Page 22 of New Hope

Chapter Eight

RIVER

Iwas still grinning as we washed up and settled around the table where we ate a delicious dinner and talked more about what our Halloween costumes were going to be, and which candies were our favorites. Ellie was talkative and Ford looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. It was a nice watching his walls coming down.

After dinner, the girls went to Ellie’s room to play while we cleaned up the kitchen. “Thank you again for letting us intrude on your evening.”

Ford rinsed the last dish and I placed it in the dishwasher as he began wiping down the table and counters. “Nonsense. It wasn’t an intrusion at all. We enjoy spending time with the two of you.”

“We like spending time with you too. Maybe next time, we can have dinner at my house.”

His eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled at me, and I felt the familiar beating of tiny wings inside my belly. The man had had that effect on me from the first time I laid eyes on him, and he’d continued to do so no matter how many times I reminded myself it was impossible. He’d been married to a woman for God’s sake. Not to mention the fact that I was stuck firmly in the friend zone. Not that it was a bad place to be. I liked being Ford’s friend. I just wished he didn’t have to be so damn gorgeous while I was doing it.

Tearing my gaze away, I glanced down at my watch. “I guess I better gather Hannah up and get her home.”

I could hear the girls talking as the two of us neared Ellie’s room. When we reached the doorway, we found them sitting on the floor, a pile of Barbie dolls, clothes, and accessories spilled out around them. Hannah was holding a Ken doll in one hand and Skipper in the other. “Come on, baby girl. Time to go to school,” she said in a deep voice.

Ford snickered behind me. “Sounds just like you,” he whispered. His warm breath ghosted along the back of my neck, causing shivers to race up and down my spine. I elbowed him lightly in the stomach, hoping he hadn’t noticed my response.

Hannah looked over at Ellie who was combing the hair of a Barbie in a beautiful red ballgown. “You only have one boy doll, but yours could be a mommy, I guess.”

“No, I don’t want her to be a mommy because then she’d have to leave,” Ellie said quietly. My breath lodged in my throat with her words, and I whipped my head around in time to see all the color drain from Ford’s face, as if he’d been sucker punched. His spine was rigid, jaw clenching, his hands fisted at his sides.

Hannah continued on, blissfully unaware of the turmoil their innocent play had created. “Okay. She could be the teacher then. A nice one, like Miss Sipple.”

Putting my hands on his chest, I spun him in the opposite direction. “Let’s go,” I whispered forcefully.

“Ellie—“

“Ellie’s fine but she won’t be if she sees you losing your shit. Now, move!” I said more forcefully.

That got him going, thankfully. I was strong, but I was no match for Ford’s strength. There was no way I would have been able to manhandle him away from there if he hadn’t wanted to go. With a hand on his back, I steered him toward the front door and outside, hoping it would be far enough away that the girls wouldn’t hear.

He jerked away from me as soon as I’d shut the door. His fingers laced behind his head, elbows out as he paced the front porch like a caged lion. I watched him warily, not sure if he was about to explode or have a meltdown and trying to prepare myself for either. Instead, he leaned forward, clutching his knees with his hands and gulping in mouthfuls of chilly air as he struggled to calm himself.

Finally, he lifted his head. When his eyes met mine, they were haunted, helpless, full of a pain that seared me to my very core. It was the look of a parent suffering because someone had hurt their child. I took a step forward, wanting to…do something, but I wasn’t sure what or if he’d even want me to.

His voice was low when he spoke, and I strained to hear his words. “For months after Connie left, Ellie did nothing but cry herself to sleep. I tried to explain it to her, to help her come to terms with it in some way, but how could I explain a situation that barely made sense to me? Her mother was there one day and then she was gone. Like leaving us behind was nothing to her. Like it was just so easy.

“Then the nightmares began. Nightmares where I left her too and Ellie was left with no one. Neither Connie nor I have any siblings. Her relationship with her parents had been rocky at best. She’d cut ties with them before I met her. As far as I know, they don’t even know they have a grandchild. My mom passed away from cancer and Dad followed a year later after suffering a massive heart attack. So, Connie and I were all Ellie’s ever had. We were her family. Then suddenly, Connie took off, and Ellie was terrified.”

Ford’s face was weary, etched in sorrow as he sank down on the porch swing. I sat down next to him quietly. I wanted him to keep talking. He needed to let it all out. He looked over at me with a sad smile. “I wish you’d known Ellie before all this happened. I suppose you saw a glimpse of it tonight when you were chasing her around the kitchen. That laugh? That’s how she used to be all the time. She was silly and playful the way a kid should be. But then Connie left, and she would barely talk to anyone, including me. It was difficult to get her to eat, and her teacher said she’d stopped playing with the other kids at school. Even months later, things still weren’t getting any better. It was like losing her mother had broken something inside her.

“I started taking her to see a child psychologist who suggested that Ellie’s mind might be keeping her in a holding pattern of sorts, that by living in the same house she’d shared with her mother, surrounded by all of Connie’s things, she was stuck waiting for her mother to return. She wasn’t able to face the reality, couldn’t understand that was never going to happen. He suggested I make some changes if I wanted to help Ellie move forward. Drastic changes. Of course, there’s nothing I won’t do for my daughter, so I did some research, made a few phone calls, and we moved here.”

I blew out a long breath, letting his story settle over me. It all made sense now; his wariness when we first met, the exhaustion on his face, the sadness in his eyes. The man had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for so long. Not only had he been abandoned by the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with, but he’d also watched his little girl suffering her own kind of pain. Nothing, absolutely nothing was worse than knowing your child was hurting and not being able to stop it.

“I know this is inadequate, but I’m so sorry for everything you two have been through.”

Ford waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’m all right. It’s Ellie I worry about.” I shot him a doubtful look. “No, really. Was I hurt at first? Of course. It brought me to my knees. I went through a period of sadness and depression, of wondering how I could have failed so horribly as a husband. But over time—and with the help of my own therapist—I was able to see things from a different perspective. The truth is things hadn’t been right between us for a very long time. Connie had always wanted to be an actor. For as long as I’d known her, she’d had this dream of starring in some huge Hollywood film. She performed in a few of the smaller theaters in New York and even made it as an understudy for one of the members of Cats on Broadway, but it never amounted to much.”

I wanted to reach for him, to offer some kind of comfort, but I wasn’t sure he’d allow it. Instead, I folded my hands in my lap and continued to listen. He turned his face toward the darkening sky, a faraway look in his eyes as he gently rocked the swing back and forth. “Looking back, I can see her growing frustration, the disappointment as each new audition didn’t pan out. Falling in love, getting married, and having a kid had never been part of her plan, and I think in some way, she blamed Ellie and me. I’m sure she thought we’d been holding her back, that we were the reason she hadn’t reached stardom. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say she was in California right now, but again, that’s simply a guess. I haven’t heard a word from her since she left. Our attorneys handled the divorce, we never saw each other even then.”

His eyes met mine and held. “They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I can see clearly now that the two of us never should have ended up together. We were so young when we got married and at that age, everything seemed new and wondrous. We thought we could do anything, be anything, but slowly, reality started to sink in. Suddenly we had all these bills and a mortgage to pay. I’d gotten hired by the NYPD, but I was just starting out. My paychecks weren’t enough to cover everything. Connie wanted to keep going on auditions, so she worked odd jobs here and there to help make ends meet. Money was always tight, and we were under a lot of stress, but we made it work. Eventually, I started earning more and she was able to focus more time on acting. Then the shit hit the fan.

“I came home from work one night and she was sitting on the couch, sobbing. I rushed to her, afraid something terrible had happened. I couldn’t believe it when she told me she was pregnant. We’d tried for over a year, but she’d told me she didn’t think she was able to get pregnant. I thought it was a blessing but when I said that to her, she cried even harder.”

Ford’s face twisted at the memory. “I tried to comfort her, but she pushed me away. Screamed at me that I had ruined her life then she locked herself in the bedroom. She didn’t come out for two days. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t happy, why she couldn’t see the pregnancy for the miracle it was. She finally admitted she’d never wanted children, that the entire time I thought we’d been trying to conceive, she’d been taking birth control pills behind my back. The only reason she’d ended up pregnant was because she’d been sick and didn’t realize that taking antibiotics could prevent the birth control from being effective.”

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