Chapter 24

“December 11, 2004,” he said.

“Okay?” said Glory.

“Next week is our sixth anniversary,” said Ian.

“Funny, not,” said a naked Glory Wyatt.

“Well, I think it’s something worth celebrating. I mean our monthly get together is not a bad thing, but it is majorly inconvenient, and way not enough,” he said. “You should be mine.”

“Ian, we’ve talked about this. One: you can’t be trusted. Two: I love my husband, and he loves me and our daughter. Talk about divorce is out of the question. Get that for the umpteenth time,” she said.

“One of these days, girl, you’re going to finally get it. We belong together. I’m out of the military now. Now is the time for us to do some thinking. Whaddya say?” he said. “I need a wife. I need you.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “And it’s not a monthly get together; it’s a two or three times a month get together.”

“I stand corrected,” he said. “Look, I can make it worth the man’s while.”

“Money? He’d spit on it. Hell, he’d shit on it,” she said. “He could make a ton if he wanted. But he’s satisfied with the fifty or sixty annual he’s making. One thing that Lee Wyatt is not is greedy. He’s a good man Ian, and unless he catches us and kicks my ass to the curb, you and I are going to be on the few visits a month routine that we have been for the past six years.”

“Glory, I am not a man who does things on the spur of the moment or without due thinking and planning and all of it. I’m not! That said. I fell in love with you that first moment I saw you at the VFW with your friend that night. Since then I have been chasing you and hoping you’d come around and we could find a way to have a life together. Well, and we’ve talked about it often enough. Please do think on things. I’m desperate to have you, and forgive me for assuming, but I think that you want me as well. I may not be the genius your husband is, but I’m pretty smart. I know I can get the man to come around and be mollified at least to some degree if given the chance. Anyway...” he said.

“Ian, I said I would think on things, and I will. But, divorce Lee? I just don’t know. But I will think about it,” she said.

She drove slowly. She needed to make a decision one way or another. The man had been super patient, hell, so had she. But divorce a great guy like Lee? If she did could there indeed be a way to mollify him as Ian had intimated? Very doubtful, the man had not met him. Ian had no idea what kind of man, what kind of mind he would be up against. Yes, he’d, Ian, would try, but succeed? Highly doubtful.

I was having a real problem. The problem? Pressure, pressure from my friends my wife and the opposing camp. Or put another way: pressure by Lance by Glory and by Grant. Pressure to rebuild my strained, and it was strained, relationship with Zoe.

I wanted to, but I didn’t want to force the issue with her. I saw that as a no-win situation. Time had passed a lot of time. Zoe was sixteen. She could think for herself for sure. And, she had made no effort to even visit in months. Supposedly she was to stay overnight at our place once a month. But that had all but gone by the wayside. She missed half of the time, more than half of the time. Excuses? Boys, school do’s, church responsibilities at Saint John’s Evangelical. And those weekends she did show up she’d been demonstrably less than thrilled with the opportunity. How was a daddy supposed to deal with that? I sure as hell didn’t know; so, I didn’t.

I told the group of them to stop pressuring me. I’d specifically told Grant to pressure the kid not me. I’d always been open to anything, but begging was not part of my mind set. If she wanted me around; I’d be there for her, if not then not. Her mom had dumped me, maybe it was her turn to do the same. And yes, okay, I was bitter.

Actually, though I had no actual evidence to back up my thinking, I figured that part of the problem was Penelope’s lack of enthusiasm per my daddyhood. I knew she’d not done anything overtly to turn my daughter against me, but she had also not done a thing to bring us together, not a thing.

At any rate life goes on and we do what we can and endure what we can’t do anything about.

It was seriously upsetting how fast time was flying; well, it was for me. My oldest kid, who had really been stolen from me, was sixteen. My other little girl was still young at only eight-years-old, but yesterday she was only a toddler! Well, like I say, it’s how it seemed to me. The bad guys had a son about the same age, Ronald. But I hardly knew anything about him and had only seen him a few times in his whole life. Well, he had nothing to do with me; he was the offspring of my enemies; and yes, I did still see them—kinda passively—as enemies even though we’d been getting along if not exactly wonderfully well.

The bunch of the kids were attending HTS same as me and Liz and Lance, and oh yes, Penelope too had forever ago. I think that that was at the insistence of Penelope, but I’d never asked, so it was just a guess. I knew from comments made on this or that occasion that Zoey was popular with the boys. On those occasions when she and I did talk she never said anything to me about them, the boys, and when I’d asked any questions, she’d more or less blown me off, and I’d let the matter drop. But I was concerned as any daddy would be. I don’t think she thought of me as more than a kind of official, but not a personal, daddy. And if that makes no sense it’s not my fault.

And now it was 2006, June 2006, and it was time for Zoe to graduate high school. And I did get an invite, well, Glory and I did, to the graduation celebration to be had at the Harrington.

We were seated in a largish auditorium at an enormous table in what I considered political seating order. On Zoey’s right was her mother. On her left was me. Our respective spouses on either side of us. Lance was there and Liz and Milton as well, other friends from the hospital where the two bad guys worked were there and some folks from the law office that were friends of mine and Lance’s. Zoe knew a lot of the guests from visiting our work places at various times.

Zoe did talk to me, very politely I thought, but not intimately; she never did that anymore. I was an official relative, but not a daddy, not really.

Then there was some dancing. Zoe rose to dance with her real daddy, but I did get a kiss on the top of my head as they headed out onto the floor. I supposed that the kiss was a kind of official acknowledgment that I had some standing in the family, but it actually made me feel kinda sad; I didn’t show it.