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I brush the top of his head with my free hand. “I won’t be sad. Promise,” I say, reaching for a lighter tone.
His eyes peer up to mine from under long lashes he didn’t get from me. “When I ask about my dad, you get sad. I don’t want you to be.”
“Sweetie, you can tell me anything. I promise, cross my heart and hope to die. See this smile on my face?” I cup his little chin in my hand to look up and give him a nod of my head.
“I have you and Grandma and Aunty Shay…but I don’t have a daddy like Jackson and everyone else. Aunty Shay is sometimes like a dad, but she’s not a dad. Girls can’t be daddies. But I love her, and she taught me to pee in the potty by sinking the Cheerios. But she’s not a dad. Not my dad.”
God, this breaks my heart. I have no good answers for him on that waste of space on earth. I wish I could fix this for him—for all of us— but I can’t. He’s asking more and more frequently about a dad, and I can’t answer; I just can’t. If he was dead, it would be so much easier. Is it so wrong to wish he was? With all I have inside of me, for what he’s done to us, I wish he was.
“Mrs. McQueen, it was afine service, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” my mother says to a church member.
I stand over to the side, restlessly watching and listening. Gosh, I can’t wait to get home and change out of this floral dress monstrosity I’m being forced to wear. Thank goodness Landon can’t see me. He’d dump me on the spot. I look like I’m ten. I’d really earn the name Lacey baby.
“Lacey baby, is that you?”
Landon? Can’t be. I frown, because I know it’s not, and he’s the only one that would ever call me that, and he would never in front of my mother. I turn, and there he is. The guy from the bar. Mr. Perfect Smile.
I frown and turn back around. What the hell is he doing here at my mother’s church? My mother comes back over to me at the same time Perfect Smile steps in front of me. Oh, no! If she finds out I was in a bar that Landon took me to, I’m done for. That’ll be it for the progress I’ve made, warming her up to the idea of us dating. It’s taken me a year to just get to her quiet disapproval.
“Lacey, how nice to see you again. You were cute in the shadows of a dimly lit room, but my, my, how lovely you are in the light.” His eyes scan over me in appraisal, making me uncomfortable. For the life of me, I don’t know why exactly, but he gives me the creeps.
“Lacey, who is this dashing young gentleman who thinks you’re lovely?” Mom extends her hand. “I’m Mrs. McQueen, Lacey’s mother.”
“Robert, Robert Stanton. Please to meet you, ma’am. I see where lovely Lacey has inherited her beauty.”
Barely smiling at his compliment, my mom says, “I see you’re a flatterer, Mr. Stanton. I don’t put much stock in flattery. However, you are here on this lovely Sunday morning, a day as lovely as my daughter, as you pointed out. That’s something to go on. Where is it you know my daughter from?”
“Mom, we know each other from school,” I say, bringing her attention back to me, hoping he’ll keep his mouth shut.
“Yes, ma’am, we’ve seen each other around campus. One day we literally bumped into each other. We had a brief but engaging conversation.” He smiles broadly, high cheekbones and square jaw making him more handsome than most of the guys I’ve ever laid eyes on. But still, there was something missing from his eyes as he looked down at us.
“Oh, did you?” my mother asks.
“We did. However, I made a fatal mistake.”
“What would that be?”
“I didn’t get the chance to ask her if I could see her again, maybe over coffee or lunch.” He looks at me as I try not to fidget, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation but happy he’s playing along in keeping a secret from my mom. “What are the chances I would run into her again after such an uplifting Sunday service? How fortuitous my dear aunt invited me to attend.”
“Where is she?” My mother asks, eyes looking around him.
“She’s right there in the pale blue dress, ma'am.”
“Ah, yes, with Sister Andrews.” Sister Andrews waves to my mother. And Robert Perfect Smile’s aunt waves back then motions her nephew over to them.
Thank God.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. McQueen.”
He takes my mother’s hand, gallantly kissing the back like an upper-class gentleman born of wealth and fine breeding, something you don’t often see at our age or this century. After winning over my mother with that small gesture, he straightens, turning to me. “Lacey, what do you say to another engaging conversation over coffee or lunch?”
He really has nerve, given the last encounter with the boyfriend he knows I have. Just once, I wish I had it in me to be rude and dismissive, especially with the act he’s laying on thick for my mother. “No, thank you. You may not know,” —though you do— “but I have a wonderful boyfriend who understandably wouldn’t be happy with me meeting a man for lunch.”
“Too bad.” His lips pout in regret. “It was nice seeing you again, lovely Lacey. No date, but I do believe we will be seeing each other again.” He looks into my eyes intently, his words sounding like a cold, humorless promise. “Until next time.”
Robert Stanton struts off with his perfect smile, impeccable manners, and body. Good.
