Invisible(14)

He scowled at that.

“At her age, I’m sure she’d rather be with her friends.” Introducing Lara to Antonia had been a big step for him, and so was letting her spend the night. They’d been dating for a year, and he’d been extremely cautious with her. Fabienne had made him gun-shy about long-term relationships, and had driven him back into his shell. He never wanted another relationship like theirs, and he still felt extremely burned by it. She had left him after several unhappy years, and abandoned him with a child to raise on his own.

He was forty-seven years old now, and had no desire to marry again. All he wanted to do was get Antonia through the next four years, see her off to college, and concentrate on his businesses as they continued to grow. His dreams of a house in the suburbs and more children had vanished with Fabienne. He knew now that they were a fantasy that wouldn’t suit him anymore. His life had taken a different turn. He no longer trusted women, but Lara was an exception to the rule. She was an independent woman with her own business in real estate. She never pressured him and wasn’t intent on marriage, so he had gotten more involved with her than he had with any woman since Fabienne. He had taken a long time to introduce her to his daughter. Lara hadn’t pressured him about that either. She was an easygoing woman who was content as she was. She had lost a brother when she was very young, and it had convinced her that she never wanted children of her own. She had watched it almost kill her parents, and age them overnight when he died. She was content to date Brandon, with no particular promise about the future, and he had told her early on that he had one child from his first marriage and didn’t want more. He said he didn’t have the energy for a child or a wife, and she accepted that. But Antonia seemed like such a quiet, lonely child that it touched her heart. She knew that her mother had left them seven years before, when Antonia was very young to lose her mother. Brandon always insisted that she was fine, but Lara couldn’t help wondering if he was right.

    “Would you mind my going to the movies with her sometime if she wants to?” she asked him directly and he hesitated, and then nodded.

“I suppose it would be all right. But you’ll find that she keeps her distance. She disappears all the time. Most of the time you either don’t notice her she’s so quiet or you can’t find her. She vanishes like a ghost. She’s a little odd, and very much a loner.” Lara suspected that Antonia had had no other choice, with a workaholic father and her mother gone.

They left at lunchtime to go to a new restaurant Brandon wanted to try, and had promised Lara he would take her to. And the following Saturday, Lara was at breakfast again. They had no plans that day and it was raining. Brandon said he had a little work to do, and Lara invited Antonia to the movies. She didn’t know what to say, so she said yes, not wanting to be rude. She wondered why Lara was making an effort with her, since her father never did. She seemed nice.

    They walked the few blocks to the movie theater together, and Lara treated Antonia to the tickets, which surprised her too. Antonia had asked her on the walk over if she had children, and Lara said she didn’t.

“Your father is very lucky to have you,” she commented, and Antonia wasn’t sure that he’d agree with her, but it was a nice thing to say.

“I’ll be going to college in four years,” she said, as though to reassure her that she wouldn’t be around forever. Her father reminded her of it constantly.

“That’s still a long time off. You don’t need to think about that yet,” Lara said kindly, and then paid for their tickets, and treated Antonia to popcorn and candy, which seemed very generous to her. She usually had enough money for one or the other, not both.

They enjoyed the movie, which was a current box office hit. It was just the kind of movie Antonia loved, with family in the story and a happy ending. They were both smiling when they left the theater and Lara could see how much she had enjoyed it.

“Did you have a family like that, growing up?” Antonia asked, feeling brave, and curious about her.

“No, I didn’t. I had a brother who died of a brain tumor when he was twelve and I was nine. My parents got divorced after that, and my father moved to another city, so I grew up with my mom and didn’t see my dad very often.”

    “My mom left when I was seven,” Antonia said on the walk back to the apartment. “My father doesn’t like to talk about her. He hates her. She’s an actress and she lives in L.A. Or at least she did. I don’t really know where she is now. I never see her.”

“Your father told me a little about it,” Lara said discreetly. He had told her about Fabienne and their disastrous marriage when they started dating, when he told her he never wanted to marry again. “A lot of people have complicated childhoods. More than one realizes,” Lara said gently.

“My dad grew up without a father, he was killed in the war.”

“We all have baggage of one kind or another.” Lara smiled at Antonia. She liked her and thought she was a sweet child, and more mature than she appeared. “What do you like to do, aside from go to movies?”

“Write,” Antonia said immediately. “I like ice skating and horses, and I used to do ballet. I want to write screenplays one day. I want to go to USC. They have a great film school. My father wants me to study economics or something more practical. I hate math.”