Our daughter’s words became mumbled and messy, leaving me to catch scant few. But by the time she had finished spilling them, I knew only that Cindie was alone. And scared. And that she wanted Michelle to come live with her after junior year. To give her a chance, she said. Because, doesn’t every mother, even a bad one, deserve a second chance?
Most shockingly of all, from the sound of her voice, Michelle had taken it all to heart. “She sounded so pitiful,” she said. “I mean … Dad … you should have heard her. She was crying so hard.”
Westley kissed her head again. “Listen to me … are you listening?” Michelle nodded. “I want you to not worry about this tonight, hear me?” Again, she nodded, and in that single movement, relief slipped through me. Westley wouldn’t let this happen. He would never let our daughter just pack up and move. He knew all the things to say. The logical things. Things about school and sports and friends—Oh, Sylvie!—and her church group. About senior year and awards that always went to students with a history in the school, and GPAs, which would surely be affected. And he’d speak them with an authority I was no longer sure I had. “I want you to go upstairs and get your shower and get ready for bed. Do you have homework?”
“I did it already. Before youth group.”
“Good. Then go get a shower, take some Tylenol, and go to bed. You don’t have to answer Cindie right now and we aren’t going to make any decisions tonight.”
We. Good … good. This was a we decision. Not a she decision or a he decision. We would decide. Two to one, at best. Or at worst …
“Okay,” Michelle whispered. She righted herself from her father’s arms, then said, “I’ve got a lot to pray about, huh?”
“You do,” Westley admitted. “But I wouldn’t expect the Lord to give you any answers before the sun comes up, so, give him some time to mull it over, too.”
Michelle smiled then, wobbly and unsure. But she smiled nonetheless. Stood. Kissed her father followed by me, her lips quaking and lingering longer than usual. Then left the room.
Westley’s gaze found mine and held, but he said nothing. Too numb to speak, I closed the book that had remained open throughout the conversation. Then, as soon as Michelle’s bedroom door closed, he leaned over and snatched the phone from the table, punched in a number he knew by heart, and waited.
“She’s not answering,” he said, killing the call.
“Of course she’s not,” I whispered.
“I’d like to go up there and yank a knot in her,” he growled, then stood to pace around the room. “Who does she think she is?”
“Her mother,” I said around the knot forming in my chest, because I knew—I knew—no matter all I hoped for, that by summer’s end, Michelle would move to Tucker permanently. That every plan we’d made for senior year would have been tossed out the window of possibility, leaving only a door of regret. Homecoming. Prom. Graduation. Senior trip … these would be left for Cindie to enjoy. Applications to colleges—Michelle wanted Emory more than any of the others … Cindie would pore over these with her. Not us. Cindie. We’d gotten Michelle this far and now Cindie would grab the baton from our hands and run toward the finish line as the victor.
Somehow … somehow … I’d known it all along.
And, of course, I’d been right. All along.
November 1993
We fell into a rhythm, my husband and I, as familiar as the one we’d had when Michelle lived at home. Only now, instead of Michelle getting the silverware and placing it on the table—just so, the way I’d taught her—I performed the task. Now, instead of Michelle clearing the table, Westley gathered the dishes and took them into the kitchen where he placed them, gently, beneath soapy water to soak. Later, I came along and transferred them to the dishwasher.
Now, instead of banter about school and friends and church and dance class and track meets and teachers to avoid, our supper conversations were filled with directionless lines about work and what he planned to watch that evening on television and where I was in the latest Sue Grafton alphabet novels.
I’d made it to “J” which meant “as far as they went.”
For now.
Westley brought up going to Paul and DiAnn’s from time to time, but I nixed the idea before he could even finish the suggestion. “I can’t,” I said. “Not yet.”
The last time, over a Friday morning breakfast, his shoulders rolled forward. “Ali, she’s not dead. She’s living a few hours away, that’s all. She would have gone off to Emory in a year, anyway.”
I opened my mouth to argue the point that no, she wasn’t dead, and yes, I knew that about Emory, but the four hours away may as well have been four states away. To inform him that, unbeknownst to him, I felt as though I’d lost a part of myself. That Cindie and I had been playing some sort of chess game since he and I had married and that she, with all her wrong moves, had me in checkmate. That I only managed to go through the motions at work every day and then, after our supper, I went to the balcony off our bedroom and stared up, wondering if Michelle was looking into the same stars as I, searching for Orion as we’d done every autumn as far back as I could remember. To remind him that we’d not seen her since late July and wouldn’t see her again until Thanksgiving, which felt like a million years away rather than two weeks. Instead, I pressed my lips together and said, “I know that,
