Daddy Love Read Free

cap maybe, pulled down low over his forehead, and he was wearing glasses—dark glasses—his eyes were hidden behind those dark reflector glasses like motorcyclists wear—and I guess—I wasn’t going to step aside—I was screaming for Robbie and that was all I was thinking about—the van wasn’t going fast yet and I thought—must have thought—that I could grab the door handle or pound on the windshield with my fist—I could get Robbie back, I thought—and—I guess—he aimed right at me, he ran me down
… She wouldn’t remember being dragged beneath the van fifty feet in the parking lot and the van lurching and skidding to shake her off until finally her body fell 
loose and was flung aside like a sack of laundry and when the first witnesses arrived she was lying seemingly lifeless on the pavement—in utter astonishment having seen a woman struck down by a van and dragged beneath it across the pavement for fifty feet and her body finally released.
And the van left the lot, sped up and left the lot, we’d just come out of Home Depot and were too far away to see who was driving the van or what color it was or the license plate, we ran to the poor woman lying there broken-looking we were sure had to be dead.

3
    “Take my hand. Please, Robbie!”
    He did. He took her hand.
    In the mall he’d become over-excited and hadn’t always obeyed Mommy unless she raised her voice but now in the confusion of the parking lot the five-year-old was subdued, apprehensive.
    She would think
The first of the mistakes.
    “Are you tired, sweetie? We’ll be home in a half hour. Help Mommy find our car, OK?”
    It was his responsibility. This was the game. Robbie loved games because (usually) Robbie was good at games.
    “See it yet? It’s somewhere up ahead.”
    The game was to allow Robbie to lead
her
. Tugging at her hand to hurry
her
.
    But Robbie wasn’t sure where the car was. Too much had happened in the mall to intrigue him and dazzle him and he’d wakened early that morning and naturally he was tired, and inclined to befretful and anxious. And she could hardly say in exasperation to a bright energetic five-year-old
Didn’t I tell you, you’ll be sorry if you don’t take a nap?
    It was hard for Dinah to scold her son. Hard for Dinah to scold anyone.
    Even when, at Story Hour at the local public library, it was her dear son Robbie who sometimes chattered and jostled other children, he was so
enthusiastic.
    Or when, feverish with excitement, Robbie slipped his hand out of hers inside the mall and ran on his short stubby legs to the Easter bunny enclosure paying no heed to Mommy calling after him with exasperated laughter.
    The mall was a favorite place for mothers with young children. There was a children’s play area and there were numerous “outdoor” restaurants serving inexpensive food. Each season had its appropriate decorations—Christmas had lasted a long time at the mall; and now with the approach of Easter, fluffy white bunnies were displayed amid pots of bloodred tulips and vivid-yellow daffodils. Some of the mothers seemed to be herding as many as three—four?—young children and these women Dinah regarded with awe. How could they manage, with more than one child! Robbie was as much as she could handle, or could imagine wishing to handle. All of her volcanic Mommy-love was invested in this single child. Whit was possibly less obsessed with parenthood than Dinah, but not by much less.
    Imagine, if Robbie was twins!
a friend had said and Whit had said wittily
You mean he isn’t?
    “This way, honey. I think we want to go in this direction.”
    Robbie had been tugging impatiently at her hand. He must have forgotten Kresge Paints though Mommy had pointed out the garish rainbow facade as a landmark for locating the car.
    With a fraction of her (distracted) consciousness she’d been aware of the vehicle, a van, that passed her and Robbie slowly as if the driver was looking for a place to park as close to