Page 33 of Lies and Lullabies
“You have every right to see her,” Adam said. “Except you’re losing your shit right now. And since we don’t want to freak outin front of the child—” He looked pointedly at me. “—everybody has to go back to his own corner and cool off.”
“Later, then. Today,” I said.
Kira still looked terrified. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” I spat. “What did I ever do to you? Except exactly what you asked me to.”
“That might be TMI,” Adam whispered.
I turned around and opened the screen door. I walked down the three steps, but my knees felt like rubber. So I sat heavily on the bottom step, resting my head in my hands.
Before this moment I’d thought that my life—while lonely and a little aimless—was under some semblance of control. But that was a lie. Because there was a little person in the world who might have filled in some of the crushing emptiness in my chest. And she’d never even seen my face.
The door opened and shut behind me, but I didn’t move. Kira settled on the step next to me, wiping her face with the heels of her hands. “I feel terrible,” she whispered.
“You should.”
She pressed her hands to her mouth, and I realized that if I kept saying things like that, she’d quit talking to me.
“Kira, was I good to you? Was I a good friend to youevery daythat summer?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice shaky.
“Then why would you keep this from me?”
“It took me a year and a half to figure out who you were. I was already a mother to a little girl when I saw you on an album cover. And then there’s the fact that you blew off my letter. I thought if I wrote another one, the same thing might happen again.”
Bitterness settled into my stomach. Because she made a good point. I was too stupid to return her love when I’d had the chance. I’d pushed her away. “I’d never turn my back on my obligations, though. You had to know that.”
“But I didn’t want us to be anobligation,” she said quietly.
Shit.
Nobody said anything for a while. Minutes ticked by. I focused on my breathing, the way I might before a concert. Until finally I felt calm. Kira slapped at a black fly beside me, and it brought me back into the present. It was still a sunny afternoon in Maine. Even if my whole world was reshaping.
“What a waste,” I whispered suddenly. A waste of time. And of a beautiful friendship that could have been so much more.
“She’s going to be back soon,” Kira said. “We have to figure out what we’re going to say to her.”
“What did you tell her before? Did she ask where her father was?”
Kira gulped. “I told her that her daddy lived far away. That he was too busy making music to be someone’s daddy.”
My eyes burned. “Would have been nice if you’d checked to see if it was true.”
“John…” She cleared her throat. “Jonas. I’m sorry, okay? I did wrong. I can’t argue the point. But we need a game plan, and we need it now. I don’t think we should tell her you’re her father until she’s comfortable with you.”
“Why not?” How could more lying be a good idea?
She looked into my eyes, and my heart practically stopped. Her face was so serious, and so beautiful. Sitting next to her was like living in a time warp. “I just want meeting you to be less of a shock for her. If you tell her right off, she won’t know what to do with that information, and she won’t know what to expect from you.” Her silver eyes bored into mine. “Honestly, I’m just making this up as I go along. Parenting, I’ve learned, is all guesswork.”
I took a deep breath and felt a little bit of the fury drain out of me. “I bet you’re pretty good at it.” And that was another reason Kira probably hadn’t told me about our little girl. I’d never been the sort of person who looked like I should be someone’s father.
Her wide eyes still took me in. “I do all right. She’s easy, though. A little cocky sometimes, but sweet, too. She’s a good girl.”
My heart gave an unfamiliar squeeze. I heard the telltale click of a coasting bicycle approaching.
Kira leapt off the stoop and stood waiting as the bike slowed to a stop. “Hi,” she said, sounding breathless.
