I broke down then, crying hysterically. Sobbing that I simply could not believe Michelle had left us.
“What do you think?” Westley asked me. “That she loves her more than us?”
I nodded between hunched shoulders.
“Come on, Ali,” he said, reaching for my hand. “She loves you to bits, you know that. And she loves me, too. Hey now …” His thumb rubbed over the back of my hand. “Do you know why I’m okay with all this?”
I shook my head, no, my head still down.
“Because I wouldn’t be surprised if Michelle doesn’t come home for good after the Christmas holidays.”
I looked up then, tears and snot dripping from my nose. “Really?”
He handed me a napkin. “Really. Now, how often have I been wrong?”
Chapter Forty
But he was wrong. She didn’t come home for good. Instead, she returned to Tucker, leaving me with a lovely antique pearl bracelet with a rhinestone fishhook clasp she’d picked out herself at an antique market, along with entirely too much information on the details of the dissolution of Cindie’s marriage. Of her long and sordid affair with one of her professors. Her tumultuous divorce from Kyle. Of the custody battle she ultimately lost because she never really fought. Michelle had told me in explicit detail about Patterson—who, according to Michelle, was a nice enough guy who’d managed to salvage his marriage but was back in Cindie’s life regardless—of Karson’s true paternity, and of how Kyle had threatened to go to the college board with all of this unless he received full custody of the child and a legal obligation never to tell Karson the truth—at least until after his twenty-first birthday. She told me that Karson came every other Wednesday night and alternating weekends. And that she, old soul that she was, couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible for this little half-brother.
“She also feels like the odd man out,” I told Westley a few days after 1994 had dawned, entering southwest Georgia with its chilly temperatures, days after Michelle had returned to Tucker.
“What do you mean?” He stood at the kitchen counter where he poured himself a cup of early-morning coffee. He glanced at his watch. He’d have to leave within the next forty-five minutes to make it to work on time. I’d have to do the same.
“When Karson comes,” I told him, twirling the pearl bracelet around and around my wrist, “Patterson comes. So, even though Karson doesn’t know who Patterson really is, it’s real father-mother-child … and Michelle.”
Westley crossed into the breakfast nook, then took a seat by me. “How do you know all this?”
“Did Michelle not talk to you at all, Wes? When she was here?”
Hurt—or was it disappointment—slid across his features, then disappeared. “Sure, we talked.” He shrugged. “Mostly about her new obsession with crooner music—she has a small stack of Sinatra CDs, did you know that? I never thought I could know so much about Frank Sinatra or his music.”
“Yes, I noticed. At least it’s not hip-hop.” I waited for Westley to continue, but when he didn’t, I asked, “Anything else? Did she talk to you about anything else?”
Again, he shrugged. “Yeah. We also talked about pre-med and how she’s learning to drive in Atlanta traffic but will probably live with Cindie one more year before transferring to the dorms.”
One more year. I shook my head in disbelief. “Well, apparently Cindie felt the need to tell her everything. All about the affair—you know, so ‘she won’t make the same mistakes.’” I air-quoted the words.
“How long had it been going on? The affair. Did she say?”
“Oh yes … started nearly as soon as she got to Dekalb.”
Westley pointed to me in a siege of victory. “Didn’t I tell you? Years ago, didn’t I tell you? I knew she was sleeping with a married man. I said it, didn’t I?”
I grabbed his finger and squeezed. “I don’t quite see why you’re so happy about this, Wes. This is not a game or a sporting event where you get to be the winner. Cindie is not a good example for her.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Because, what she’s telling her by example,” I continued, ignoring him, “is that she can sleep with a married man, fool another into thinking a child is his, get married, get a divorce, get the first man back, and somehow, all will work out in the end.” I took a breath. “I am genuinely concerned about our daughter.”
Westley’s brows drew together. “Is that what she did? Fool Kyle into thinking—?”
I sighed in defeat. Apparently, he was missing the point and to shine light on that fact would only aggravate the wound. “That’s what she said … Cindie, I mean. She told Michelle the whole gruesome story in full, cinematic details. I’m surprised she didn’t pull out a video diary.”
“Ali …”
I grabbed my coffee mug and took it to the sink. “I know. That’s low, even for me.”
“Especially for you … you’re better than that.”
I turned to him. “Am I? Because right now I want to pick up the phone, call Cindie, and scream every vile thing I’m thinking about her.”
“Get in line.”
“And so does DiAnn,” I added, speaking confidently now of a sister-in-law who had, since March, become my friend. My ally. We talked every day as soon as we got to work. Sometimes in the afternoons as well.
Westley laughed. “I can just bet.”
“And don’t get me started on Ro-Bay and Miss Justine.”
My husband nodded. “I know. Miss Justine offered to pay for any and all legal costs—including investigators—if I’d wanted to fight Cindie over this.”
I returned to the table and sat.
