A Mother's Homecoming(7)
They’d always been so close, but lately …
He sighed, determined to try again. “Can you explain to me, rationally, why you’re the one who’s angry? You’re a good kid, so you know what you did was wrong and that grounding you for the upcoming weekend is probably less than you deserve. Your grandmom and aunt Leigh already think I’m too soft on you.”
From behind the curtain of Faith’s wavy hair, he could swear he actually heard her eyes roll.
“Why can’t they just butt out?” she grumbled.
He occasionally had that same thought. But then he remembered that, technically, he’d blown two marriages and his daughter needed some female influence in her life to counterbalance the rough-edged construction workers Nick employed. “If you want them to interfere less,” he suggested, “stop proving them right!”
“You act like I got caught running a meth lab. I missed one lousy class.”
“A math class! I thought you wanted to take advanced math courses when you get to high school.” He would like to claim that her skill with arithmetic came from him, but truthfully, it dovetailed with her innate gift for music—rhythm and frequency and pattern. When she sang, it was as if he were being haunted by her mother.
Pamela Jo might not be dead, but she was definitely the ghost of his past.
“It’s only the second week of school, Dad. Everything’s review right now. I didn’t miss anything important.” Suddenly Faith flipped her hair back, meeting his eyes and changing strategy. “Besides, you’ve always taught me the importance of loyalty and being a good friend. Morgan really needed to talk. She was so upset, that’s why I bailed.”
At the mention of Faith’s boy-crazy best friend, Nick fought the urge to gnash his teeth. The girls weren’t even in high school yet and Morgan was already dating. At the Fourth of July cookout, he’d caught Morgan in his backyard making out with some teenage punk who should have been old enough to know better. God knew what kind of trouble Morgan would get into by graduation.
Hypocrite. He knew what kind of trouble he’d been into at that age. Which was all the more reason why he wanted Faith to expand her circle of friends.
“There’s a difference between wanting to help someone and letting them drag you down with them,” he said. “If you skipped class every time Morgan was upset over a boy, you’d flunk out by Christmas.”
“What a jerky thing to say!”
Jerky, perhaps, but not untrue. “That’s not an appropriate way to talk to your father. If—”
When the phone rang, he wasn’t sure exactly which of them was being saved by the bell. He pointed to her plate while he stood to check caller ID. “Eat. We’ll discuss this later. After your homework and a written apology to your math teacher.”
If that was Morgan on the other end of that phone, she was in for a rude awakening. But no. Ashford, Leigh. It was his sister calling. Had she heard about Faith’s trip to the principal’s office today? Possibly. Leigh’s husband taught eighth grade science at the middle school.
He stifled a sigh. “Hello?”
“Hey, Nicky.”
Nicky? It was a childhood nickname, used now only when she was deeply concerned. He’d heard it a lot after the divorce. How you hanging in there, Nicky? You’re doing the right thing by moving back home, Nicky. Granted, he was having a difficult afternoon, but Faith had missed class—it wasn’t as if she’d set the school on fire.
“Hey, sis.” He carried the cordless phone toward the living room. Call it male pride, but if his kid sister was about to lecture him on his parenting deficiencies, he didn’t want to chance Faith overhearing. Halfway out of the kitchen, he circled back to collect Faith’s cell phone off the island, throwing her a pointed look as he did so. Somehow the phone that had originally been purchased “for emergencies” sent and received an awful lot of texts.
“I thought you might need to talk,” Leigh said hesitantly.
He frowned. It was highly unlike Leigh to be tentative, especially where Faith was concerned. Normally the women in his family lobbed their unsolicited opinions at him with all the subtlety of grenades.
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I’m not much of a conversationalist right now. It’s been a rough day, and I’ve got a pounding headache.” Amazing how half an hour with a twelve-year-old girl could be more skull-crushing than a six-hour shift surrounded by jackhammers and other power tools.