Page 43 of The Single Dad

She gives it a shot, holding her eyes comically wide as she holds the goat’s horizontal-pupiled stare.

The goat stares at her placidly. She stares back, but I can tell that she’s beginning to falter. Eventually, she gives in, blinking. She sighs melodramatically and throws her arms up.

“I can’t believe I lost to a goat!”

That does it for Archie; he breaks into immediate hysterics. Riley smiles at him, ruffling his hair.

I’m enraptured, watching the two of them. I like the way she interacts with him—she meets him at his level, but she’s never condescending or patronizing. And Archie adores her.

“Daddy!”

Archie’s voice grabs my attention. He runs up to me, pointing over to a pretzel cart a few hundred yards down the path.

“Can I get a pretzel?” he asks, blinking huge eyes at me.

“Of course.” I reach into my pocket to fish out my wallet, handing Archie a ten-dollar bill. “Make sure Riley goes with you, okay?”

“Okay!” He skips cheerfully back over to Riley, grabbing her hand. She leads him over to the snack cart, swinging both of their arms and listening to him prattle on about the goats.

I stand next to the goat pen, watching them leave. One of the animals comes up beside me, ears flicking back and forth. It nuzzles into my hand, and I give it a reluctant pat on the back.

While I’m petting the goat, bits and pieces of conversation drift through the pen. There’s a gaggle of young mothers gathered several feet from me while their kids run around with the goats. Their heads are bent together as if their gossip is clandestine, but their voices are loud enough to carry.

“—and that jacket. It’s not even last season. It’s…”

“It looks like she got it from Walmart.”

A chorus of nasty giggles erupts among them, then one of them, a blonde woman with her hair in a high ponytail, says, “Honestly, it’s bad enough that she’s even here at all.”

“True,” says another. “I mean, if he’s here, why does she need to be?”

“She’s trying too hard.”

There are murmurs of agreement. The blonde woman sniffs and says, “It’s like she’s trying to be his mother, or something. She should know her place—she’s just the nanny.”

A flash of anger goes through me as I realize suddenly that they’re talking about Riley. Their heads are all turned toward her and Archie, watching as she bends down to hand him a salt-coated soft pretzel. There’s disdain in their expressions—maybe even hatred.

Heat kindles in my chest, a very different heat than the kind that stirs between me and Riley. This heat comes from rage.

Before I’m even consciously aware of what I’m doing, I find myself marching toward the group of mothers. I clear my throat a few feet away from them, and a few of them jump, startled.

“Excuse me,” I say in a low voice. “I can’t help but notice that none of you are minding your own business at the moment.”

There’s a pause in which all of the mothers exchange nervous, uncertain glances. Eventually, the blonde woman steels herself to speak to me.

“Oh—hi, Cole,” she says, over-familiar and sycophantic. “We were just noticing that—”

“Maybe,” I interrupt, “you should have been spending your time paying attention to your own children, rather than Riley and Archie.”

The blonde, who seems to have taken up the mantle of speaking for the group, purses her lips. “It was out of concern,” she tells me. Another flare of anger lights in my chest at her patronizing tone.

My teeth are gritted as I respond, “I think it might have been more out of jealousy, to be honest with you.”

Her eyes go wide, then narrow. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Well, while the four of you are grouped up over here gossiping, your kids are having a great time without you,” I point out. “Meanwhile, Riley is having fun with Archie. It seems to me that the group of you might be bitter that she’s closer with my child than you are with yours.”

The blonde woman hesitates. All of the mothers’ gazes dart from Archie, who is offering Riley a torn-up piece of pretzel, to their own children. One little boy with the same platinum-blonde hair as his mother is sitting on the ground, covered in dirt, while a goat licks the back of his head.

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