Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [111]
“If that's your idea, I made a mistake asking you to come here to help.”
“You’re the one asking a pregnancy-surprised, marriage-impaired, newly recovering alcoholic for help. I called Dad before I left and told him we’d work something out for tomorrow. Why don’t I invite Dad and Dani to lunch? Since he knows I’m staying with you, he’ll definitely want me to meet her, so he can prove to me how wrong you were about her.”
Peter tossed his empty cup into the clown-mouth of the trash barrel. “And the fun begins …”
“You want me to swing by and get you? I’m not so sure you should be driving right now,” he said.
“Dad, if the doctor didn’t think it was safe, I wouldn’t be driving. I’ll be fine. I’m on my way out the door,” I said. The doctor defense usually quieted him. He’d argue with me, but not with the doctor. I only came to know that, unfortunately, because he never questioned Mom's doctors. “They know what's best for her, honey. Now don’t argue. We don’t want your mom upset,” was his standard answer. I’d asked if he’d discussed it with Mom. That's when he told me a doctor said it might be best if she didn’t know her cancer was stage 4, which meant the lung cancer, when they found it, had metastasized to her brain. That's when I booked a flight home.
And, once again, I’m home because, when it came to women, my father sometimes malfunctioned.
Dad and Dani didn’t see me walk into Moran's Deli. They were looking at the daily specials posted on the front chalkboard. Not much to tell from the back, except her red hair had to be salon-induced, and the vertical purple and gold striped knit pullover over black stretch pants was not her best wardrobe decision. She had her arm around Dad's waist, which, besides being overkill affection for deli lunches, tugged at my memories of Mom.
Wisdom to know the difference. Okay, God, we’re on.
I smoothed my sleeveless cowl-neck sweater over my baby bump, brushed off my linen skirt, and stepped over to the other side of Dad. Looking at the same board, I leaned his way and said, “Excuse me, do you know what's good here?”
His laughing surprise made the corny entrance worthwhile. I hugged him and felt more than saw Dani taking out her woman-to-woman ruler. He introduced her as his “good friend, Dani” and me as “my daughter, Leah, the one I told you about, remember?”
I smiled. She smiled. We all smiled.
Dani was either a deceptively young fifty-year-old or a prematurely aged thirty-year-old. She fit the definition of a handsome woman. Not beautiful, not delicate, not cute, but not unattractive. Milky blue eyes were outlined by a too-heavy hand with blue eyeliner. She definitely didn’t have my mother's graceful hands. Her long strawberry red acrylic fingernails looked misplaced on her chiseled and rough hands.
“You ready to order, honey?” Dad asked.
Dani and I both said, “Sure.”
We found a booth because “Dani has back problems.” She and Dad shared a side, but Dad scooted to the wall seat because “Dani has claustrophobia.”
Peter was right. Dani had a hold on Dad.
“Leah, can you believe Dani has two sons? She looks great, doesn’t she? How old are Cash and Sam? Oh, wait, seventeen and twenty. That's something, huh? She's been raising those boys by herself for years, and they’re terrific kids. She's done a fine job being a single mother.”
Her beatific smile after hearing his praise wasn’t lost on my Dad, who glowed. “I’m just blessed to have such fine young men who listen to their mother. You know, Leah, some boys make bad decisions when they don’t have a father figure around. Not Cash and Sam. Those boys knew we had to work as a family, even though their father didn’t want to be part of their lives. Like I said, the Lord just blessed me.” She said this against the backdrop of my father's woebegone expression punctuated