Before Newport Cove
THE YOUNG RANGERS GROUP was proceeding exactly as Tessa had hoped. Addison earned badges and learned songs and tried, along with the other boys, to rub together two sticks to start a fire (that was about as successful as Tessa had expected, and after a few minutes Danny had pulled out a Zippo lighter, calling it a “Ranger magic wand”). The kids toasted marshmallows and made s’mores. They argued about what colors to paint their derby car. They laughed a lot.
“He’s a saint,” one of the other mothers had said to Tessa as she watched Danny give the kids high-fives. “We’re thinking about getting him a nice gift card for the holidays. Want to go in on it?”
“I’d love to,” Tessa had said. Sometimes Tessa wondered if Harry’s being absent from the children’s lives during so much of their formative years had created a distance between them. He loved the kids, of course. He just didn’t seem terribly interested in them. He’d play with them for a few minutes, then pick up the newspaper or turn on his iPad. He never created forts out of pillows or put shaving cream on Addison’s chin and gave him a razor with the blade taken out so that Addison could pretend he was shaving alongside his dad. He didn’t do the kind of fun things that sitcom fathers seemed to. Sometimes Tessa would watch Phil on Modern Family—clueless, ridiculous Phil—and she’d wished she’d married a guy with a little more Phil in him.
But he’d set up college savings accounts for the kids when they were babies. He’d put up safety gates on the stairs to protect them. He didn’t get angry when the kids bounded into the bedroom early in the morning and pulled the covers off him. Maybe he wasn’t a great father, but he was a good enough one.
But Danny was present in all the ways Harry wasn’t. Danny listened to the kids, and threw back his head and laughed when they said something unintentionally funny. He sat cross-legged on the floor with them. He ate a charred marshmallow at the campfire and made ridiculous faces that practically sent the boys into convulsions.
“Remember, uniforms come in next week,” Danny had said at the conclusion of one of the meetings.
“Say thank you to Danny,” Tessa had prompted Addison, who’d run over to Danny. Danny had reached down to give Addison a hug. “You’re welcome, buddy,” he’d said.
Tessa was in a rush to drive home and get the kids bathed and into bed. Harry was out of town again, and it was a school night. They’d be tired in the morning if she didn’t hurry.
She, the eternal worrier, still hadn’t picked up on a single sign.