If You Must Know (Potomac Point #1)(2)

“Well, you know men. They want to provide.”

I’d always suspected his relentless drive to prove himself sprang from his mom’s abandonment. No one would call Lyle easy to live with, but my heart ached whenever I thought of the cruelty he suffered in childhood. If healing that wound required me to tiptoe around his feelings or defer to his whims now and then, I would do so happily. He’d taken the leap of trust that I would not leave him like his mother had, so he deserved my devotion.

“He’s excited about getting an inside line on some condo development in South Florida. Apparently it’s a ‘booming’ market. I hope we don’t have to move there, though. I grew up here in Potomac Point, and my mom’s recently widowed and . . . Oh, I don’t know. I have torn loyalties, I suppose.” I suspected Hannah had lost interest in my rambling, so I stopped.

“Well, good luck to you.” She wiped up the whipped cream spatter on the counter.

“Thank you.” A bell jingled behind me, and I turned to greet two other women who’d entered the shop. “Hello, Barb. How are you?”

Barb lived on my block. Divorced after five years of marriage, she and her ex-husband, Lenny, shared one preschooler, Collin. She’d kept the house, while Lenny had moved closer to Baltimore and saw his son only every other weekend.

“Hey, Amanda.” Barb smiled. “This is my friend Sandy Bello. Sandy, this is Amanda Foster, my neighbor and Collin’s nursery school teacher.”

“Nice to meet you.” I shook Sandy’s hand, but my thoughts ran to little Collin and the extra attention I’d been giving him while he adjusted to his new family dynamic. He was not my first or only student facing that confusing upheaval. Some kids handled it better than others.

While Collin still struggled, Barb’s mood had improved since her divorce. In fact, at the moment, she and Sandy shone with the contentment that comes from true friendship. I recognized that look from the faces of a lot of the young moms who made playdates for their kids and spa dates for themselves.

In my experience, the young moms tended to view us teachers as “other.” Granted, I did know embarrassing truths about many of them. Kids overshare in the cutest ways. But soon I’d be invited into that circle of women, or at least I hoped so. I could use the support as I waded into motherhood, because my two best friends from high school both relocated to other states after college and we’d fallen out of touch. As something of an introvert, I enjoyed cordial relationships with my coworkers, but we never shared intimacies. My sister was still single and childless—unless you counted her cute little dog, Mo—so she couldn’t commiserate with the ups and downs of marriage and pregnancy. Besides, Erin had never had much patience for the things that worried me.

Barb placed a palm to her cheek. “I don’t know how you handle all those toddlers at once. I’d go crazy.”

“Well, it’s only three mornings each week, so I get plenty of time to recharge.” I smiled, accustomed to these types of comments, though they always surprised me. Kids’ brutal honesty beat any comic’s jokes, and who could ever get enough sticky-fingered hugs?

When Barb didn’t invite me to join them, I said, “Don’t let me keep you. Order up. I can vouch for the cookies.” I waved the remains of mine and then took a seat at the smallest café table—my favorite despite its wobbly leg. Shellacked postcards from exotic destinations like Tanzania, Brazil, and Alaska decorated its buttercup-yellow tabletop. I’d yet to ask Hannah if she’d been to these places or if she’d merely bought the table from someone else—I didn’t believe in prying into people’s personal lives without invitation. In today’s social media–driven society, privacy was a treasured currency.

I scrolled through my phone. Nothing from Lyle since his late-night text. He’d asked me not to interrupt him during business hours, but we’d never gone a whole day without speaking. As soon as I got home, I’d call to make sure everything was okay.

The overhead speakers pumped out the twangy sound of Iron & Wine’s “What Hurts Worse,” a song I recognized only because my dad and Erin were music aficionados. One of many interests they’d shared. For my first four years of life, I’d been my dad’s “little star.” But then Erin was born, and by the time she turned three, she’d become his sun.

I traced the lumpy edge of the postcard from Brazil, one of many countries I hoped to visit. I’d almost spent a semester in London during my junior year of college, but then Erin had wrapped our dad around her finger, like always. After she’d graduated from high school—with no plans to attend college—she convinced him to underwrite her backpacking adventure through Europe to get a “real world” education.

Poof . . . another of my plans upended by her.

She hadn’t meant to screw up my dream. She wasn’t mean-spirited, just high-spirited. And it had been only fair of Dad to give her that money when he’d been helping with my and our brother Kevin’s tuition. But if Erin had shared her intentions sooner, I would’ve worked a second summer job to save enough money to afford the semester abroad.

Then again, expecting Erin to plan anything in advance was pointless. She woke up every day and made random decisions, then strung those days together one by one and called it a life. I spent more time worrying for her future than she did, but the only person from whom she’d ever tolerated any advice is our father. Was . . . was our father.