Worth the Weight (14 page)

“Liz, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Hannah Clea Robbins. Annie, to family.”

Chapter Nine

√ Buy perfume

√ Call Sybil

He went into Annie’s room to help her get ready for bed, but his little girl turned away from him
, not wanting his help.
He tried to talk to her, but she tuned him out.
Still, he waited to make sure she was able to get herself changed and into bed
. When he came out of the bedroom, Liz had moved to the front door, her purse in hand. He grabbed his car keys and followed her out.

She was silent as they left the farmhouse.
Finn
didn’t know if that was good or bad. “I’m going to go tell Gran I’m leaving for awhile so she can
come back to the house
. Take your car and follow mine.”

“Where are we going?”

He paused, thought. “To the beach.”

She seemed startled at first, disbelieving that he’d st
ill
want to continue this thing,
then
she
realized his intention was to talk, to explain this shocker, and she nodded.

Liz waited in her car while he rapped on the trailer and stepped up and in. His grandmother was in her kitchen, fixing herself a cup of tea. It was a scene
he’
d seen thousands of times. The normalcy of it comforted him.

“Gran, what happened at the camp? Why are you back?”

She placed the tea bag into her cup, then took the whistling teakettle from the stove and filled it, the steam billowing out around her.

“We couldn’t stay. The counselor who was in charge of Annie’s cabin broke her ankle tripping over some root or something just as foolish, and was taken to the hospital. They have a strict policy about children to counselor ratio in the cabin in case of emergencies. I even offered to stay in the cabin myself, but they didn’t seem to think me capable of getting four little girls in wheelchairs to safety in the case of a fire.”

Finn
smiled, his money would have been on Gran in case of any emergency. As a father, though, he guessed he was grateful that the camp had such a strict p
olicy
. It made him feel justified about the agonizing decision he’d made to send Annie to the camp in the first place.

“Was she okay until
then?”

Gran nodded. “Yes. At first she was her usually snippy self, but some of the other girls had even bigger chips on their shoulders, if you can imagine that. When she saw she couldn’t compete with them in the sass department, she settled down and started to enjoy herself. Then that klutz of a counselor had to go and fall and put the kibosh to the whole weekend.”

“So, three other girls had to go home, too?”

“Two stayed, their mothers sleeping in the cabin with them, but there were only beds for five in the wheelchair-accessible cabins, so one other girl and Annie went home. We flipped coins to see who’d go.” She sat at her kitchen table, bobbing the tea bag into the steaming cup.

“And did you win or lose the coin toss to be the ones to go home?”

She smiled. “Really,
Finn
, she was adjusting to it just fine. You did the right thing sending her, even if she did put up a holy terror about it. She made a big to-do about how lucky she was to lose the coin toss and go home, but she was pretty quiet on the ride back. I think she was disappointed, but of course, she’d never let on.”

“Of course not. Gran, I’m going to take Liz somewhere to talk. You think it’s okay to leave
Annie? You think she’s really upset about not being able to stay?”

“I think she’s probably more upset about finding you with a woman. Go, have fun, take your time, I’ll check on her in a few minutes, make sure
she’s asleep. I’ll stay over there until you get back. Stevie’s at that sleep
over, right?”

“Right.”

Her keen eyes leveled on
Finn
. He felt like he was fourteen and trying to put something over on her. It hadn’t worked then, no reason to think it would work now. “Yes, I thought I had the place to myself for the night, the whole night, and I invited Liz over. There, happy, old woman? I was trying to have a little female companionship.”

She snorted. “About time, I’d say.” She took a long sip of tea. “I’m just sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Me too.”

“Well, I can get Annie going in the morning if you want?” The insinuation in her voice was clear. If he wanted to stay at Liz’s, she’d cover for him.

“She’s staying at her parents’ place. Thanks for the offer Gran, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“It was nice to see Elizabeth after all this time, I didn’t realize she was back in town.”

“She’s not. Not permanently. She’s here for a couple of months. She came to a movie.”

“Well at least one good thing came out of that crappy job.”

He laughed. “That’s the exact same thought I had, although I think I used something a little stronger than crappy.”

“I’m not surprised.” She took another long sip, measuring
him
as he still stood in the doorway. “Liz didn’t know about the kids, did she?”

He shook his head. “She knew about Stevie, she met him tonight. But no, she didn’t even know Annie existed, let alone...” he looked away from her, as though the knick-knack shelf in the corner suddenly needed his attention.

“You may need more than a couple of hours with Liz. Don’t worry, take your time. She was a good listener for you if I recall correctly.”

“You recall correctly,” he said and left the trailer.

He watched in his rearview mirror as Liz followed him to the beach. They’d planned on going there the night they met at the Commodore. They’d finally get there now, but it wouldn’t be for the same purpose. When they’d both parked,
he
pulled a blanket out of the Jeep, took Liz’s hand and led her past the deserted public area to a small path on the other side of the dock. The path led to a secluded spot that they both remembered well.

They settled themselves on the blanket, Liz sitting up, hugging her legs to her chest, arms wrapped around them, watching the water from their hidden perch.
Finn
lay on his back, an arm thrown over his eyes, the other tucked under his head.

They’d sit like this for hours years ago, discussing everything, discussing nothing. Liz’s excitement about going off to State in the fall.
Finn
’s desire to take off for Texas as soon as Phoebe was old enough to leave
behind
. Horses, college, friends, siblings, parents, grandmothers. No subject was taboo, or even the slightest bit uncomfortable between them.

And now they sat, the silence deafening.

“Why don’t you just start at the beginning,” she softly prodded.

He’d tell her everything. Why the hell not. It wasn’t like Liz was sticking around. And it felt freeing somehow, to be able to tell the story of his life to someone who hadn’t seen it, someone
who wasn’t shaking their head in disapproval over every
mis-
step he’d made.

He put his other arm behind his head, creating a pillow for himself, and freeing his eyes to watch
her
. To gauge her reactions. “The beginning of why Annie’s in a wheelchair, or the beginning of why there’s even an Annie?”

“I guess the true beginning would be Stevie, right?”

“No, the true beginning would be Dana.”

“Dana. Your wife.”

“Ex-wife,” he said.

“Right. Whatever. Go on.” Her voice was still soft in the quiet night, but
he
sensed an agitation in it that wasn’t there when she’d asked about his kids. Jealousy? Could she possibly be jealous over a woman she’d never met? A woman who hadn’t been in
Finn
’s life for years. The thought warmed him.

He took a deep breath and began to tell
her
about the past fifteen years. “I started dating Dana Paananen about three years after you and I dated. It was the summer after your junior year at State. The first summer you didn’t come home.”

“How did you know I came home the other two summers?”

“I knew.” He waited for her to comment on that, when she didn’t, he continued, “She was a lot of fun. A little wild. We partied a lot together, hung out, got drunk, had sex, you know, the stuff you do in your early twenties.” He looked at Liz, but she still didn’t say anything.

Hadn’t she been doing the same thing at State? He sure had imagined she was. He’d imagined her with lots of guys. It was easier than imagining her with just one.

“Dana said she was on the pill. She wasn’t. She got pregnant. We got married.” He was precise, succinct, as if he was rattling off the sports scores, not the most pivotal time in his life. It was the only way he could do it and not totally lose it. Liz made him so raw, always had, and he was already on edge from their earlier physical contact. He knew if he hinted at the turmoil of emotions that he’d felt at the time, he’d be curled up in a fetal position crying for Gran in no time flat. Not exactly the image he wanted to project to Liz.

“Why would she say she was on the pill if she wasn’t?” She turned from staring at the still water and looked down at
him
.

“She wanted to get married,” he said, shrugging.

“Come on, people don’t really do that. Purposely get pregnant to trap someone into marriage?”

“No, Liz. People
you
know don’t really do that. People
I
know, it happens plenty.” He let the harsh cynicism go from his voice. “It doesn’t matter, really. Ultimately it takes two to tango, right? I could have used a condom, I didn’t have to…”

“What? Trust the girl you were dating? Yeah, why on earth would you do that?” She gave him a soft, understanding smile, and turned back to gaze at the lake.

She never could take her eyes off the water, he remembered. What was she doing living in Detroit? Living in any city? She loved this place. He was just about to mention this to her when he realized they were still on him. Still digging into his past
. Okay, let’s get that over with, then we can do Liz.
A smirk crossed his face as he let his imagination run free with the thoughts that “do Liz” could encompass. He was glad she wasn’t looking at him anymore, couldn’t see the horny smile plastered on his face.

Get it together, man!
Your daughter’s probably crying herself to sleep over t
he stress of this camp thing,
then finding her father on top of a semi-naked woman. Your son’s like a stranger to
you. Gran was looking so tired lately, a phenomenon never seen by
Finn
before. You’re a gazillion bucks in debt, and looking to be more so. And all you can think about is “doing” Liz Hampton?

He was jarred from his thoughts by Liz’s soft, “I’m sorry,
Finn
.”

“Don’t be. It might have been under shitty circumstances, but it did give me Stevie. And believe it or not, I love my son like there’s no tomorrow.”

She turned back to him. “Why wouldn’t I believe you love your son? The way you took care of your sister, the way you looked after your grandmother? Of course you’d make a wonderful father. It would never occur to me to question that.”

He was grateful for her honest words, clung to them like a drowning man clings to a life jacket. Which, in a way, was exactly what he’d become - a drowning man.

“Go on,” she prodded, with both her tone and her body. She nudged his hip with her foot, now bare, her sandals tossed aside, lying somewhere on the grass just off the blanket.

He snaked a hand out and clasped her ankle and held it. He ran his fingers over the ankle and up her calf, cupping the muscles and tendons. She let out a soft sigh. “I always felt like one of your horses when you did that to me. Like any minute you’d lift my calf and make sure I hadn’t thrown a shoe.”

He chuckled, realizing she was right, the caress was rote for him, the same one given hundreds of times to his horses. “No need to worry, Liz, I never thought of you as a horse. Other than wanting to ride you till you were all lathered up.”

The belly laugh that he loved escaped her and she drew her leg out of his grasp, tucking it back with her other, under her skirt, winding her arms tight around them. “Not so fast, mister, you can’t wriggle out of this one with suggestive talk. Spill.”

He exhaled a deep sigh, sensing there was no escape. “Okay, okay. Where were we?”

“Stevie being born. You married to Dana.”

“Right. Well, Gran and Phoebe moved into the trailer and Dana and I took over the farmhouse. She tried for a little while after Stevie was born, she really did, but...” He felt kind of cheesy, he didn’t want to bad mouth the mother of his children, even if she was a treacherous bitch. But this was Liz, and he wanted – needed – to tell her the truth. Tell her what his life had been like while she’d gone off to college, started her own business, and had surely been surrounded by men.