Chapter 16: Found Family

I filed into the second-row seating of Daisy’s van. I hadn’t actually been in here in years. It had a smell kind of like Kayro syrup stuck to the seats. It was an idiosyncrasy. Helen drove an expensive sedan. Annie and Amy had gone for speedy sports cars. Sylvie had gotten a truck that cost more than my first year of undergrad was going to. Daisy drove a mom van; four rows of seats with automatic folding, DVD players in the headrests, and it was on the older side too. She’d been driving it when my father was still alive.

I assume it had more to do with how she saw herself. This is who she wanted to be. The mom driving her kids to soccer practice, but she never quite managed it. She seemed to be legitimately trying these days.

Helen popped into the front passenger seat and buckled herself in. I vaguely wondered if this was a full family trip, but thankfully it was just me and the two of them. Daisy started the car and pulled out and Helen turned to me, “I thought we’d do breakfast and talk first, then go get you some new clothes. I know you said ‘no’ on the presents, but I assume if we get practical things; clothes, school supplies, swim gear, etc; that you’d be more open to it.”

“I suppose. If it’s something I would have to get anyway.”

“What do you want to do with your old car?’

“Drive it?”

“No, we’re going to get you a new one. You can sell it, junk it, or give it away if you want or I guess keep it ... but you’ll have trouble getting two cars to your university.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I was reaching for earphones when Daisy asked, “So, how’d you meet Mandy?”

A few years prior:

I’d let Geoff go so he could pursue Joseph. Geoff was a friend and cute, but I was never going to love him. He didn’t have a backbone when it counted and that was unforgivable to me. I scanned the room looking for candidates for a new paramour. In the end I wanted to find a partner or partners who I could go the distance with, but I was in high school, so I wasn’t really ready for the lifelong commitments bit.

Starting from the back of the room we had:

Marky Mark who was an obvious skip

Two of Sylvie’s work out bros weren’t an option.

Weird girl that had soup for lunch with a straw every day. Yeah, no.

Goth chick was a possibility.

Two of Marky Mark’s hangers-on were also out.

Then I saw the new girl; I’d noticed her before. She wasn’t ‘normal’ enough to bore me. I’d watched her catch a spider and take it to the window instead of smashing it. She routinely let other kids copy her homework and she’d made friends with soup-straw girl. That told me she was kind. I wanted some kindness in my life.

I did the rounds as research. A word in everyone’s ear, “What do you know about this girl?” Half of it would inevitably be irredeemable garbage spouted by morons, but the other half would be laced with truth. Eventually, I made a list of what I knew; Her name was Amanda, She prefers ‘Mandy’, She does a lot of volunteer work particularly at the animal shelter, she had been a twin till there was an accident, her mother is a veteran turned veterinarian (which amused me to no end), Eventually, I found she like a certain breed of stuffy and put one in her locker with a note. The next day a few flowers stolen from gardens on my way to school. The third day I left my number. She called right away.

Present:

“I saw she was kind and wanted that kindness in my life. So, I asked her out.”

Daisy smiled, “You sure you’re okay with the breakup? I know your first love can be hard.”

Did I love Mandy? I told her I did enough, but I’d said the same to Geoff. I definitely cared more for her than most, but I doubted we’d go the distance.

“She wasn’t my first. Geoff was.”

The two moms exchanged a look and I had to fight the urge to remind Daisy to keep her eyes on the fucking road. We ended up pulling into a Denny’s. Not the one I’d taken Pete and Jenn to, but the other one in town. I hopped out making sure to bring my earphones and a book, even if I suspected this was going to be a thorough grilling the ability to tune out would be helpful.

I ordered a slam and they ordered salads. I just decided to go for it, “You need to stop focusing on me. We should discuss dealing with Marky Mark and James and then you should focus on the others.”

Helen looked surprised, “We’re trying to fix things.”

“I spent three days reading every text chat this family has had in the last five years, every comment in every channel on the two discords servers, and my father’s seven diaries. I understand everything now. I’m not mad. I’m not angry. I just ... understand it all.”

Daisy reached her hand out for mine, “We love you.”

“I accept that. I accept that you love me as much as you love your daughters and I’m going to deal with Mark and James, but you need to fix things with them. Amy, Sylvie, and Annie don’t understand you’ve been as bad to them as you were to me. For Sylvie and Annie they don’t understand, cause they don’t know to expect more. Amy ... Amy needs real help. You need to find a therapist. Someone who can deal with the family activities without sending anyone to jail. Amy needs real help or she won’t be able to function.”

Daisy squeezed my hand, “You’re calling her Amy.”

Helen was more apprehensive, “I don’t think that is a good thing.”

“What she is ... it isn’t her fault. She as broken as the rest of us. Probably more. You need to get her help. All of us need help, but you still have time to fix things with Sylvie and Annie. You can break Annie out into the real world. Show Sylvie that who she is matters more than how defined her muscles are. You can actually get to know them and love them for who they are and not how good they are at eating you out. It’s too late for me and I already know what familial love is supposed to be, so you just need to work on them and yourselves.”

Helen took on her board room demeanor, “I’ve already been talking to Daisy’s therapist about that. I want to include you in it too.”

I shook my head, “After today, you need to focus on them. I’m still going to undergrad. I’m going to grad school. That will happen. I’m done. I get it. I know what happened. I understand it. You can still fix it and help them and you need to focus on that. Maybe once they’re on the right path we can try this again.”

Daisy summoned steel I wasn’t aware she possessed, “No.”

Even Helen looked surprised she turned to her, the boardroom calm gone and replaced with slack-jawed surprise. Daisy continued smiling, “I’m not letting you go. We’ll get everyone into therapy and we’ll fix this. You’re the house that is on fire and we’re going to ensure it gets put out even as we spray down the others getting hit by the cinders.”

Helen spoke, “That was ... far more decisive than you’ve been in a while.”

Daisy smiled, but I saw sadness in her eyes. She spoke without the steel, “It was easy for me to fall back into old habits. It’s so easy to just follow the strongest voice, but as much as the distress of deciding is, I came too close to losing my family. I will be strong. I will be decisive. I will keep my children. So, no. John, we will not focus on your sisters. We will give you all equal treatment, equal love, and we will make sure everyone gets the help they need.”

Helen beamed. I could feel the pride radiating off her, “That’s settled. We’ll deal with your plan for Mark and James then you’ll get back to telling us about your other family.”

“They’re why you should focus on the others.”

Daisy tried to emulate anger, but could quite muster it, “I told you that isn’t happening.”

“Fine. I suspect you already have a college fund for Marky Mark?”

Helen nodded and I continued, “I’m going to talk to him. Give him a choice. He either leaves and goes away quietly or I turn the footage over to the cops. I’m thinking the opposite coast. If he goes you cover his college and a place to live. If he shows up again, you go to the police. If he refuses, the tape goes to the police and the college fund is his incentive to keep his mouth shut. Amy will need coached if she has to take the stand. She can admit she slept with him, that doesn’t change the video showing him trying to rape her. She and everyone else has to keep quiet about the rest of it. You’ll probably need to hire a PR firm to keep things out of the press or spin it if he blabs.”

Daisy was the one to ask, “And James?”

“I have the video of what he did to you, but I want to use that as the stick. He goes to jail for the embezzlement and probably tax evasion. We hold the video as leverage. Only release it if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut. The problem is, if he doesn’t go for it I don’t have anything else to throw at him. You could theoretically pay him off, but that would just end in an endless cycle of blackmail.”