MICHELLE
The incessant buzzing of my cell phone vibrating its way off the bedside table pulls me from sleep. Still half-conscious, I flip the thing open and press it to my ear.
"Hello?" I flop back on the pillow and drape my arm over my eyes. If whoever this is doesn't have a compelling reason to call me, there's a good chance I'll be asleep again before we say goodbye.
"Michelle."
Russell. A shot of adrenaline shoots through my body and there's no way I'm going back to sleep now.
"What do you want?" I push myself into a sitting position, propelled by the nervous energy that follows my ex-husband everywhere he goes.
He clears his throat. "Listen. I know I've been a little crazy lately and I apologize for that. I'm just..." He trails off and I know what he's going to say before he says it. "I just let things get to me too much. You know that," he says as I echo the words in my head.
How many times have I heard him say that exact same thing? I have zero patience left for his bullshit anymore.
"It's early," I say. "And I'd appreciate it if you would stop calling me." I make a move to hang up.
"Wait, Michelle," he says, and for some reason I pause. "I need you to hear me out."
"What could you possibly say that I want to hear?" I take a deep breath and rest my head in my hand. All I know is that whatever it is he's about to say, I am not going to like it.
"I started seeing someone," he says, ever so gently, like he's being careful with my feelings. "She's great. I think you'd like her. That was one of the things I thought about when we started hanging out. I wanted someone like you."
"Russell—”
"We want to start taking Claire on the weekends."
My whole world screeches to a halt. "What?" I ask with what little breath is left in my body.
"Not every weekend," he says like that makes it all better. "Our divorce paperwork says that I can have her two weekends a month. And that's all I want. Only what the law says I can have." He pauses and takes a deep breath. "I want to start being a father again."
As if he ever acted like a father in first place.
His words sound practiced, forced. There's a smile in his voice, but it's too saccharine to be real. This is all part of something bigger. He's working on a plan and it's only going to bring more chaos into our lives.
"I..." I start to speak because I know he's waiting for me to say something, but I have nothing to say other than hell-fucking-no. The only thing that's stopping me is that he has the law on his side. I know it and he knows I know it. If he wants to follow through with this, I have no legal right to stop him. My heart stutters along in my chest and my hands start shaking just in time for my lips to start tingling—the beginning of a panic attack, something I haven't dealt with since I left Russell last year.
"I know it's going to be hard for you to adjust," he says, just as David pushes open the bedroom door. "But I want to get my life back on track. I'm moving in with this woman and we want Claire to be part of our family."
I pinch the bridge of my nose as David perches on the edge of my bed, a question in his eyes. "How long have you guys been together?" I ask, my gaze trained on David's, hoping to borrow some of the strength I always feel when he's near.
"About a month." Russell says it like he expects it to hurt me. Like he expects me to fall to pieces at the thought of him with another woman. "I'm gonna propose this weekend. I want Claire there."
I go numb. Nod and uh-huh my way through the rest of the conversation and then hang up the phone and stare David right in the face. He looks tense, his features drawn too tight. Dark circles stand out under his bloodshot eyes.
"What was that about?"
"Russell wants Claire." I explain the conversation to him.
His already dark expression turns black. "Did you tell him to fuck off?"
"I don't think I can. Our divorce paperwork states that he is allowed to see her every other weekend." I drop my head into my hands. "I can't let her go over there. I don't want her to think anything about the way he approaches life is right." I lift my gaze to David's. "I mean, she's the reason I worked up the courage to leave him in the first place. And now I have to send her over there?" My voice falters because the only way I can stop the tears is to stop talking.
David shakes his head, the muscles in his jaw pulsing wildly. "What about the police?" he asks. "What about what happened at your house? The break-in? The cigarettes under your window?"
I look him in the eyes and shake my head, shrugging and turning up my hands as desperation swells inside me, a huge wave of helplessness crashing into my core and drowning the tiny blossoms of contentment that had taken root there.
David lets out a long breath through his nose, his shoulders slumping. "There's no proof that any of it was him." He closes his eyes as he bobs his head. "I don't think there's any way you can keep her from him. Not with the paperwork the way it is now."
Inside my head, I wail—long and loud and so full of impotent rage that it fills up the whole world with my frustration—all while keeping my face schooled into the most passive expression I can manage. I hate that I am still suffering the consequences of my stupid decisions.
No.
I take that back.
I'm not the one who’s going to suffer in this situation. It's Claire. I hate it. Oh my God, I hate it so much. I want her to grow up with this life here at Carmichael Farms as the compass that points her towards what to expect out of life, not anything to do with Russell and the chaos he cultivates. I don't want her to suffer his mood swings, his laziness, his inability to follow through on anything he starts—including the most basic things like holding down a job or paying a bill. I want her to look to David as her example of what a man should be and how he should treat her.
But because I was dumb, because I said yes when I meant no, because I took the path of least resistance instead of fighting for what I know to be good and right, my daughter has to live her life with a man like Russell as her father figure.
It makes me sick. My stomach turns so violently, I lurch off the bed and race for the bathroom, collapsing in front of the toilet just in time to heave and wretch my sorrows into the bowl. David follows and crouches beside me.
"It's going to be okay, darlin'.” He runs a hand through my hair. "We'll get this figured out. Everything in life comes down to time and money and I promise you, we've got plenty of both."
His words hit me like a freight train.
We.
We have plenty of both. Last I checked, he had plenty of both. Me? I have just over a hundred dollars in the bank—a small miracle that I've been feeling so proud about up until now. But a hundred dollars is a far cry from plenty of money and it certainly isn't going to be enough to be take Russell to court and fight for full custody of Claire.
I heave again, straining to throw up even though there's nothing left in my stomach but apprehension. "I'm so sorry," I say when I catch my breath.
"Sorry for what?" David rubs my back, doing everything he can to soothe me.
I shift out of my crouch and plop down on the floor, scooching away to lean against the wall, drawing my knees up to my chest. "For bringing all this drama into your perfect life. You don't deserve this." I shake my head. "I'm a weight. An anchor. I'm your ex-wife all over again. I'm your Russell."
"You are nothing like Becky or Russell." David lowers himself onto the floor, crossing his legs and shaking his head. "And my life is far from perfect."
"Oh sure, with your sweet mom making you breakfast every day. Your dad and your brother cracking jokes at the table. The four of you working together around the farm on a legacy that is generations old. A herd of cats and goats and Pogo excited to greet you each and every day. A job that you love, that has meaning in your life. It all looks pretty perfect to me." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and turn my face. I can't look at him. Not because he's done anything wrong, but because I have.
"Michelle." Only David could manage to sound both stern and gentle at the same time. "Look at me."
I blink away the tears gathering in my eyes but can't bring myself to look at him. He waits and then touches a finger to my chin and turns my face towards his when I won't do it myself.
"My life isn't perfect."
I open my mouth to protest but he holds up a finger and I quiet.
"My family won't stop coming into my house because they're worried about me. There aren't any boundaries between us because there was a time in the not so distant past that I was so depressed, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. When my first thought every morning was that it would be better if I faded out of life rather than have to live another day. That's when my parents started showing up like they still owned this place. Day after day after day, they let themselves in. Forced me out of bed. Forced me to eat. Forced me to get back to work. They're here every day because they love me, but they wouldn't be so pushy if they weren't scared for me, too. I'm better now, and they don't have a reason to be scared anymore, but that hasn't stopped them from coming over just in case. Our life might look perfect now, on the outside, but it's built on the shakiest of foundations."
"Why?" I ask. The man I know is too solid to have ever been the man he described.
"I told you my ex-wife wasn't worth discussing," he says, his eyes boring into mine. "She's an awful woman who did awful things." David swallows hard but doesn't look away. "She and I had a daughter. Maggie. She was the whole reason we got married in the first place."
I nod my understanding, having already explained that Claire was the reason I married Russell.
"Becky and I fought. A lot. She didn't want to work. She didn't want to help. She just wanted to go out and spend my money on drinks and tanning beds and fake nails. She was gone more than she was home and she didn't even have a job. We argued all the time about where she was going and who she was going with. Over time she ended up addicted to painkillers. I used to come in from a long day in the fields and find her passed out on the couch while Maggie played on the floor at her feet..."
David trails off and the pain in his eyes tears at my heart. I steel myself against whatever he's going to say next because nothing good can come from a look like the one on his face right now.
"I came in one day and found Becky passed out in the bedroom." His nostrils flare and he flinches. "The water in the bathroom was running." His voices catches and he swallows hard. "Maggie was in the tub. Face down. They think she tried to draw herself a bath and slipped and hit her head. When I pulled her out of the water, her fingers were blue and her eyes were open..." David's nostrils flare and he closes his eyes, his lower lip trembling as he takes a long, shaky breath.
Tears stream down my face and I can't breathe. I want to pull him into my arms and hold him close and never let go until his pain goes away. "How old was she?" I manage.
"Five." David takes a shuddering breath. "She was five years old and laughed at everything, and she had the most beautiful blond hair." He smiles through his tears and I wipe at my own. He may as well have just described Claire.
"I'm so sorry." It's the hollowest thing I've ever said. Those words can't encompass all that I want to say. They can't begin to convey how my soul cries for his little girl and my heart hurts for the father who found her alone in a tub full of water. I think of my own daughter and nausea boils in my stomach again.
"Me too," he whispers. "I've never been more sorry about anything."
He scoots closer to me. Puts his hands on my knees. "But see? You're not bringing crazy into my life, darlin'. You're bringing healing. The other day, my mom said Maggie's name and it didn't make me fly into a rage. I didn't have to run out of the room and gulp for breath like I was the one drowning. Her name made me smile for the first time since she died, just for a moment, remembering how much she loved to go check on those silly cluckers with Mom. It made me happy to think of Claire out there, doing the very same thing."
I choke back a sob, searching for words, for anything to say at all, but not one damn thing is worthy of the rush of emotion tearing through me. I lick my lips. Stare into David's face and I find a truth. Something I've known for a long time but didn't have the courage to even see.
"I love you," I whisper.
David smiles through his tears. "Oh Michelle. I love you, too. More and more each day. And I promise you this, whatever happens with Claire and her dad, we're gonna fight it tooth and nail. You've got me on your side and that means a whole hell of a lot. We will not lose your little girl, too."