The House On Sugar Plum Lane. Judy Duarte

Callie looked at Amy with expressive eyes the same summer-sky shade as her father’s and bit down on her bottom lip.

      Amy, who wasn’t convinced that feeding the dog at the table had been accidental, decided not to make an issue out of it and took her seat.

      “Mommy, can Rachel come over and play tomorrow?”

      The girls had just spent the afternoon together, and while Amy hated to ask Steph to watch Callie two days in a row, she might have to.

      “I’ll talk to her mommy about the two of you getting together, but it would have to be at Rachel’s house.”

      The doorbell sounded, and Cookie let out a bark before dashing for the door. Callie started to climb from her chair, but Amy reached out and placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You wait here, honey. I’ll get it.”

      Once she got to the entry, she peered out the peephole, which revealed Brandon standing on the stoop. So she reached for Cookie’s collar with one hand and opened the door with the other, leaving her to greet him in an awkward position. But impressing Brandon was the least of her concerns these days.

      “I thought I’d bring the check by,” he said.

      Most ex-husbands dropped their alimony and child support payments in the mail, but Brandon insisted upon delivering each check to the house—and always a few days early. She supposed she had to give him credit for that.

      She pulled the squirmy, barking dog aside and allowed her soon-to-be-ex-husband into the house. Once the door was shut, she released Cookie, who immediately lay down on the floor and rolled over, awaiting a scratch.

      “Hey, little guy,” Brandon said, stooping to comply with the pup’s request for attention.

      Cookie, in his pure delight, peed on the floor, and Amy groaned. “Darn it, Cookie,” she uttered, when she really wanted to blame Brandon for showing up in the first place and interrupting dinner.

      Ironic, she thought. There’d been a time when she might have dropped to the floor and rolled over herself just to have Brandon arrive home before the nightly dishes had been done.

      “Did I hear Daddy?” Callie asked as she approached the doorway, obviously neglecting to follow Amy’s earlier directions to remain at the table.

      “You sure did, baby doll.” Brandon broke into his trademark grin, the dimpled cheeks, the lively spark in his eyes that had charmed Amy when they’d been in college.

      Callie, her platinum blond hair pulled into pigtails, ran to her father and lifted her arms for a hug, clearly happy to see him.

      For a moment, guilt sprang forth and clawed at Amy’s chest, berating her for insisting upon the divorce Brandon claimed he didn’t want. But she tamped it down, instead recalling all the times he’d disappointed her, all the nights she’d spent alone in a king-sized bed with only the television or a stack of books to keep her company.

      She’d been able to live with her own loneliness and disappointment, she supposed. But she hadn’t been able to stand by and watch her daughter suffer through the same thing, so she’d done what she had to do to make them all face reality.

      Brandon Masterson might claim to love them, but he’d never been a real part of their family.

      As Amy headed for the guest bathroom for a tissue and one of the disinfectant wipes she kept in the cupboard under the sink, Callie asked her father, “Do you want to see what I made at Rachel’s house today?”

      “You bet I do.” Brandon, with his dark curls in need of a trim—when did he ever find time to schedule a haircut?—smiled at their daughter. Then his gaze sought Amy’s, stopping her in mid-stride before she was able to stoop down and clean up the dog’s piddle on the floor. Something passed between them, although she refused to consider just what it might be. She’d invested too much in an unfulfilling relationship already.

      He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. She read the questions in his eyes. “How’s it going? Do you need anything? Are you sure this is what you really want?”

      But nothing was ever going to change. His career was still his life, and his tunnel-vision drive to be the best attorney at the firm had been all consuming.

      While Amy would be the first to admit that Brandon was an attractive man and that her heart still strummed when he sketched a gaze over her, she hadn’t been willing to share him with anyone, whether it was another woman or a prestigious law firm.

      At this point, she realized it really didn’t matter who or what her rival was and broke eye contact long enough to clean up after the dog.

      Callie led her daddy toward the kitchen.

      As soon as Amy had thrown away the tissue and wipes and washed her hands, she joined them next to the refrigerator, where the child’s artwork was displayed.

      Callie was pointing to her latest masterpiece, a sheet of red construction paper on which she’d glued a hodgepodge of scraps: material, buttons, and yarn.

      “It’s pretty,” Brandon told her. “Did you cut all those pieces by yourself?”

      “Uh-huh. And I glued them, too.”

      “I also like this one.” Brandon turned to a sheet of paper on which Callie had drawn a picture of her family.

      “This is me and Mommy and Cookie,” she said, pointing to the three figures that took up the left side of the paper. “And this one over here is you.” She pointed to a rather small, nondescript stick man whose only claim to fame was a big red smiley face.

      Amy knew that teachers, therapists, and social workers sometimes analyzed the pictures children drew. She hadn’t needed any kind of degree in art psychology to see that the daddy figure in Callie’s picture was small, underdeveloped, and clearly separated from the others. But Callie had drawn similar sketches when they’d still lived together in the sprawling house in Mar Vista Estates, and Brandon had been noticeably detached, too.

      “Want to see my new shoes?” Callie asked her father.

      “Sure.” When the little girl dashed off, Brandon returned his focus to the family picture. “She’s got me smiling, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

      Before Amy could even consider a response, his cell phone rang. He looked at the display, then frowned. “I need to take this call.”

      Of course he did. He’d never received a phone call that he didn’t answer.

      Each time Amy felt herself weaken, each time she looked into Brandon’s apologetic eyes or listened to him make promises to do better, something like this would happen. And she’d be reminded of the day she’d finally told herself that enough was enough.

      She’d had a late hair appointment and her babysitter had canceled. There was a work-related dinner party that evening—a “command performance,” he’d called it. So she’d called him at the office. “I’m going to let Callie stay the full day at preschool, and the sitter can be at our house by seven. But will you please pick her up on your way home?”

      “Sure.”

      “I can ask Stephanie to do it if you’re going to be too busy….”

      “It’s okay. I need to get home early so that I have time for a shower.”

      “You’ll need to make sure you get to the school before six,” she’d added, “because the afternoon director is going on vacation and has a plane to catch. She’ll need to leave on time today.”

      “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

      Amy had gotten home at a quarter to seven and found Brandon already dressed and talking on his cell phone. He ended the call, then smiled. “Your hair looks great, honey.”

      She’d only been able to appreciate the compliment for a second because he glanced behind her and asked, “Where’s Callie?”