Jeff's lips parted in what looked like unhappy surprise. "He wasn't around at all?"
Leah shook her head. "He left town and we didn't really hear from him." She looked down at Emily and sighed. "I wanted something better for her, but I guess that's not how it worked out."
Jeff leaned forward, and when she looked up, he met her eyes. His were glinting silver in the firelight, and they looked fierce, almost angry. But his voice was soft. "I didn't want to ask about her dad. It's not my business to bring it up. But if you want to talk about it...?"
Leah didn't. She didn’t want to get her whole sordid, awful story all over this kind man who came from a family where fathers didn't abandon their children and everyone got married, had tons of babies, and lived happily ever after.
But she'd brought it up, so she should give him at least a little bit of an explanation. "We were engaged. But...he didn't want a baby," she said briefly. "So he left."
"Can I ask when? If you don't want to talk about it anymore, that's completely fine."
"It was about nine months ago." Leah kissed Emily's head, glad that she wasn't old enough to understand what they were talking about yet. She reached for the peaches, so Leah fed her another bite.
When she looked up, Jeff's mouth had compressed into an angry line. "He left you when your baby was a month old."
Leah nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Did he leave you any money? Any way of supporting yourself?"
She shook her head.
"So you've been all alone with a baby for nine months?"
"Yep." She took Emily's hand, waving it a little to distract herself from the content of the conversation. "I had a little saved up—thankfully Rob and I hadn't merged our bank accounts or anything—and I was able to work part-time and get childcare from some of the town ladies who were kind enough to do it for free or for cheap.”
She didn’t look up at Jeff. She didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. She’d accepted that her story was sad and pathetic, and that was fine. She’d given up on pride a long time ago. But she didn’t want this man to think she was pathetic.
So she didn’t look, just kept talking.
“I scrimped and saved and made my money last as long as I could. But it ran out. So now I'm on my way to my mom's place to stay with her. And hopefully I can find a job with flexible hours, and some kind of affordable childcare, and start saving up some money." She waved Emily's hand again. "We'll make it work, right, baby? We can make it work."
"Ba! Ba ba ba!"
"More peaches, I hear you." Leah fed her another bite.
Jeff stood up suddenly. Leah looked up, startled, but he was already pacing over to the tiny kitchenette window, looking out at the snow.
"I know that men do this sort of thing," he said conversationally. Leah wasn't sure if she was imagining the thread of strain running through his voice, or if he really was trying incredibly hard to keep his voice level.
"It's not like I didn't know that fathers abandoned their children, and those children's mothers, all the time. Obviously I know that. But meeting you and Emily...Leah, I can't understand why anyone would do that to you. And I think it takes a special kind of monster to leave a mother and a baby without any support, or money, or love."
Monster. Leah had never thought of Rob as a monster. He was just a man, with a man's flaws. Of course he didn't want to change diapers and clean up spit-up. Of course he'd rather be out having beers with his friends than spending time with an infant. Wasn't that what men were like? Weren't all men like that?
This man wasn't.
This man was telling her right now what he thought of men like that.
"I'm so sorry that happened to you," Jeff continued, "and I can’t tell you how much I admire you for doing this on your own. If there's anything, anything at all I can do to help, please tell me. Please don't hesitate. I'll do it, I promise you I will."
Leah swallowed. She was tearing up, and she tried to keep any hint of that out of her voice.
He couldn’t help her. Because what she needed most was money, money to fix her car and support Emily, and it wasn’t like he was a millionaire who could just drop cash on her head. And she didn’t want to take money from him, even if he had it. She didn’t want this connection that she felt with him to become a...transaction.
"Thank you," she said as levelly as she could. "You’re already doing so much. If you want to do more, you can cook us that dinner. I'm really—I'm really looking forward to that."
Her voice caught at the very end, and Jeff turned around immediately, just in time for a tear to slip out of one eye and streak down her face in a hot line.
Instantly, Jeff was at her side. He had a hand almost on her shoulder, but hesitated. "Is it okay if I—"