Susan Mallery - Full-Time Father

The leather-bound diary was cool to the touch. When she’d found the journal she hadn’t been able to read more than a few entries. The familiar handwriting made her miss Stacey more than ever. Now reading the words brought her sister back to life. Erin flipped it open, randomly turning pages until Parker’s name caught her eye. She began to read.

Parker gave us an introductory session this afternoon. There are five other interns, four guys and one really mousy-looking nineteen-year-old in thick glasses. I don’t think he’ll notice her.

Erin skipped the paragraphs about the programs Stacey had been so excited to work on. There were details about schedules, then she found Parker’s name again.

I sat next to him at dinner. I know Erin would laugh if I told her, but I was too excited to eat. He’s very handsome, yet it’s more than that. It’s the sadness in his eyes. It calls to me. I want to hold him and heal him until he smiles again. My blood races whenever I’m near him. It’s as if he’s my destiny and I am his.

The next sentence had been obliterated by thick strokes of black pen. No matter how Erin held the page up to the light, she couldn’t make out the words.

I’ve fallen for him. Love has made me a giddy fool. I’m trying hard to be sensible, but part of me doesn’t want to be. I want to feel the romance and the magic. I want my blood to race and my heart to pound. I want to feel the heat of his hand against my skin.

Erin slammed the diary shut. She was feeling some heat of her own, but it came from the flush of embarrassment on her cheeks.

“How you doing?” she called.

“I’m fine.” Christie’s voice was patient. They went through this ritual every time she bathed. The four-year-old liked to have her playtime with her tub toys. Erin didn’t mind, but she needed to hear splashing and singsong conversation to know that her daughter was doing all right in the water.

She placed the diary on the bed and covered her face with her hands. Why was this happening? She wasn’t the young romantic innocent Stacey had been. She was a mature woman, a single parent, a respected teacher. She was stronger than this. Falling apart when she was around Parker Hamilton wasn’t an option.

Easier said than done, she thought, remembering the heat she, too, had felt when Parker had touched her. What was going on? Why did Stacey’s diary make sense? Why was she experiencing the same reaction around the same man? She wasn’t the emotional sister. She wasn’t the romantic one. She’d always been practical and logical. After all, when the girls had realized there wasn’t enough money for both of them to go to the college of their choice, Erin had been the one to figure out if they left some of the money in for an additional four years, then one could go away to college and one could go away to graduate school.

She knew she had a brain, so why wasn’t it working now?

You’re living like a nun.

Joyce’s words came back to haunt her. For the most part Erin didn’t miss having a man in her life. She never met anyone special enough to make her heart race or her blood…

Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. It wasn’t important. She wasn’t really caught up in some situation that forced her to re-live her sister’s life. The point was, she just hadn’t had time to date. Obviously that was the problem. Parker was the first good-looking, single guy she’d been around since college. Of course she had a reaction to him. It didn’t mean anything except that maybe it was time to dump the nun act and start behaving like a woman. Not around him, but around someone safer.

“You all right?” she called, listening to the splashing.

“Yes, Mommy.” Christie’s voice was slightly less patient.

She would get her feelings under control, she told herself firmly. She would stop reacting like…like…like Stacey and start acting more like herself. Otherwise she was going to say or do something foolish. That would only make an awkward situation worse. After all, Parker hadn’t once hinted he found her attractive.

He’d been attracted to Stacey, a voice in her head whispered, and you look just like her. But had he been attracted to Stacey? Stacey’s diary was full of romance and melodrama, but nothing very substantive. How much of their relationship had been in her sister’s head?

However they had been lovers.

Erin opened the diary to the last page and stared at the photograph there. She’d tucked it next to the half-finished letter she’d found in the diary. She wasn’t sure why. She didn’t usually travel with pictures of her sister in her luggage, but it had seemed important to bring one of Stacey on this trip.

She smiled at the silliness of that thought. If she wanted to remember Stacey all she had to do was look in the mirror.

Even so, she picked up the photo and stared at her twin. Stacey wore her hair long, she always had. Erin preferred it short. They had the same features, the same smile, the same dimple. Erin had a tiny scar on her forehead from a run-in with a coffee table when she was about Christie’s age. The sisters had always weighed the same and although they shared clothes, they hadn’t dressed alike if they could avoid it.

“I’m fine, Mommy,” Christie yelled from the bathroom.

“Thank you.”

Erin stretched out on the bed next to the suitcase and wondered what had happened.

“Why did you do this?” she whispered to the photo.

As her fingers clutched the small picture, she knew the answer. There was no voice from the great beyond or psychic connection. She didn’t need that. She’d known her sister as well as she’d known herself. She could read between the lines.

Stacey had wanted to fall in love with Parker from the first moment she saw him. The handsome, brooding stranger was her fantasy come to life. The fact that his house was a stunning mansion fit for a modern-day princess and the knowledge that he mourned the loss of his wife would only have added to Stacey’s desire to make it real.

The twins had lost their parents at an early age. Going from relative to relative had left them with an emptiness that could only be filled by having a place to belong. Erin assumed she would find a man and fall in love one day, but in the meantime, the emptiness would have to be filled with friends, activities and self-confidence. Stacey had wanted to be rescued. Like a damsel in distress, she waited for the handsome prince on a white horse. Parker had fit her dream perfectly.

“Oh, Stacey,” Erin murmured, aching for her sister, knowing the pain she must have felt.

She sat up and studied the photo for a moment, then tucked it into the diary. The letter fell out. Erin picked it up and unfolded the single page.

Dear Parker,

I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just say I’m sorry. I’m so ashamed of myself. Of what I did and how I acted. I see now that you were right about everything. I don’t know what love is. I hope someday I’ll find what you had with Robin.

In the meantime, I regret to tell you that I’m pregnant. That night, well, I lied about being on the pill. I was so afraid you would stop if I told you the truth. The problem is, I don’t know what to do now.

Please forgive me, Parker. I’m going to have our baby. I’m sure that makes you angry. Maybe I won’t do anything today. Maybe I’ll wait and tell you after the child is born. Then you can decide what you want to do.

Erin folded the letter and placed it in the diary next to the photo. Stacey hadn’t lived long enough to do anything about telling Parker the truth.

“I hope I’m doing the right thing,” Erin whispered as she listened to Christie play in the tub. “I hope I’m doing what you would have wanted me to do.”

“You weren’t kidding about the room being on the top floor,” Erin said as she paused on the landing to catch her breath and stared up at the last flight of stairs.

Parker was right behind her. He set the suitcases down and frowned. “There are plenty of bedrooms on the second floor. Why don’t you look through them and see if there’s something you like?”

She gave him a quick smile, then shook her head. “Christie has her heart set on staying up here, and I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“You could leave her up here and take a different room for yourself.” Kiki was right. He did have enough bedrooms to sleep a regiment. He supposed keeping the house was a mistake but he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

“Your room is on the second floor, right?” Erin asked.

“Yes, but-”

She cut him off before he could explain there was no reason for her to be concerned about them sleeping on the same floor. Then he reminded himself that all she had to go on was what had happened with her sister. No wonder Erin was wary of him.

“This is a strange house to Christie,” Erin said. “She’s having a great adventure and enjoying everything, especially meeting you. But later, when she’s sleepy and tired, she might get scared or have a bad dream. It’s better if I’m across the hall and can hear her call out.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted, following her as she climbed the last flight of stairs. Raising a child was a daunting task full of potential pitfalls he couldn’t begin to see.

She reached the third floor and paused. “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

He looked down the corridor. All the bedroom doors stood open. Sunlight spilled onto the hallway’s polished wooden floor. It bounced out of each of the bedrooms and beamed through the large window in the far end wall. There were abstract paintings between the doors, and a small deacon’s bench by the landing.

“I didn’t realize how large this place was,” she said, her voice laced with awe.