me as they wheeled the bikes out of the garage, I stopped myself from calling her back for a hug. For a “Be careful.” I just bit my lip and let her go.
Although Bryan had been back in our lives for nearly two months now, I wasn’t exactly relaxed when I sent Haley out the door with him. Today, he was taking her for a bike ride along the Potomac River. I knew there was plenty to celebrate in that fact. First, Haley felt well enough to go for a ride. This was week eight in her treatment. A rest week away from the hospital and chemotherapy when she could act and feel like a normal kid. That alone was worth celebrating. Except for the puffy face from the steroids and the occasional bitchy little outbursts (which I secretly applauded because I loved that feisty toughness in her), she seemed like her old self this week. Second, Bryan was playing Good Dad with her. I wasn’t used to it yet. Two months of playing Daddy didn’t make up for ten years of desertion and part of my heart was still hardened with anger toward him. Oh, he’d sent child support checks every month from the day he’d crapped out on us, cut by his bank in sunny California. He’d sent gifts on Haley’s birthdays—gifts that showed he had no idea what her interests were. Barbie dolls and jewelry? Not hardly.
I walked upstairs to my desk—my office away from the office. My desk overlooked the river, and even after living in the town house for seven years, it still took me a few minutes to tear my eyes away from the water and the distant tree-lined shore of Maryland. I was behind in my work, though, and I finally began answering the stack of email that had piled up in the past few hours. That was how I’d let Bryan know about Haley’s relapse: by email. I’d written to him three days after I got the news, when I was finally able to stop crying long enough to clearly see the screen. I’d thought we were safe, damn it! Ten years of remission should count for something. She was my kick- butt kid, active and smart and so much fun that I’d choose hanging out with her over my friends any day. You’d never know she’d been so sick as a little girl and she had only the vaguest memories of that eighteen-month nightmare herself. But the new bruises, the fevers and uncharacteristic malaise scared the shit out of me. I resisted taking her to the doctor, afraid of what he’d say. When I finally did, and he told me the ALL was back, I couldn’t say I was surprised. Devastated, yes. Surprised, no. I
For days after that call, my mood jumped all over the place. Haley’d started her massive doses of steroids and it was hard to say which of us was acting crazier. I was angry at how late Bryan’s help was in coming. We could have used him during the past ten years. Now, though, Haley and I had become a team. Our favorite saying when she was helping me fix the plumbing in our town house or raking leaves with me in the yard was “We don’t need no stinkin’ man!” so I was worried how he’d fit in. Would he suddenly decide he wanted a say in her care? Forget that! And how would Haley react to him? She didn’t remember him and never seemed to care much about the cards and gifts he sent. Living in Old Town Alexandria, Haley had friends from single-parent families, blended families, gay families, black families, Hispanic families, Muslim families. You name it. So I didn’t think she ever felt as though she stood out by not having a dad.
I guess I’d convinced myself that she didn’t care about Bryan, but she surprised me. When I asked her if she wanted him to come, she said, “Hell, yes! It’s about time.” I’d laughed. She had a mouth on her for a twelve-year- old. I knew where she’d gotten it from, so what could I say?
Bryan showed up two weeks after we spoke on the phone, and it shocked me how easily Haley welcomed him into her life. It made me proud of myself—I’d done a better job than I’d thought of not turning her against him, which had been a challenge. I told her she got her computer skills from him. She sure didn’t get them from me. She’d created a website for siblings of missing kids practically by herself. I’d made excuses for his complete absence from our lives. “He loved you so much that he couldn’t bear to watch you suffer,” I’d said, when I explained about the divorce. “And then he got a job in California and it’s hard for him to travel across the country.” I was sure that she’d figured out that was B.S., but it didn’t seem to matter to her. She wanted her father.
She didn’t remember him at all. It was a stranger who showed up in her hospital room during her third week of chemo. He’d held the basin for her while she got sick. He sat frowning at her bedside, his hands knotted beneath his chin, as she slept fitfully after an aspiration of her bone marrow. He brought her lemon drops when she complained about the nasty taste in her mouth from the chemo. He bought her bandannas in a rainbow of colors because she hated her baldness. But he didn’t recognize Fred, the tattered stuffed bear who was her constant companion, as the gift he’d given her on her first birthday.
She seemed comfortable with him from the start. More comfortable than I was, that was for sure. She looked nothing like him. Her resemblance to me had been strong from the day she was born. She had my light brown hair and green eyes, while Bryan was very dark haired—or at least he used to be. He showed up now with George Clooney–like salt-and-pepper hair. He still had those long-lashed brown eyes behind rectangular-framed glasses and a nose that looked like it came out of the Roman Empire even though he was of English and German descent. He’d been thirty-five when I last saw him and he’d been a good-looking guy back then. Now at forty-five, he looked a little softer all over and the skin around his eyes was beginning to wrinkle—like my own—and I had to admit to myself if to no one else that the anger I’d felt toward him had done nothing to dull the attraction I’d once had for him.
He rented an apartment not far from Old Town and began looking for work, but he hadn’t yet found a job and I thought all three of us were glad. The truth was, he was a help. An enormous one. I’d been up for the directorship of the Missing Children’s Bureau when Haley relapsed, and I’d really wanted that job. I’d worked for MCB for years, frustrated by the organizational structure that needed changing. I wanted to be at the helm. When Haley got sick, I thought I’d have to let someone else take the appointment, but with Bryan’s help, I’d been able to accept the job. Haley was spending most weekdays at Children’s Hospital in D.C. and most weekends at home. I could bring work with me to Children’s, but when I needed to attend a meeting or whatever, Bryan took my place at her bedside. He’d brought her to the doctor twice this week, both times for routine blood work. Taking her out for something fun, like he was doing today, though, was the biggest help of all. He was treating Haley like a normal, healthy kid. Like his daughter. Yet I didn’t completely trust him. I kept waiting for him to get his fill. To pack his bags and escape to the West Coast again. I’d kill him if he hurt Haley that way. Just slaughter him.
Haley had forgiven him for the way he’d treated her in the past, obviously. Maybe she’d never even been angry with him. He’d caught her in time. She didn’t yet have that pissy teenager’s attitude toward her parents, although the steroids could sometimes make her seem like it. I caught the brunt of her irritable moods. Not Bryan. She was sweet as sugar around him, and I knew she was afraid of losing him again.
I’d been working online for over an hour when I heard Haley and Bryan walk into the kitchen from the garage. I went downstairs and found them laughing. Haley was tying her blue bandanna back onto her head. She’d lost her hair over the course of a single day and she’d cried from sunup to sundown. As far as I knew, she hadn’t cried since.
“Have fun?” I asked.
“She’s like a machine on a bike.” Bryan touched her shoulder proudly, as though he had something to do with
