A Measure of Happiness by Lorrie Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

way before he was born that he wasn’t going to be worth the trouble. Maybe Katherine, if she was his birth mother, hadn’t wanted to keep a kid she’d made with Mr. No Name.
    Maybe his birth mother hadn’t written down his father’s name because there had been too many fucking candidates.
    Literally.
    Katherine’s chin tightened, and she glanced around the café. Her eyes watered and she took in the pastry-filled glass cases, the carafes lining the coffee station, the tables full of early morning customers. Then her gaze returned to Zach, but she didn’t look him in the eye. She nodded in his general direction. “Work is security, another kind of freedom. I found what I was looking for, and more.”
    Before today, Zach hadn’t considered that maybe, just maybe, the fault lay not in him but in his birth parents. What if 50 percent of his DNA came from she who couldn’t be bothered? What if the other half was a gift from what’s his name? What if Zach was a 100 percent loser? Genetics might fail you, but math, good old math, inherently made sense.
    A wail issued from behind Zach’s head, as high-pitched and insistent as any fire station’s alarm. Katherine homed in on the cute, screaming toddler in the next booth.
    The toddlers sitting across from the screamer focused on their buddy with their tiny brows furrowed, as though deciding whether to jump in and sing a round.
    The mother of the crying baby turned and mouthed, Teething, to Katherine, and Katherine’s eyes flashed on the word. “Hang on,” Katherine told the mom. “I’ll be right back,” Katherine told Zach, and she race-walked past the bakery cases and into the kitchen. Her emergency stride, long and purposeful, made Zach think of his mother and all those mad dashes from their driveway and into the house for Band-Aids and bacitracin. It was a miracle Zach had any skin left on his knees.
    Seconds later, Katherine returned with a white bakery bag in hand. She reached into the bag and pulled out some kind of hard-looking cookie. “Would Christopher like a banana oat teething biscuit?” Katherine asked Christopher’s mother.
    â€œHe’d love one.” Christopher’s mother took the biscuit from Katherine and handed it to her son. Without missing a beat, the baby clamped down on the edge of the biscuit, whimpered, and quieted. Leftover tears trickled from his big blue eyes and down either shiny cheek. Zach imagined soreness leaving the boy’s gums, relief taking its place.
    Katherine Lamontagne, the baby whisperer. Who knew?
    Christopher’s mother kissed the top of her son’s ear. “Thank you, Katherine! You’re an angel to bake homemade teething biscuits. You don’t have to—”
    â€œThat’s what I’m here for.” Katherine waved away the praise, but her smile, the way she tilted her chin down, said she was taking it all in. Moments ago, Katherine had claimed she’d found what she was looking for at the bakery and more. Was this what she’d meant?
    â€œWould Jones and Sam—?” Katherine asked.
    â€œYes, please,” the other two mothers sang out. One of the babies banged his plastic cup against the table. The other little guy opened and closed a sticky-looking hand in Katherine’s direction.
    Katherine gave the cookies to the moms and then slid back into the booth across from Zach. Her voice came out breathy, the way Zach’s mother sounded when she was doling out praise. “Now, where were we?”
    Zach offered Katherine the truest statement he’d uttered all morning. “Beats me,” he said. “I haven’t got a clue.”

C HAPTER 3
    F or Celeste, junior year in high school had been a series of firsts. Her first boyfriend, Justin, had led to first sex, first breakup, and the first time she’d suffered the assault of vicious gossip. Another first? Letting her best friend,