He Called Our Night a Mistake, So I Raised His Daughter Without Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Mistake

On her porch Sullivan says he never married his fiancée, Carina says what he called their night in front of his squad, and Rosetta appears in her pajamas and says she knows him from the gym.

He knocked at ten past eight that night, two knocks, the way he used to knock on my brother's door.

I knew it was him before I looked through the glass.

I had spent the whole afternoon waiting for it.

Rosetta was in the bath.

I told the babysitter next door I needed ten minutes, and the babysitter looked at my face and took over the bubbles without asking.

Then I stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind me.

Sullivan stood two steps down, with his hands where I could see them.

"How did you get this address?"

"I'll tell you," he said. "Not tonight."

"That's not an answer."

"It's all I can give you tonight. I gave my word to somebody. Somebody from your family."

My stomach turned.

My mother had a loud mouth and a big heart, and she showed photos of Rosetta to everyone at church.

If she had told a woman at church, and that woman had told someone in Norfolk, it could have gone anywhere.

"Fine," I said. "Say what you came to say and go."

"I never married her."

I stared at him.

"Whitney," he said. "I never married her. I called it off six weeks after that night. I've been looking for you since the week you left."

"I don't care who you married."

"Carina."

"I mean it." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I don't care. You don't get to stand on my porch seven years later and tell me you're single like it's a gift."

"I'm not asking you to be glad."

"What are you asking?"

"To know her."

I laughed, and it sounded ugly.

"You want to know her. You stood on my parents' porch in front of a dozen men who worked for you and said it was a mistake."

He didn't look away.

I had expected that.

He'd always been the one who didn't look away.

"You said it was a mistake," I said. "You said I was Nico's little sister and I should go home. I had been in love with you since I was fifteen, and you said it in front of your whole team, and every one of them looked at their shoes."

"I did say that."

"Then you don't get to say her name."

"I know."

He said it very quietly.

"I'm not going to tell you I had a reason that makes it all right. I said it, and I meant for it to hurt, and it did. That's mine. I'm not here to talk you out of hating me."

That was worse than if he had argued.

I had practiced for years what I'd say if he argued.

"I've rented a place on Haywood Road," Sullivan said. "Ninety days. I'll stay out of your way. I won't come to the school again unless you tell me I can."

"You were in the gym because you had a photo of her in your wallet. That's already in my way."

"I know. I'm sorry for that too."

"Stop apologizing."

"Then tell me what to do instead."

For a moment neither of us said anything.

A truck passed on the street, and a dog barked behind a fence.

I looked at his hands, and I saw the scar across his left knuckles, white against the skin.

I had run my mouth over that scar once.

I looked away from it.

"I want a test," I said. "A real one. Not because I doubt it. Because I want it in writing that I did not make this up, so that nobody in your family can say I did."

"Done."

"And I want you off my porch."

"Done."

He went down one step and stopped.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't marry anyone," I said, before I could stop myself.

I hadn't meant to say it out loud.

His face changed.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"I know how you meant it."

"Go, Sullivan."

He nodded and turned toward the street.

Behind me the front door opened.

I turned around.

Rosetta stood in the doorway in her pajamas, her hair wet, a towel around her shoulders, the babysitter hovering behind her.

She wasn't looking at me.

She was looking past me, at the man on the bottom step.

"You're the man from the gym," she said.

Sullivan stopped with one foot in the air.

"Yes," he said. "I am."

"Are you going to take my picture again?"

He didn't answer.

I watched his throat move.

Then he turned all the way around and looked at his daughter for the first time in the light.

I had meant to keep her from him for one more night.

I hadn't even made it to her bedtime.

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