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And maybe the answer would put a stop to whatever was happening here that he didn’t understand. It would certainly establish very clearly—for both of them—that he was not the man to be a father to those babies. It would reerect the barriers between them, barriers that had slipped without his noticing it.
“Please?” Her question was barely a whisper.
Setting down his cup, Matt leaned back against the counter, crossing his ankles, bracing his hands on either side of him.
“I was twenty-four, teaching junior-high- and high-school theater,” he started, his gaze directed toward her but seeing inward.
He couldn’t do this if she was going to keep looking at him as if he really mattered.
“Your first job?”
And not if she intended to take this journey with him. He needed her to be a silent listener, not a participant.
“Yeah. I was in my second year, though.”
“Where?”
“Flagstaff.”
“Where you grew up.”
“Yeah.” And that mistake had been one of many. “I had some crazy idea that I’d go back and show them all that I’d made something of myself.”
“And help some of the other kids who were having as hard a life as you’d had?” she asked, her elbow on the table, chin resting in her palm.
Matt studied her with an intensity he couldn’t hide. He’d never told anyone that. Was rather ashamed of what an idealistic fool he’d been back then.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes warm as she continued to watch him. “I’m way off base, right?”
“No,” he heard himself admit to her. “But how did you know that?”
Phyllis shrugged. “I know you.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the type of man you are, Matt, always thinking of the other guy, giving every ounce of yourself to someone else, never to yourself.”
He wanted to deny her words for the nonsense they were, but he couldn’t speak for a second or two. It was long enough for her faith in him to fill up places he hadn’t known were empty.
Shaking her head, Phyllis let her hands drop to her lap, slide together between her knees, as though she were putting them under lock and key. “I’m really sorry, Matt,” she said. “I have a tendency to do that—to work out other people’s feelings and motivations.”
“No, don’t apologize,” he said, finding his voice. “Whether it’s true or not, I like what you see.”
Of course, her perception of him was about to change…
“There was this girl in a couple of my classes, involved in the community theater where I volunteered—and then she signed up for drama at school, helping me with sets and lighting for the annual school production. Her name was Shelley Monroe.”
It was still her name—the one Matt wrote on a check every single month. She’d wanted more from him, wanted them to write to each other, keep open some form of communication. Matt had refused.
But he never missed a month sending her those checks. They were all he could do for her.
He thought back over the months with Shelley, trying, as usual, to see in them something he’d missed, something that would change what came after. And, as usual, failing.
“Tell me about her.”
“Shelley was very troubled and old beyond her years, but an extremely promising student. Her home life was hell, an alcoholic father, an abused mother—you can imagine…”
Phyllis nodded, her eyes knowing.
