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My dad visited the following week, despite initial instruction otherwise. He’d said it was urgent that he see me.
I’d been alarmed from the moment he’d called the landline, so the first words out of my mouth when he came through the front door were, “Are you okay? What’s happened?”
He did a double take at me in my yoga suit and blurted, “Wow, you’re about to have that kid!”
“Not yet.” Though I’d finally popped. “Another six weeks.”
He whistled. “I’m thinking linebacker.”
“Me or the kid?”
With a kiss on the cheek, my father said, “You look fantastic, as always. I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to be so, so—”
“Big?” I offered.
“Well.” Holding his hands out, he seemed to sort of gauge the size of my belly. “You went from not-so-much there a little over a month ago to oh, wow—you really are pregnant!”
“You don’t know the half of it. Feet and ankles swollen, nothing fits. I’m this close to resorting to wearing Dane’s drawstring pants and T-shirts.” Not that I didn’t already wear his Henleys with my stretchy yoga pants to bed.
As we left the foyer and entered the great room, my dad chuckled. “You’ve even got the waddle down pat.”
“Would it be rude of me to say shut up?”
He laughed heartier. “I’d find your sarcasm biting were it not for the fact that you are beaming. Seriously, sweets, you glowed the last time I saw you. Now you have this incredible brightness that really suits you.”
“He kicks now. Like, a lot. I love it. Every time my mind wanders to Dane being gone or some other dreary thing, he gives me a jolt and I get giddy over the fact that I have this tiny person inside me, demanding my attention.” I patted my stomach. “He’s a bit hyperactive, but so awesome.”
My dad kissed my forehead. “You’re going to be a wonderful mom.”
“Time will tell. Now, what’s going on? You said it was urgent.”
His good mood instantly dissipated. “Speaking of moms.”
My spirits plummeted as well. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yeah.”
We took the sofa in front of the fire and Rosa served me iced tea and my dad a beer. He sucked down half of it before continuing. That was alarming unto itself.
“You’re making me nervous,” I told him.
He set aside his pilsner. “So she has this crazy idea about writing a book.”
“That again?”
His gaze snapped to me. “You know about this?”
Uh-oh. “Um. Sort of?”
“Ari.” He reached for the beer and drained it. That pretty much summed up his state of mind. My father wasn’t a big drinker. Unless it was Dane’s fifty-year-old scotch. “Do you really know what she’s up to?”
“Sadly, yes. Except, I don’t think there’s actually a book, Dad. It’s a threat.”
He whipped out his cell and handed it over. “Scroll through.”
The pages were already pulled up in his e-mail, and I skimmed the first chapter of drivel. Trashy drivel. Name-dropping, party-hopping, designer-wearing Mother in all her “fabulous” glory. She’d glammed herself to the hilt and dove right into the famous men she’d slept with while my dad was on his PGA tours.
Anxiety roiled through me. Along with disgust and a hell of a lot I could have been spared the details and been a happier person for it.
