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Authors: Janelle Taylor

Watching Amanda (8 page)

BOOK: Watching Amanda
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CHAPTER 8
Amanda was out of breath by the time she reached the corner of Seventy-fourth Street. She couldn't wait to get inside the house, lock the doors and draw the curtains.
It's my job to watch ...
My God, she already had one strike. How had she messed up so badly after being in the brownstone for only a few hours? Why had she gotten up early? Tommy would have survived for a few more minutes.
Two more and you're out ...
And where to? she thought, panic rising in her stomach. She couldn't make any more mistakes. Not until she had everything figured out and a plan. And a job.
“Amanda!”
Amanda whirled around at the familiar voice. It was Paul Swinwood. Tommy's father.
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
He was standing in the middle of Seventy-fourth Street, staring at her with what she assumed was the same expression on her own face: absolute surprise.
“It really is you,” he said. “Oh my God, Amanda.”
He rushed toward her, and in her numb state of shock, all she could think was that he was even better looking than she remembered, if that was possible. Tall—six foot one—and broad-shouldered, with dark blond silky hair, warm brown eyes, and one dimple in his left cheek.
“Amanda, I can't tell you how good it is to see you,” he said, his expression gentle. She could tell he was measuring her reaction, trying to figure out if she hated his guts, if she would speak to him. He turned his attention to the stroller, where Tommy sat, contentedly chewing his teether. He pressed his hand to his heart and gasped. “My son?” he asked, his voice breaking. “Oh, God, Amanda—is this our child?”
Amanda nodded, unable to speak, unable to breathe.
She hadn't seen Paul since the day she told him she was pregnant, about eighteen months ago. The fury in her warred with something else—something she didn't think she wanted to admit.
“I wasn't sure if you'd—” he began. “I mean, I didn't know—” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “I guess I didn't want to know for sure. Then. Oh God, I don't even know what I'm saying.”
Amanda had no idea what to say. She was still in shock at actually seeing him. For so long after that final day, the day she told Paul she was pregnant, she thought about him, his face, the way he held her, the way he kissed her, the way he made he love to her, the way he talked about his dreams for the future. Never had those dreams included marriage or family, but Amanda had only known him a few months.
“He's so beautiful,” Paul said, his gaze, reverent, on Tommy. “He looks exactly like you.” He took a deep breath. “I am so sorry, Amanda. So, so sorry. It must have been very tough, raising him alone all these months.”
Amanda also took a deep breath. His words revived her anger and helped steady her. “It's been a challenge,” she said calmly. “But I've loved every second of it.”
A couple wheeling a baby stroller was trying to pass them, and Amanda wheeled her own stroller out of the way. She peered down the street at the man and woman, the man pushing the stroller, the woman's arm linked through his.
The reality of what she once dreamed made a stark contrast to where she found herself now. She whirled around for a moment to see if the man from the park had followed her. Was he watching her right now? Central Park West was full of people walking or waiting for buses or taxis. Perhaps he was standing at the park's entrance, hidden from view, watching her the whole time?
You're not in the brownstone and don't have to be right now, she reminded herself. Therefore, he has no business spying on you.
Two policemen were walking slowly by on Central Park West. There was a huge police presence in this neighborhood, and that calmed her a bit. Running into her ex was the least of her problems, though she did wonder why he'd shown up on this exact block.
“What's his name?” Paul asked, gently reaching a gloved hand to Tommy's hair, so much like his own.
She froze, uncomfortable with Paul touching her child. She pulled the stroller back a bit and Paul straightened up.
“Thomas. Tommy. It was my mother's father's name.”
“It's a good name,” Paul said.
For a moment, they stood there, on the street corner, and again Amanda was struck by the lie of the moment. If someone snapped their photograph just then, the mother and the father and the almost-one-year-old baby, who would guess that this was the first time the father had actually seen the baby? Or that the mother was still as raw inside as the day he'd walked out of her life?
“Can I take you for lunch?” Paul asked, his blond hair ruffling in the wind. “I'd do anything to just sit down and talk with you, find out how you've been, how Tommy has been, what his infancy was like. I have so many questions.”
Paul looked so hopeful, his expression so tender, that for a moment Amanda felt the urge to touch him, to reach for his hand.
Don't be ridiculous!
she mentally yelled at herself. He abandoned you when you told him you were pregnant. He never answered your calls and hasn't cared a whit about you or Tommy since.
“What I'd give to just look at that little face for an hour,” Paul added, his expression full of wonder as he gazed at Tommy. “Please, Amanda,” he said. “I know I hurt you terribly. I know I treated you like—” He glanced down at the street. “Just give me half an hour, just to be in your company and Tommy's. Please.”
An hour for the explanation she'd always wanted. An hour that she didn't have to be a prisoner in that brownstone, following rules, being watched by a stranger with contempt in his eyes.
She nodded at Paul and relief flooded his face.
 
After Amanda settled Tommy's stroller on the side of their little round table in a charming Italian restaurant, she took a seat and a moment to study Paul. His expression was hopeful, eager, excited. His gaze, as he looked at Tommy was full of awe and reverence. Each tiny movement brought a smile to Paul's face, each little frown or cough, worry.
A waiter quickly placed menus, glasses of ice water, and a basket of hot rolls on the table and hastened away.
“Thank you for agreeing to lunch,” Paul said. “I know you must hate me.”
“I don't hate you, Paul,” she said. “I don't think I could ever hate my child's father.”
She could hardly believe she was even with her child's father, sitting across from him in a restaurant, as though sharing a meal with Paul Swinwood was a common occurrence.
But she didn't hate him. She meant that. He was Tommy's father. And for Tommy's sake, she wouldn't let her anger, her rage, her pain, all the tears and sleepless nights—not to mention going through pregnancy and childbirth and raising Tommy alone—control her. If she could possibly help it, that was.
He held up the bread basket for her. “I remember how much you loved garlic knots.”
“I still do,” she said, taking one and biting into the delicious roll.
He added another to her plate, then took one for himself. “You don't know how relieved I am to hear you don't hate me. That there's a chance for a fresh start.”
A fresh start? Not hating him was one thing. Starting over in any capacity was quite another.
“You hurt me more than I could even express,” she told him. “And you deprived Tommy of a father. He'll be a year old next month, Paul.”
“Will you let me try to explain why I did what I did?” he asked. “I know there's no excuse, no explanation that could ever make up for how I handled things, but can I at least try to tell you?”
Amanda glanced at Tommy, bit her lip, and nodded.
The waiter interrupted them to take their order, and Amanda was relieved. What could Paul really say? And did she even want to hear it?
Paul took a deep breath. “You knew that my relationship with my father is non-existent, right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. She well remembered his brief references to his father and their terrible relationship. Once, when Paul had been telling her about his father, he broke down in tears. It was the first time she'd ever seen a man cry. The tears were sudden and fast and he'd gotten embarrassed and had blinked them back hard, but the sheer force of emotion had been visceral.
His relationship with his father was one of the reasons she'd felt so close to him so fast. So many nights, they talked about whether it was worse to have a father you fought with daily and never got along with, or a father you didn't fight with but didn't know either. They'd never been able to come to a decision on that one.
“Well, the night before you told me you were pregnant,” Paul said, “my father's sister, my aunt Leslie, called to tell me my father had died, that his years of smoking had done in him. Lung cancer.”
“Oh, Paul, I'm so sorry.”
“He was only fifty-two-years old.” Paul said, gripping the white cloth napkin on his lap. He shook his head and hung his head back for a moment. Tears came to his eyes, and Amanda could see him struggling to blink them back. “When you told me you were pregnant, all I could think about was my father, who, even on his deathbed, couldn't forgive me for not being the son he wanted. All because I didn't want to go to law school like him, and his father, and his father. He never forgave me for embarrassing the family and becoming the first Swinwood to be blue collar.”
“I've never understood that. Especially since you're a success,” Amanda said. “You own your own construction company!”
“Construction wasn't my father's idea of a profession,” Paul said. “It's not something an ‘educated man' does, according to him. What a snob. He thought I was an embarrassment, coming around to see my mother in a pickup truck with dirt and grime on my jeans.”
Amanda shook her head. “I wish people would just let people be themselves.”
He nodded. “All I've ever felt, most of my life, was my father's disappointment in me, Amanda. I was never good enough from the time I was six or seven years old. And when you told me you were pregnant, I just went numb at the responsibility of what that meant. Of being a failure to my own child. Not being good enough. Not being what I'm supposed to be.”
For a moment she wondered if her own father might have felt that way. She couldn't reconcile those kinds of feelings with a man as powerful and confident as William Sedgwick. And it was difficult to understand those feelings in Paul, as well. He'd seemed so loving, so full of confidence, so full of life.
“I'm still not even sure I understand how a family is supposed to work,” Paul continued. “God, this is all so stupid. I hear myself talk and I sound like a whiney kid. ‘Poor me, my daddy didn't love me.' It's no excuse for running away from you and our child.”
Amanda didn't know what to say.
And then Paul covered her hand with his. She pulled it away.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I just—”
Wanted to touch you
, she silently finished the thought for him. She had the same urge.
Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. This man abandoned you, abandoned his own child.
“I know it's not a good excuse, but I was already overwhelmed with my father's death and then I got your news. And I blew it. I did the wrong thing. I don't expect you to forgive me. But I want you to know how sorry I am. And if there's anything I can do, I will. My company has made some profit this year, and I've got some savings. I'll write you a check right now,” he said, pulling out his wallet.
“Paul,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “I don't need your money. And I'm very sorry to hear about your father.”
I know what it feels like now.
“Raising a child on a sales clerk's salary can't be easy,” he said, shaking his head.
A sales clerk. How long ago that felt now. She'd been working in the women's clothing section of a department store when she'd met Paul, shopping for a birthday gift for his grandmother.
“It's okay, Paul,” she said. “Let's just start from square one.”
He glanced at her hopefully, and she realized she shouldn't have said that. She didn't even mean it, not the way it sounded anyway. It would be a long, long time before she could ever, would ever forgive Paul Swinwood for the way he'd treated her.
But he was her child's father, and for Tommy, she would try to start fresh so that Tommy could have his father in his life.
Their lunch was served, and they ate mostly in silence. It was painful to be with him, to be sitting so close to the man who'd broken her heart. There'd been a time when ridiculous little things, such as the way his dimple appeared when he smiled or the way he pushed his silky hair out of his eyes, used to enthrall her. But now the sight of these gestures just made her feel sad. And lonely for the woman she used to be—a woman who trusted easily and loved easily.
BOOK: Watching Amanda
3.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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