“You weren’t ever around!”

“I see that now. I realize now, I should have listened to you.”

“Fine. There’s still time,” she said. “Take a firmer hand now.”

“That won’t be enough,” he said dismally.

“Ted! Get into counseling. With them. Learn to be a better parent. Learn to show your children you love them enough to be sure they’re safe, and help them learn to respect themselves and their family. For God’s sake, I can’t do it for you!”

He looked at his feet. “Krissy’s pregnant,” he said.

That silenced her. Krissy? Fifteen-year-old Krissy? “Oh, God,” she said. She backed away from him and sat on one of the pilings holding up the dock. “How pregnant?” she asked weakly.

“Not very. Six or eight weeks. She got scared and told her mother. Her mother called me.”

“She must be terrified,” Peyton said.

“She’s a wreck. Her mother didn’t prepare her for this.”

“Did you?” she asked.

“Me? I’m her father!”

“My point,” she said, shaking her head. She stood, surprised to find her legs were trembling. “Ted, I can’t fix this for you. You have to get some family counseling, maybe get her mother involved. Krissy needs some family support right now. You all have decisions to make, and it’s very important that everyone is on board, going forward with this family event.”

“The decision is made,” he said. “She’ll terminate.”

“That’s what she wants?” Peyton asked.

“It doesn’t matter what she wants! She’s fifteen!”

“Oh, God,” Peyton said. “Is Krissy okay with that decision?”

“She’d better get okay with it because she’s fifteen, and that’s what’s going to happen!”

Peyton swallowed. She hated herself for even asking the next question. She didn’t particularly like Krissy. Krissy had always been mean and selfish around her. She was a horrible fifteen-year-old. She had lied, defied and treated Peyton not just disrespectfully but cruelly. But she was fifteen and pregnant. “Ted, has Krissy told you what she wants?”

“Irrelevant,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“What did she say?” Peyton asked.

“She thinks she wants to keep it, but that’s absurd. She can’t be a mother, she’s too young, she’s in high school. She’ll terminate.”

“Oh, man,” Peyton said, shaking her head. “You can’t force her to terminate the pregnancy. You guys need an intervention in the worst way.”

“What do you care? You’re pro-choice!”

She sighed and shook her head in frustration. How had she managed to ignore this side of him until she was giving up, until she was leaving him? Was it because in the beginning he hadn’t acted that way toward her? She took a deep breath. “Actually, you don’t know anything about my politics, but it appears you think you’re pro-choice, though I’d have to wonder if you even know what it means. Choice, Ted. Not pro-abortion. As far as I know, there is no pro-abortion network. I’d never condone forcing a woman to terminate a pregnancy. What the hell do you think a choice is?”

“Bullshit! I’ve seen you at work in my practice with women who jeopardize their lives with pregnancy because of their cardiac condition! I’ve seen you!”

“No, you haven’t,” she said coolly. It was true, they’d had the rare patient who couldn’t survive a full-term pregnancy, and neither could the fetus. It was an awful situation, one rife with heartbreak. “My patients get the facts, the best information I have, but I would never force anyone to make a decision that they’d always regret. Not even if it threatened their life—that’s not my decision. It’s the patient’s decision. Krissy could be irreparably damaged by being forced to do something she’s violently opposed to. It could be harder for her to recover from that than from early motherhood. Besides, there are other options. There’s adoption. There’s even open adoption. Oh, Ted, talk to your daughter.”

“That’s her mother’s job!”

“It’s also yours!” she shouted. Suddenly she realized her forehead had broken out in a sweat, and she wiped it with her palm. “Listen, Ted, I can’t help you. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t help you. Krissy has never listened to a thing I’ve said. She hates me. If she doesn’t actually hate me, she definitely resents me. I would be of no use to you. You’re on your own.”

She walked past him, heading for the clinic.

“Peyton, please,” he said. “Please. There isn’t anyone else to ask.”

She slowly turned back. “Yes, Ted. There are lots of people to ask. Call an OB. Maybe a women’s health NP. Tell them what you’re up against and ask for some real high-end counseling. Explain you’re divorced, a single father, you’re up a creek and you don’t know how to help your fifteen-year-old daughter, but you need to hear all the options. If you can’t think of anyone, ask the triage nurse in your practice—she’s very savvy. She can point you in the right direction. But don’t come back here and ask me. When all I wanted in the world was to love you and your kids, none of you cared. You didn’t help. You didn’t support me, and then you betrayed my trust.” She started walking again, then she turned back toward him. “My God, did you really think I’d go back to your practice and your house?”

“I hoped,” he said.

“Ted, why did you fight for joint custody when you and Olivia divorced?”

“Don’t make this about my divorce! I’ve always loved my kids!”

“I think you really believe that, but you’ve never spent time with them. You never gave up a golf game to be with them.”

“I worked like a bloody slave to make sure they had everything they needed, that they’d have a decent school, a good house, a college savings....”

“That’s all money. Most of my college was paid for by scholarship. I also worked and saved. Did you think I’d take care of your office, your three kids, your new baby and a grandchild? Did you?”

He didn’t answer right away. “You have no idea how much I need you.”

“And here I thought you loved me,” she said softly.

“I do love you! I’ve always loved you! I tried to show it.”

“Why didn’t I know this about you?” she asked in a soft voice. “I thought you at least loved your kids in your own clumsy, inadequate way. I thought you were just too permissive, but you just couldn’t be bothered.” She shook her head. “Those poor kids. They’re going to be such a mess, and they have nowhere to turn.”

“You could help,” he said. “I’ll do anything you say.”

She shook her head. “I can’t help you. Ted, I don’t love you.”

“You did once,” he argued. “You could love me again.”

“No. I can’t manufacture that just because it’s what you want.”

“We could try one more time.”

“No,” she said firmly. “What you have to do is admit your mistakes, live with them and take responsibility.”