Love Is More Than Skin Deep (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 4) (6 page)

I have to crawl up onto the bed to make sure that I haven’t missed any of the smaller stones. I’m completely caught off guard by a low chuckle and wolf whistle coming from the doorway. I look back over my shoulder and catch Shelby ogling my backside.
 

I raise an eyebrow in question and she stammers an answer, “It is not like I’m not grateful or anything — and I’m especially thankful if I get these kind of views — b-but if that room that I’m in is the guest room, I’m seriously outclassed here. You didn’t tell me that you were going to give up your bedroom for me. That’s just too much,” she protests.

I gesture at my impromptu craft project and try to explain, “My daughter, Ketki, has autism and she sometimes uses this room to store her collection. She is very choosy about how it’s organized. She had it on the bed and I’m trying to move it without disturbing it. I was doing pretty well until the last little bit, but I’m afraid I messed it up. I am going to be voted World’s Worst Dad unless I can figure out her system.”

Shelby quietly walks over to the little display board I’ve started and studies it carefully. She sticks out her hand and states, “You mind? I think I see a pattern.”

“You do?” I blurt, unable to disguise my astonishment. “Ketki’s been mining feathers, stones and shells almost since she was a baby and I’ve never determined a rhyme or reason to her methods.” I hand Shelby the remaining stones and watch as she efficiently sorts them and places them next to their corresponding feather.

Shelby smiles shyly as she remarks, “I spent a lot of time by myself as a kid, I used to make up all sorts of games in my head. I often see patterns and designs where other people don’t. I think that’s what makes me pretty good at math.”

I just shake my head in amazement as I reply, “How in the world did you do that? I don’t want to seem stupid, but I really don’t have any idea. I’ve long ago accepted that Ketki is far brighter than me in many ways, so this isn’t a newsflash, but I am curious—”

Shelby gives me a small nod before she responds, “Now, of course — this is Ketki’s system and I could always be wrong — but from what I see, she first identified all of the stones that had spots in them like the spots in the feathers and she sorted them by the numbers from highest to lowest and then when she ran out of numbers, she started sorting by each predominant color.”

I’m sure that the shock on my face makes me look like an exaggerated cartoon character, but I cannot contain my utter amazement at her conclusion. It’s not that the conclusion is all that unfamiliar, because it sounds exactly like Ketki. My daughter has been known to take the ingredients out of minestrone soup and sort it before she eats it. My surprise comes not only from the fact that Shelby was able to figure it out so quickly, but completely without judgment.

“Now that you say it, it makes perfect sense, but I swear I have seen her sort those things thousands of times, and never came up with that pattern,” I confess, my face heating with shame.

Shelby
tsks
me like the teacher that she is. “Mark, it’s not an obvious pattern. If your brain doesn’t think in an offbeat sort of way like mine does, it wouldn’t have occurred to you. It’s okay, everybody’s brain works differently. Does your wife’s brain work more like Ketki’s brain or more like yours?”

I pull Shelby toward me until she’s sitting on the bed at my side. “Shelby, there’s no easy way to talk about this, so I am just going to tell you.”

I watch as Shelby visibly braces herself. She swallows hard and curls her body over until she’s a small shadow of her confident self.

At first, I can’t figure out what she’s doing, but then it occurs to me that she thinks that I might be critical of something she’s done. “Shelby, this doesn’t have anything to do with you and everything to do with Tanyanita, my ex-wife and Ketki’s mom.”

“Are you sure?” Shelby clarifies. “I really have been out of commission when you should have been able to count on me.”

“Shelby, unless you’re planning to say vile things and storm out because you can’t deal with my daughter’s disabilities like she did, you don’t have anything to worry about,” I inform her grimly.
 

I can read every emotion that crosses Shelby’s face as she processes what I just said. She opens and closes her mouth several times before she finally regains the power of speech.

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Shelby pleads. “That’s a pretty rotten reason to decide not to be a mom. I’ve seen some pretty poor parenting decisions, but that ranks right up there.”

“I don’t know if Tanyanita fully understands either. Growing up, she was the oldest sibling in charge of all of her brothers and sisters. Ketki’s birth was unplanned. We had been taking steps to prevent pregnancy, but they failed. Tanyanita was not thrilled to be pregnant in the first place and then when it became clear that something was not exactly right with Ketki, that was the very last straw. It was simply more than Tanyanita could take. Rather than make us all unhappy, she took off,” I explain.

“You make it sound like she decided to have onion rings instead of French fries,” Shelby responds with disbelief. “Didn’t her decision disrupt your whole life?”

“Absolutely. I was studying for the bar exam and trying to arrange emergency daycare for Ketki. It was crazy. Back in those days, I didn’t know what was wrong, we just knew something was. I mean, I had a feeling I knew what it was, because her symptoms were pretty typical. The hand-flapping was a pretty good giveaway. Even so, I still had to take her to a series of doctors, therapists, speech therapists, evaluators, psychologists and psychiatrists and everyone in between. This seemed to go on for months and months, but eventually we figured out a routine. My family was a big help — they still are. That’s where Ketki is right now. My sister is watching her for me. Her cousin was having a slumber party for her birthday and invited her to come.”

“Aren’t you really ticked off at your wife? I would be. I don’t know if I could forgive something like that,” Shelby remarks, and then covers her mouth in shock as she says, “Oh, I’m so sorry…that probably wasn’t appropriate for me to say.”

I shrug as I answer, “I don’t know. You’re entitled to your opinion. Some days, I ask myself the same questions —”

IT’S THE BEST NAP I’VE had in quite a while — or it was until I feel my eye being pried open by small fingers. Startled, I open my eyes and come face-to-face with a somber little girl with long black hair wearing a Wonder Woman T-shirt and bright red shorts. She is intently studying me, but she never looks me directly in the eye. Finally, she mumbles softly, “You’re in my daddy’s bed. Are you my new mom? How come your hair is white? Did you curl it with a curling iron? How come you’re not wearing pajamas? Why do you have Band-Aids all over?”

“That’s a lot of questions. Do I get to pick and choose which order I answer them in?” I tease. “Hi, my name is Shelby. I’m your dad’s friend. He is letting me borrow his bed because I wasn’t feeling so great after I went to the doctor this morning. I have some bad cells growing in my skin and the doctor took some off today, which is why I have all these silly Band-Aids. Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t have any Wonder Woman bandages. That would’ve been cool but I’m just stuck with the regular kind.”

I tap my chin in thought as I ask, “Let’s see — did I miss anything?”

Ketki rolls up on her toes and back onto her heels several times before she answers, “My friend Kristi got a new mommy after there was a new lady in her daddy’s bed. So are you my mom now?”

I feel myself start to blush. Well, this is interesting… Why do I feel like I need to do a walk of shame when I haven’t done anything inappropriate? I can see that I’m going to have to answer this question very carefully.
 

I see the potential for this conversation to get off track quite easily. I’m not entirely sure that Mark wanted me to meet his daughter. We never even had a chance to talk about it. I know that some parents are really reluctant to let their children know they even have a social life. Either way, I’m pretty sure that he’s not ready for Ketki to be jumping to these kinds of conclusions. For now, I elect to go for a straightforward and simple answer.
 

“Your dad was really worried about me after my surgery because I don’t have any family around. He offered to take care of me for a couple days until I feel stronger.”

“If you need a toothbrush, the dentist gave me one. I don’t like pink,” she offers. “Girls don’t have to like pink — Dad said.”

“I agree. I think the color thing is silly. I will take you up on the toothbrush thing. I was in a hurry this morning and I forgot mine. Can you do me a favor and show me where everything is? I’m a little lost in this big house,” I confess.

For a moment, Ketki stands stock still in the middle of the room. I hold my breath as she makes her decision. Finally, she tilts her head toward the door as she announces. “Okay.”

The little imp doesn’t give me time to get myself together before she takes off. I scramble to get out of bed and follow her. Fortunately, she hasn’t traveled far. I find her in front of an open medicine cupboard. She is jumping up and down trying to snag a hot pink toothbrush off of one of the top shelves. “I’m not Dad,” she explains simply. I notice she is rhythmically moving her left hand more than she was before. If she’s like the students that I have worked with before, it probably means she’s feeling overwhelmed.
 

I step toward the sink and reach over her head and grab the toothbrush as I remark, “I completely understand. I’m not a whole lot taller than you are. I get totally frustrated when I can’t reach something. Thank you for letting me have this. Where to next?” I ask, as she leads us out of the bathroom.

At the bottom of the stairs, Ketki comes to a halt. She turns toward me, but looks past my head as she asks, “You play video games?”

I roll my shoulder casually and nod as I respond, “It depends. I’m not exactly a newb, but I’m not any sort of pro either.”
 

“Good,” she affirms as she motions for me to follow her. We walk down the hall and at the end Ketki opens the double wooden doors to what presumably is the den. In my mind, I expected it to be some sort of stereotypical library like you see in all those commercials for law offices. I couldn’t have been more wrong. This room is something right out of a gamer’s fantasy. I am speechless for several moments as I stand in the middle of the room and take it all in. There are big monitors and little monitors, new systems and old and every input device you can imagine. I walk over to a large gaming chair with speakers in the head rest and sit down as I ask, “This is positively decadent; be honest with me, who plays more video games? You or your dad?”

Ketki looks at me blankly as if what I have asked is the most ridiculous question in the world. “I do. My school gets out earlier than Dad’s work. Plus, he sometimes brings work home on the weekend, or he has to travel far away to do a trial.”

I sigh dramatically as I commiserate, “I’m sorry. Sometimes being a grown-up is a drag. I’m sure your dad wishes he had more time to play video games. This is the coolest game room I have ever seen. I would be playing in here all the time.”

Ketki’s shoulders slump as she admits, “I like it too, but not everybody does.”

“What do you mean?” I probe.

“People don’t like me much. They won’t even come for a birthday party. I even told them I had a bunch of new games. Nobody came, not even Kristi.”

“That’s a royal bummer. It kinda sucks for them too. They missed out on a chance to be friends with somebody really cool and your hangout place is pretty awesome. I guess they won’t know that now.”

Ketki stares down at the ground as she softly asks, “How do you know?”

“How do I know what?” I ask to clarify.

“How do you know I’m cool? You just met me. Most people don’t stick around long — even my mom left once she got to know me, so I must not be so cool.”

“Ketki, I can look around this room and see that you have an appreciation for gaming history and that you understand new technology too. I see that huge puzzle that you put together hanging on the wall. I know that must’ve been really difficult. I bet it took lots of patience. Not everybody would be able to do something that complicated. I see books on the bookshelf about Isaac Newton and Pythagoras. I’m willing to bet that those are your books and not your dad’s. From one smart chick to another, I think it totally rocks that you like mathematics. Sometimes people make decisions that don’t make sense and it’s hard to understand from the outside. I don’t know your mom and I don’t know why she had to make her choices, but I don’t think it was because she doesn’t like you.”

“It seems that way,” mumbles Ketki.

I want to collect Ketki in a giant bear hug, but her body language is throwing up all sorts of caution signs so I just shrug and remark, “I know — but sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.”