'It's not how they cook them, it's what they make them out of.'
Tyrone looked at him.
'Huh?'
His father pointed out the window over the table and grinned real
big.
Tyrone looked at the buffalo. He looked at his burger.
Ah... Both Nadines laughed.
All of a sudden Tyrone wasn't that hungry. Then again, he was going to
eat this burger, and he would do it if it killed him. No way was he
going to let his dad get this one, no... way.
He smiled, took a big bite, and smiled again, mouth full.
'Good. I love it.'
Wednesday, June 8th Washington, D.C.
Michaels felt as if he were a thousand years old and mostly turned to
dust as he held the phone's receiver in a death grip that threatened to
break his hand or the instrument.
He kept his voice as light as he could.
'... really great, Dadster, and all the kids in my class love him.'
His daughter was talking about Byron Baumgardner, a teacher at her
school in Boise--and his ex-wife Megan's boyfriend.
No, not boyfriend--fiance. They were getting married at the end of the
month. And they wanted to have Byron the bearded wonder adopt his
daughter, move in and take over as her father, and deny Michaels
visitation--if he allowed it.
Needless to say, Michaels had not been invited to the wedding.
His initial inclination had been to fight it to the death-preferably
Megan and Byron's death. He didn't like either of them right now, and
at their first meeting had put the bearded wonder on his ass when the
man had grabbed him. Megan had been doing her usual slash-and-burn
number on him, and when he'd said something back in an angry retort,
dear young Byron had taken it upon himself to defend her honor. Without
thinking about it, Michaels had decked the man, thus proving that the
silat he'd been learning actually worked.
In retrospect, that had been a mistake, but boy, it sure felt good at
the time.
Well, Byron the bearded wonder would find out about how much honor his
new love had the first time he crossed her--Megan fought dirty, always
had. Michaels had overlooked that for a long time, blaming himself for
a lot of their troubles, but eventually he realized it wasn't all his
fault. Yeah, he had spent too much time at the office, and yeah, he
could withdraw into his own head and not engage even when he was home,
but he had been a good father, and when Megan started throwing the
lousy-dad crap in his face, it was hard to smile and shrug it off.
But would taking his ex and her new love to the legal mat and trying to
choke them out benefit Susie? How would an ugly custody battle affect
her? Sure, kids were resilient, they could bounce back after really
nasty trauma--mental, physical, whatever--but did he want to be the one
who caused that trauma?
No. Even if it was mostly Megan's doing, she was going to be the
person who got Susie out of bed every day,
