“How is Karson?”
She smiled. “He’s good. He figured out about Patterson, which didn’t go well. Fortunately, he had good parents in Kyle and his wife. Otherwise … if it had been only Cindie and Patterson … gah …”
“Cindie’s a mess. Even when it looked like she wasn’t, she was.”
“I’ve tried to talk to her …”
He stabbed his beans that glistened from being cooked in fat. “About?”
Her eyes widened. “Everything. Her drinking. The dramatics. Finding God, even.” She shook her head and her jaw flexed. “To which she replied, ‘Why? Is he lost?’”
“Ouch.”
“I also suggested seeing a doctor who can really help her and not these jokers she’s gone to.” Michelle’s eyes misted, then, with a blink, cleared. “Not to mention her incessant need for a man in her life … seriously, I don’t know why you ever …” Michelle reached for her glass again but dropped her hand on the table, eyes wide. “Sorry. That was unkind.”
An unaccustomed rush of emotion pushed through him and he bristled. “Michelle,” he finally said. “Look … We both know that Cindie is your biological mother and Ali is—”
“My mom.”
He nodded. “Your mom. Yes. But, Cindie was—is—a mess, yes, but at one time she was just a little girl whose world got stomped on. A little girl who grew up to be very beautiful. You look so much like her, you know.”
“I know.”
“She just … well, I think her dad leaving the family that way really did a number on her and then, well, you know … Lettie Mae …”
Michelle laughed then. Easily. Freely. “Heavens. Lettie Mae …” She picked up her chicken leg and bit into it, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s another thing, Dad. When Lettie Mae died, you’d think Cindie had lost her best friend the way she carried on. You and I both know how it really was.”
“Listen, I never wanted you influenced by Cindie, which is why I saw Trev as quickly as I could about getting custody. I wanted Ali and me to raise you. But I also didn’t want you to feel sliced down the middle when Cindie brought up living with her, which is why I let you decide. You were wise enough. Always had been. But, I felt that—I still feel that—your mom and I were the better option.”
His daughter’s brow shot up. “The best.”
Westley nodded. “Maybe so.”
“Definitely so.”
“I’ll take that. Anyway, I don’t want you to ever think that—even though—and I’m just being honest here—even though Cindie and I were pretty wasted the night you were conceived—”
Michelle feigned shock. “Dad … you don’t mean it.”
He chuckled. “Like you didn’t know.”
She laughed again. “I know. Trust me. Cindie gave me every detail one night when she’d had way too much sake with her Japanese takeout.”
He shook his head. “Well … I want you to know that you were loved. From the get-go. And I also want you to know that Cindie … she loves you, too, Michelle.”
“I get that, Dad. I just can’t—there have to be boundaries.”
“I agree.”
“And I have my girls to think about now.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I cannot have her influence over them at this stage of their lives.” She breathed out. “If ever.” Their eyes locked—the same eyes, green and intelligent—until she smiled and said, “So. Wait till you see the new skis the hubs bought me recently …”
Westley leaned back, away from the gnawed bones of fried chicken and the remains of mashed potatoes and gravy. Away from his shimmering green beans and sweet iced tea. He leaned back and crossed his legs slowly, listening to his daughter as she talked about the gift Sturgill had surprised her with. He smiled. Nodded a few times for good measure.
A success. His life had been a success. If he died in this moment, at this table, with this half-eaten meal in front of him and the clatter from the open kitchen and dining area nearly drowning out his thoughts and their conversation … he had accomplished all that he’d wanted. He’d married a beautiful woman whom he loved and who loved him, in spite of it all. Together, they’d raised a daughter—a good and godly girl, decent and kind by nature—and lived to see her married, a mother herself, and now an accomplished research physician. He had worked a job that hardly seemed like work at all. Hadn’t that been what he’d always been taught? Find a job you love doing and it won’t seem like work at all.
Well, it was true. Indeed. Life had been good. Good, all along.
Chapter Forty-one
Today
Allison
Isn’t life funny. For a moment, the briefest of time, one thinks one has it all. One is happy. Content. But one knows—or at least I knew—that if I were so satisfied, then life would suddenly turn, and I would no longer be.
I think—no, I believe—that since the evening Michelle came down the stairs and into the family room to tell us of Cindie’s impending divorce, I’d been consciously aware that “happy” and “content” are only temporary emotions. Fickle perhaps. Untrustworthy.
So much since has changed. Evolved. I am a woman in my mid-sixties now, my dark hair streaked with gray, which I pay my hairdresser to color away every six weeks. My body is still fit, if not a little pudgy. I’m a widow, my husband having passed away nearly a decade ago. A heart attack, of course. He could only run from the inevitable for so long, and then, there it was, knocking at the door of his life again. Only, this time, death would not leave without him.
And so, I buried my husband. My wonderful, remarkable, often impetuous Westley. I had already buried my mother and Westley’s father and Miss Justine. Since Westley’s death, I have also buried
