Not that everything had been perfect-perfect. There was the time they went out for burgers after a church event but failed to call home first. Nikki and I were on the phone with each other within five minutes of their curfew, nervously remarking that the “girls have never been late before.” On the contrary, they typically walked in five to ten minutes before curfew, gabbing and giggling, then saying good-bye. Punishment had been ridiculously light—neither girl had been allowed to go out the following weekend—and both were so apologetic that, after church on Sunday, Westley offered an acquittal.
As she aged, Michelle took on more of her mother’s look—Stevie Nicks with a little Westley Houser thrown in around the hair color and complexion. Everywhere we went, heads turned, but—while Westley and I were acutely aware of it—Michelle seemed oblivious. Unlike Sylvie—and more especially unlike Cindie—Michelle dressed down. Jeans. Tees. Sneakers. All of which she wore like a model strutting the catwalk.
Above all, she loved me. And I adored her. Those who didn’t know she was not my biological child wouldn’t know. She mimicked me in so many ways, it was as if she and I had been cut from the same cloth. Except that—like Westley—Michelle had no fear. Her athletic abilities—whether on snow or water skis, dancing, swimming, running—were all Westley who cheered her onward and upward.
Everything … everything … about life seemed good. Worth living. Westley and I were happier than we’d ever been and our daughter was the bloom of that rose. Until that Wednesday evening when our lives forever changed. Michelle dashed in from church by way of the kitchen door at the very moment the phone rang. She jerked the cordless off its charger where it rested next to the copper hammered canister set the moment I entered from the family room.
“Hey, Mom,” she panted, then pushed the button to answer. “Hello?” I leaned against the doorjamb, waiting to hear if the call was for me or Westley. “Oh … hey … yeah, I just came in from church.” Michelle glanced at me, mouthed, “Cindie,” then returned to her call. “I love you, too …”
I returned to the family room.
“That Michelle?” Westley asked from his position on the sofa where he lay supine in a pair of pajama bottoms and a tee, his legs crossed at the ankles.
“Mmm … Cindie’s on the phone.”
Westley returned his attention to an episode of Home Improvement without comment. I tried to do the same—to focus on Tim and Jill’s issues instead of my own. Instead, I became more and more aware of the shuffle of Michelle’s feet as she ascended the staircase, the lilt of her voice as it faded into her room, the closing of her bedroom door, the minutes ticking by. It was always like this when Cindie called. I wanted Michelle to have a relationship with her—I did—but their conversations made me uncomfortable. Anxious, as if expecting the worst possible scenario to follow. Even though, most of the time, within an hour or a day, depending on the time of the call, Michelle shared with me their conversation. Leaving me torn in two—part of me wanting to know everything, another part wanting nothing to do with their connection.
Home Improvement ended and Westley changed the channel to watch the last half of a news magazine show starring Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric while I tucked my feet under me and tried to concentrate on the Sue Grafton novel I’d started the night before. I’d just managed to block out the drone of voices from the TV and slip into the world of Kinsey Millhone when Michelle stepped into the room and cleared her throat.
“Dad?”
Westley cast his glance behind him without raising his head. “Yeah.”
She looked at me briefly, then back to him. “Can we talk for a minute?”
There was a change in her voice. Something was wrong. I knew it. Instinctively, as though, somehow, every fear I’d ever pushed aside—especially since Michelle had come into my life—now rose to the surface and demanded to be dealt with. “We’re here now,” they shouted from within me. “We’re here and we are far worse than you ever imagined.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Michelle tucked a strand of her long almond-blond hair behind an ear, shifted from one foot to the next, then set the cordless on the end table. She jammed her hands into the front pockets of her jeans. Westley sat up then, his fatherly instinct recognizing the ominousness in the moment. “Sit here,” he said to her, patting the cushion beside him, then lowered the volume of the television.
And she did. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Cindie just called...”
“Your mother told me,” he said, glancing at me, concern now drawing lines along a face still handsome and strong. “And?”
“She and Kyle are getting a divorce.”
Blood rushed through me, leaving a shiver to race behind.
“Oh,” Westley commented. “Wow. Man. That’s too bad. He’s such a nice guy … I thought …”
Michelle’s eyes welled with tears and she swatted at them.
“Honey …” I started to move. To stand and walk across the room. To gather my daughter in my arms and tell her … what? That it would be okay? Too cliché, I knew. That this was probably somehow Cindie’s doings and that—truth be told—I’d been surprised the marriage lasted as long as it had. Surprised but grateful.
Or was I going to say—to actually say—that this wasn’t her fault. Michelle’s. That I understood how she felt, when, clearly, I did not. But Westley’s eyes told me without words to stay put. To remain quiet.
“And she—um—she wants me to come live with her,” Michelle said, now looking only at her father. She clasped her hands together, cracked her knuckles. “Kyle—um—Kyle took Karson.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Westley moaned. “What has she done?”
Michelle began to sob, her shoulders hunched and shaking. Again, I wanted to go
