Waiting to Come Home

Her kids and his try to play Cupid

Jake

To Jacob Adams, Maddie was absolutely the most beautiful girl in the world. She was practically perfect, inside and out. Just thinking about her always brought on a smile. There was no doubt she was the best thing, if truth be told, in his currently somewhat miserable life. But this isn't a story about some hapless sap and his dream girl valentine, not at all. Maddie was nine years old, and she was Jake's daughter.

Jake was a single father, single since two years before, when Madelyn's mother was hit and killed by an out of control pickup truck. Sarah was simply standing at her bus stop, waiting to come home. The driver of the truck had a stroke and died on the spot. It was nobody's fault. Sometimes shit just happens.

Sarah could have driven to work that day, but she'd taken the bus because she planned to stay late for drinks to celebrate a coworker's birthday. She was always conscientious like that. She didn't want to drink and drive, or to inconvenience Jake by asking him to drive her, even though Jake wouldn't have minded at all.

Sarah's death just about wrecked Jake. In a way, it was good she wasn't around to see how poorly he was coping. He tried to hold it together well enough to keep up appearances, and he felt like he was doing a pretty good job of always being there for Maddie. But inside he felt empty, just a shell, unwilling and unable to make plans beyond getting through this day, and then the next, and the next. Everyone told him grief can be hard. He was having a hard time believing it would ever get any better.

Of course Maddie missed her mom, and she loved her dad more than anything, but this September 4th was not a day to be sad. Maddie was excited because this was the first day of a brand new school year, and she'd made a new friend. She couldn't wait to tell her dad all about it.

"Her name's Tara, and she has a purple backpack, just like me, and purple shoes just like me, and she wants purple hair too, but her mom won't let her, just like you won't let me." The new fourth-grader gushed. She went on, "and she has a little brother, and a cat named 'Whiskers,' and she just has a mom, like I just have a dad, and I didn't even tell you the best part..."

"What's that?"

"She only lives six houses away, right behind that big red house across from the park. So we can walk to school together every day!"

"Wow! That sounds great!" He was sincerely happy Maddie had made a new friend, and having a girl her age in the neighborhood she could play with was good news too. Up until now, there hadn't been any kids her age close by.

Maddie and Tara soon grew practically inseparable. They played together after school, and often on weekends too. Jake met Tara's mother, briefly. She had walked down the block to tell her daughter to come home for dinner. Maddie had given Tara's mother a contact phone number, so she could call Jake if needed, but she mislaid it, and neglected to enter it into her phone.

The mother's name was Renee. Jake thought she seemed...okay, if somewhat distracted. She was tall and thin, kind of a dirty blonde, with curly shoulder length hair and pale gray eyes. A nice-enough looking woman, in Jake's opinion, but she seemed humorless. He didn't feel like he had any chemistry with her at all. Aside from the lack of personality mesh, physically, she was almost the opposite of the curvier dark-haired girls he was typically attracted to. Those eyes stayed with him, though. It was like they were trying to tell him something. He wasn't sure what.

Jake wasn't really looking for a woman to date, anyway. He knew he wasn't over Sarah. He didn't want to saddle Maddie with a new "stepmonster" either. Did he ever get horny? Of course he did. He was a perfectly healthy 36-year-old male, after all. He figured he would probably want to hook up with somebody someday, but there was plenty of time for that when Maddie was a little older. He was in no hurry. If the urge hit him, he had the girls on the internet and his left hand to get him through.

Did Jake ever get lonely? That question was a little bit tougher. Of course he had Maddie, and his job, and a few friends and family. Mostly he didn't have too much time to think about it. But in the quiet moments it did sometimes hit him that it would be nice to have someone to share the little things in life with, and the big things too. Sarah had been waiting to come home when the accident ended her life. Ever since then, Jake felt like he was still waiting to come home too, at least his heart was.

As for love, Jake had grown a little cynical about love. His life with Sarah hadn't been perfect, he knew that. But still, he felt like they did love each other. After the hard time she'd had while pregnant with Maddie, they were told not to try for any other kids, but that only made Maddie more precious. He didn't love Sarah any less for it. When he thought about love now, it seemed like a promise that was more than likely not to last, whether because it got cruelly ripped away, like it was from him, or whether it gradually withered and died, as he'd seen with so many others he knew.

Renee

Renee wasn't exactly bowled over by Jake on first impression, either. She'd been annoyed with herself for mislaying that phone number, and annoyed that Tara did not come back home at 6:00 p.m. like they'd agreed, so she wasn't really focusing on him at all. She didn't particularly like beards on guys, especially long ones, and Jake had been growing his out for two years. She was happy Tara made a friend in their new neighborhood, and she liked Maddie well enough, but that didn't mean she had to make any kind of a special effort to be buddy buddy with Maddie's dad.

Jake had a nice smile. Aside from the beard, he had good hair. He was not quite as tall as she preferred, but he was tall enough, average. He seemed like basically an average guy, polite enough, professional. The house and car looked like he was doing OK although not super-successful. But he also seemed sad. She didn't notice him checking her out like he was interested. She wasn't looking, but even if she was, she didn't sense any spark between them.

Renee knew Maddie's mom had died, and she felt sorry for the girl, but that just made her more careful not to send out any signals around Jake that he might misinterpret. It would be far better in the long run for both girls if their parents could get along with each other at arm's length rather than risk something messy. Renee was comfortable keeping people at arm's length. She wasn't looking for a relationship. Between her job and two small kids she barely had any time for herself, much less a relationship. Besides, after how things went between her and Tara and Cooper's dad, she didn't feel all that confident about trusting her taste in men.

Renee's ex was Greek. Renee had grown up in Eagle Creek, moved away for college, and never looked back. Costas was a handsome, charming foreign student she met and fell in love with at school. Everything was mostly good for the first few years. They had Tara and Cooper and then Costas lost his job. He got another job, then lost that one too. It was an old story, and not any less painful for following a well-worn pattern. He started drinking, then drinking more and more. He gambled away their savings. The bank took back their house. He talked about moving the family back to Greece. When she rejected that idea he got angry and hit her.

Renee never felt like her upbringing had been ideal, but her folks both made sure she was raised with enough self-respect not to take a beating from anyone. When Costas crossed that line it flipped a switch in her and she packed up the kids and moved out that night. Just like she never looked back when leaving Eagle Creek, she never looked back when leaving Costas. He made it easy. That chickenshit ran away to Greece on the next plane afraid she'd press charges. After 18 months of trying to clean up his messes and scratch something together in the city for herself and her kids, the standing offer from Renee's sister to take them in started looking better and better.

Renee's big sister Beth still lived back in Eagle Creek, in the house they both grew up in. She owned and ran their old family business, a restaurant. Renee could move back and help out while she got back on her feet. Beth and her partner Jill had plenty of room in the big house, and could use the help with the restaurant, so Renee and the kids moved back. Fourteen years before, she'd sworn that the closest she would ever come to the restaurant business was walking in and out of the door as a customer, but now that she was back in it, strangely, nobody was more surprised than Renee to find that she was actually kind of enjoying it.

Coming back to live in the same house, working in the same restaurant with her sister, in the same town where she grew up, it all felt like kind of a reset. Of course she had kids now, and it was weird seeing Tara so much like she remembered herself as a child. But she felt kind of like maybe she could keep what was good for her there in Eagle Creek, and build on it, rebuild a life for herself and her kids, and avoid the mistakes she'd made before.

Yes, in the back of her mind she did believe it would be best for the kids if they could grow up with a father. But they had their Aunt Beth, and Jill seemed alright too. It had been almost two years since she'd been free from Costas. Maybe she could think about dating again, if the right guy came along, but she wasn't in any hurry. She figured if she had to wait until her kids moved out, that was OK too, and one thing she definitely remembered about Eagle Creek was that when she'd lived there before, the dating pool had definitely seemed pretty shallow.

As for love, Renee still believed in love. She knew it was real, at least for some people. She'd just picked the wrong one. That was her problem. Would the right one come along for her? Maybe someday. Hopefully someday. But right now she had two kids to take care of and the restaurant business to learn/relearn. There wasn't time to worry about love or romance. Maybe the occasional cute guy in a Netflix show or random stranger in a store could give her a slight tingle, but she tried, and mostly succeeded at trying not to dwell on it.

The Girls Hatch a Plot

Like many young girls, Maddie and Tara had lively imaginations. Two weeks before Halloween, Tara's aunt Beth showed them a fun old movie she remembered with lively young girls at the center. It was The Parent Trap and their situation was similar enough that the girls took the hint to heart almost immediately. Did Beth intend to plant that seed? To this day, ever cagey about such things, she still refuses to say.

"What if my mom married your dad?" Tara was the first to say what they both were thinking.

"Then we could be sisters!"

"Ohmygod that would be so awesome!"

"We could share a room, and have bunk beds, and be together all the time!"

"Every night would be like a sleepover. It would be so fun!"

"But what about Cooper?" Maddie remembered Tara's little brother.

"If there were two of us, we'd have him outnumbered," Tara replied. Both girls laughed and giggled with glee. Soon, they began to plot in earnest.

"But how do we get them to fall in love?"

"We've got to get them to spend more time together, that's for sure."

"Yeah. How are we gonna do that?"

"Hmmm. Think hard."

"It's too bad we don't just have a cupid."

"That's it!"

"What?"

"We do have a Cupid: Cooper!"

"But Cupid's a fat little curly-haired baby with wings, and Cooper's a..." Both girls started laughing.

"You're right. He's perfect! Except the wings of course."

"We'll get him the wings...for Halloween!"

"That's it!...but how are you gonna get him to wear that costume? Won't he want to be something else?"

"We're gonna have to talk it up like it's the best thing ever. You can help me. I think together we can get him to want it. Like, 'Coop, just think about how cool it is. You have wings. You can fly—and you get to shoot people with a bow and arrow.'"

"You really think he'll do it?"

"He'll do it if we're part of it too. Like we can go as goddesses or something. And if we go together and we like, include Cooper, my mom will totally go for it."

"But I wanted to be a vampire."

"Maddie, we have to make sacrifices."

"I suppose you're right." Maddie tried to stifle her disappointment.

The girls did a little research and decided they would go as Venus and Aphrodite, to get representation from both the Greek and the Roman goddesses of love, because Cupid had a Greek equivalent too (Eros). And Cooper's middle initial was E (for Eric), plus Tara and Cooper's father was Greek, and Maddie's mother was Italian, it all fit together. And that would make it easier to convince Cooper too. His name even sounded a little bit like "Cupid."

The plan was they would go trick-or-treating together, and get both Renee and Jake to go with them. They would also get Cooper to shoot both their parents with his little arrows. Would that work? To the girls, it at least seemed like the perfect plan. They didn't exactly believe he had the real powers of Cupid, not exactly, but it certainly couldn't hurt. You never know.

Both parents were fine with the costume ideas. It seemed cute enough, and doable, so why not? The girls had some cute little arguments over who was the true goddess of love, Venus or Aphrodite. For Renee, if they were willing to work little brother into their theme, and she didn't have to convince them to let him go trick-or-treating with them, then so much the better. She offered to take both girls, but didn't object when Jake said he wanted to go too. She sympathized when he explained how as a parent, you only get a very small number of these opportunities, and he didn't want to miss any.

Neither Jake nor Renee yet suspected that plans had been laid to help nudge them together. They may have been slow to catch on, but Renee's sister Beth caught on right away. Unbeknownst to Renee and Jake, she even helped. Beth became part of the plot.

Jake walked Maddie over to Renee and Beth's house just after dinner on the night of October 31st. Although the girls had been friends for a couple of months at this point, and spent a fair amount of time there, Jake had never been to their house before. Beth greeted them at the door.

"Come in! My...don't you look cute! Tara's upstairs. Go ahead." Maddie ran off to join her friend, and her friend's mom, to put some finishing touches on her hair. With a little help from the folks at the costume shop, Jake had done OK with the basics, but he needed a little help weaving flowers and laurel leaves into Maddie's hair.

"I'm Jake," he said, extending his hand. "I'm guessing you must be Tara's aunt, Beth."

"Guilty as charged," Beth laughed. "Can I get you anything? Coffee or cocoa before you spend a couple hours walking around out in the cold?"

"Coffee would be great."

"Right this way." Beth led Jake into the kitchen and filled a mug for him.

"Black is fine."

"I'm happy to finally meet the famous Jake. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh...?"

"Maddie's quite proud of you, and I think Tara's a little bit smitten."

"Well I think the world of Tara too. She seems like a great kid. I'm really glad you all moved in here. It's been great for Maddie to have another girl in the neighborhood she can play with."

"Oh I didn't move in. I've been here for years. I even remember you and your wife walking past here with a stroller that I'm guessing must have had Maddie in it. I was very sorry to hear of the accident, by the way."

"Thank you." Jake was polite, but hoped to avoid any discussion of his late wife or how she died.

"I didn't put two and two together until Maddie said her mom got hit by a pickup truck. I remembered the story, but had no idea it was my neighbors..." Beth could read on his face that Jake didn't want to go there. "Sorry. I don't mean to open old wounds."

"That's alright. It's been hard, but we're moving on. Having Tara around helps a lot, to be honest."

"Good. Renee and I grew up in this house. Our parents sold it to me and my partner, Jill, for cheap when they decided to downsize and move out by the golf course. When Renee's husband took off and ran back to Greece, I offered to let them move back here. It took me over a year, but I finally convinced her."

"Oh. I knew Tara's dad was overseas, but I didn't know the rest of it. Tara never said, and I've only met Renee briefly. I'm not really one to pry."

"Yeah, I figured. That's what you got me for. Ask away."

Jake laughed. "OK. Are Renee and Tara planning on sticking around for a while, or is this just temporary?"

"I hope they stay. I like having them around and they're certainly welcome to. Renee's been a great help at the restaurant. We run Giuseppe's. I took it over when Mom and Dad retired."

"Oh yeah, I know the place. Down on 10th Street. I confess I haven't been there in a few years, but I remember it was good. Nice, very homestyle Italian. Huh. Had no idea the owners lived right down the street from me."

"And you work at Dynacorp? Maddie said you're the manager."

Jake laughed again, "I'm A manager, but not THE manager. Supply chain planning."

"You like it?"

"It's alright."

"Well, a good, steady, decent-paying job is certainly nothing to sneeze at these days."

"I suppose you're right. Although sometimes I think I might rather be running a restaurant."

"Oh you may think that now, but if you want to see the other side, just come on down with me sometime. I'll show you life 'behind the scenes'" Beth was starting to like Jake. She had a good feeling about him, good enough that she sincerely hoped he might consider taking her up on that offer.

"I just might do that."

"I hope you do."

Just then, Cooper appeared in the doorway behind Jake, fully in costume as Cupid, holding a tiny rubber-tipped bow-and-arrow set they got from the toy store.

"Have you met Tara's little brother, Cooper? Cooper, put that down!" Cooper was pointing the arrow straight at Jake. As Jake turned around to look, Cooper released the arrow and let it fly. It hit Jake right in the groin.

"Good shot, buddy." Jake was uninjured, and at that moment more amused than anything else. The arrow had been launched with extremely low velocity. It landed close, but the force of impact, such as it was, was on Jake's dick, not on his balls. Cooper had a devilish grin too. Jake saw it before the child quickly turned and ran away back down the hall.

Aunt Beth caught him not too far away. Jake could hear her scolding him never to point arrows at anyone, especially not at their "special area," where he might seriously hurt someone. She marched the boy back in to apologize.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Adams."

"Just be careful to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"OK. I will." The boy sheepishly retreated to the living room.

"Sorry about that. That boy can be an incorrigible trickster sometimes."

"Kind of like Cupid," Jake observed. He was no expert on mythology, but he knew the basics.

"Ha! I guess so."

Renee and the girls came down the stairs.

"Are we ready to go?" Renee asked. "Oh. Hello Jake. I hope Beth hasn't talked your ear off."

"Not at all. She's been quite nice. Makes me feel a little guilty for not getting to know my neighbors better."

Here, relaxed and happy in her own home, Jake was suddenly noticing a new side of Renee. It seemed like she was a different woman than the somewhat cold and closed-off person he had met a couple of times before. She seemed prettier. Her features were more pleasant. Her smile was more natural and gave life to her face. Yes, she was skinny, but the curve from her waist to her ass seemed...just right. And her eyes, as she looked at him, he felt those eyes as if they'd reached into the middle of his chest. He didn't understand what had come over him so suddenly, or why he hadn't noticed how attractive she was before.