't say anything else, even though I could tell she wanted to, and I prepared myself for a long, silent ride to Indiana.