Father to Be by Marilyn Pappano Page B

or I can pick it out for you. It’s your choice.”
    Anger made Caleb’s dark eyes even darker and sharpened the ever-present hostility as he slowly, noisily, breathed to control his emotions. Off to the side, the dressing room door squeaked as Jacob pushed it open, and back in one corner, Gracie made a delighted sound. “I’m pretty!” she exclaimed, and Mandy replied, “Of course you’re pretty,” as if there’d never been any question of it. J.D. didn’t take his eyes off Caleb, who returned his stare for a moment before finally selecting a pair of shorts.
    “You can make me get them,” he said quietly. “But you can’t make me wear them.”
    J.D. shrugged as if it made no difference to him, then turned his back to check on Jacob. A moment later Caleb pushed past him and a moment after that the dressing room door slammed shut. The sigh he released wasn’t one of relief, J.D. told himself. There would be plenty more standoffs to come. He hadn’t won anything yet.
    By the time they left the store an hour later, that morning’s headache was back and he’d made a dent in his bank balance, but the kids had clothes. Gracie and Noah had wanted to wear one of their new outfits home, but Caleb had insisted they put on their old clothes. Their
own
clothes, he’d called them.
    They couldn’t separate the kids, Noelle had insisted yesterday. The younger ones needed Caleb and he needed them. J.D. couldn’t help but wonder if in this case separation might be the best thing.
    They went to the shoe store down the block. It took another hour—faced with so many choices, Gracie had found it difficult to decide—but at last they returned to the truck.
    “What’re you gonna buy us now?” Caleb asked snidely.
    “Food. Then we’re going home.” There he was going to swallow a bottle of aspirin and another of antacid, put a wet cloth over his eyes and plugs in his ears, and not move until the following morning.
    They drove the few blocks to the grocery store. As they turned into the parking lot, Caleb’s palms got damp, and as they pulled into a parking space, his face grew warm. He didn’t want to go in there, had sworn he’d never come back. Now, only a couple of days later, here he was.
    But he wasn’t going in.
    Grayson turned off the engine and opened his door. In back the kids were leaning against Caleb’s seat, ready toclimb out. He looked at them over his shoulder before saying, as if it were no big deal, “We’ll wait here.”
    Grayson didn’t believe him. “Yeah, right. Come on—all of you.”
    Arguing wouldn’t do any good. Caleb knew that. He’d argued with just about every adult he’d met in the last few days and none of them even listened to him. They all thought he was just some dumb kid who couldn’t possibly have anything important to say. Maybe he was a dumb kid—hadn’t he been held back once in school? And hadn’t he gotten caught by the cops? But he knew what he wanted, and what he wanted most of all just then was not to go back in that store.
    “Let’s go, Caleb,” the doctor said, sounding pissed. “Now.”
    Clenching his jaw, Caleb shoved the door open, stood back while the kids jumped out, then dragged his feet to the door. Inside, he took a quick look around. The checkers were busy ringing up customers, and the desk at the other end, where the man had pushed him down, was empty. Maybe he wasn’t workin’ today. Maybe nobody who was workin’ that night was there now—at least, nobody who’d remember him.
    He was so busy convincing himself of that that he almost ran into Gracie when she stopped all of a sudden. Noah joined her, and, with their eyes open wide and their mouths too, they looked around them. They’d never been in a grocery store before. Their mother, before she ran off, liked to come to town by herself so she could look in all the stores and pretend she wasn’t poor and didn’t have a husband and four kids waiting at home. Their dad had always come