Chapter 11

Mark and I spent our Saturday as we had so many before — doing nothing but a whole lot of it.

We put together some Lego's and read a couple of books. We spent time playing knights and dragons and we built a snowman. We took a nap together on the couch and fixed tuna sandwiches for lunch.

All in all, it was a good time for both us.

It was almost 8 p.m. when I saw headlights in the drive. The fact that the headlights turned off and so did the ignition led me to believe the Kasey was accompanying Carrie inside.

Or perhaps Carrie needed a forklift for all her packages. I stood up help bring things in the house.

Instead my door opened and Carrie and Kasey stepped in the doorway. They had only a few things.

"Need help?" I asked before I saw them step to the side. Kelly was standing on the porch.

"Is it OK if I come in?" she asked. In the years that I had lived there Kelly had never gone farther than the porch. It was the way I preferred it. It was the way she preferred it. I was the same at her house.

Sidewalk? No problem. Front yard? That's fine. Driveway? No big deal. Porch? OK. Inside the house, not unless the other was in danger. Then it probably would require an explanation.

"Yeah," I said. "Come in. It's freezing out there."

I saw Carrie and Kasey's faces relax as Kelly came in and started to unbundle.

"Mark is down for the night," I said. "I hope that's not a problem."

"No problem," Kelly said sweetly. "I know we're running late. I should have called."

My mind shot back to the numerous time I had been forced to carry Mark out to Kelly's car because she insisted he sleep at her house. I bit my lip and nodded.

"So, anything left the mall or are they going to have to rebuild after the holidays?" I asked just to keep from saying something snarky.

"A few things," Kasey said. "Nothing decent. Stuff you would wear but nothing we'd consider."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

"Says the girl whose closet as recently as four days ago consisted solely of black T-shirts and ratty-assed jeans," Kelly said with a laugh.

Kasey and I both turned to her in shock.

Kelly was not known for her biting humor.

"Yeah, I meant to tell you this morning how pretty you looked," I said. "You really do look great, Kase."

She smiled sweetly.

"I think what your father means is that you look terrible and he doesn't ever want to see you in decent pants and a shirt that doesn't show your navel ever again," Kelly chimed in. "Isn't that what you mean, Mike?"

Everyone laughed.

"Dead on, Kelly," I said. "How come I never see you wearing those nice things like the other kids? Don't you have a crop top and Daisy Dukes that show half your ass that you can wear?"

Kasey slapped my arm.

"You'll be happy to know, Daddy, that I do not own a pair of Daisy Dukes," Kasey answered. "And my tops are tastefully cut or I wear them only in my room. I've told you a dozen times, Dad. Reverse psychology doesn't work when the subject is smarter than you are."

The three women (or two women and Kasey, or one woman, one shrew and Kasey, whatever) went to the living room to relive all the great things they bought. I went to the kitchen.

"Coffee or tea, Kelly?" I asked.

"Either," she said.

"Well, it's not like I'm flying to Colombia or India just for you," I replied. "I have both and you are welcome to either."

I probably should have thought out my response better but it slipped out without thinking.

Kelly turned with a small smile.

"Old habits are hard to break, aren't they?" she said. "If you are fixing coffee for yourself or for Carrie, I would prefer that. If you are only fixing tea for Kasey and Carrie, I am OK with that, too. Thank you, Mike."

"You're welcome," I said. "The coffee is already brewed. Still cream and sugar?"

Kelly nodded and I brought her cup in.

"The tea will be done steeping in a couple of minutes, ladies," I said.

Kelly took a sip of her coffee and sighed.

"This is just about the only thing I miss about being married to you," Kelly said. "Mike fixes the best cup of coffee I've ever tasted. No, that's not right. Mike's Dad fixed the best cup of coffee I've ever tasted. Mike is a close second, though."

"Mom, do you want to see my room?" Kasey asked.

"Do you mind, Mike?" Kelly asked.

"You put away the whips and chains didn't you, Kasey?" I asked. "Oh wait, I was beating Mark with those this evening so they're in his room."

"Dad, I'm about to use that word again," Kasey warned.

"Then you know I won't need whips and chains for what comes next," I replied. "Sorry, Kelly. You may wander the house unimpeded. And I'm sorry if I was a dick. That was the word Kasey planned to call me."

"Kasey, I better never hear you say that about your Father," Kelly warned.

"And I better never hear you say that about your Father or I'll tattle on you," Carrie said.

Kelly and Kasey went down the hall to check out the bedroom and I'm sure to make sure Mark was OK. Carrie took the opportunity to slide closer to me and plant a kiss on my lips.

"Have fun today?" I asked.

"If you count overt interrogation as fun," she said. "It was alright. It was awkward at the beginning. Kelly was less subtle than Kasey about her questions. I don't know if she expected to embarrass me or if she wanted to intimidate me but I put a stop to it pretty quickly."

I know I shot a withering glance down the hallway.

"It's taken care of, Mike," she assured me. "Seriously, it lasted about 10 minutes before I pulled her aside and told her to knock it off or I'd start firing back. I told her that if she was worried about how I would treat her kids then she should be smart enough to know that you would never allow that to happen. If she was worried about how I would treat you then that was between you and me. And if she was feeling nostalgic about something then she should have considered that before she put the ex- in front of husband. Things got easier after she saw I wasn't a doormat."

I chuckled. It was just about the only way to handle Kelly. She would push you as far as she could push you. But the first time you pushed back she would stop.

"I'm surprised Kasey let it get that far," I said.

"I told Kasey to stay the hell out of it," Carrie answered. "That whatever happened or whatever was said just to mind her own business."

"And she listened?" I asked. "What is the secret to that?"

Carrie smiled and shook her head.

"Trade secret," she said. "If I tell ya, I gotta kill ya."

"Hey I want some of that action, at least the killing part," Kelly said from behind us. "Mark has told me a hundred times about his bed here but I had to see it to get the full impact. And the less said about Kasey's room the better. But I understand why you allowed her to do that. You realize that you're never going to be able to paint over that black don't you? I thought about allowing her to paint her room at my house that way but my dad said it would take a dozen coats of primer to cover it."

"It won't be me painting it," I said. "It will stay black until the day I move out. Then the landlord can deal with it."

"You rent?" Carrie asked. "I thought you owned this house."

I bit off the real reason that I rented instead of owning a home.

Kelly plowed right ahead.

"He doesn't want too many encumbrances if I up and move again," she said. "He got stuck with trying to get rid of our last house and, well, I made sure he barely had enough money to afford to eat. There was no way he could have afforded to pay rent somewhere. If our house wasn't paid off, he probably would have been out on the street."

There was a sadness to her voice instead of the pride that it usually held when discussing her large child support endowment.

"But it bit you on the ass in the end, didn't it?" I said.

"It did," Kelly said ruefully. "Square on the ass. I still have the teeth marks."

In a wholly uncharacteristic move, she turned around and lifted her shirt to show her jeans-covered behind.

She was smiling when she turned back around.

"I guess you probably can't see them, Carrie," she said. "But take my word, they're there. The judge said I vacated the house willingly so I forfeited any equity in it. All Mike had to do was live there for a year and a day and it was his completely. I had already known that he would granted primary wage-earner status. Honestly, he was the sole wage-earner for most of our marriage. He was going to get 70 percent of everything anyway. But when they took the 30 percent away from me I was a tad bit pissed off.

"Honestly, it's only been in the past year or so that I realized why he made me jump though so many hoops. If I had to do it over, I'd do it differently. But I can't so I just have to try to make things up to the kids the best I can."

"What about making it up to Mike?" Carrie asked. I wasn't certain it was her place to jump in at that point but she was already there so there was nothing I could do about it.

"There is nothing I can do to make it up to Mike," she said with conviction. "Except what I do. I am probably the only person in the world that Mike treats like a dog. Mike is certainly the only person in the world I allow to treat me like a dog. Just like you told me today, if anyone else but Mike said some of things to me that he has said, I probably would rip their lungs out. With Mike, I might say something back but usually I just take it because I know why he feels that way."

Carrie looked at me.

"We spoke about this earlier in the week," I said. "I think we are going to try to develop a better way of communicating. But it's not going to be easy."

"Hard feelings take time to go away," Kelly intoned. "But I hope they do."

"Hey, it's the first time we've been in the same room without an attorney or a judge in five years," I said. "I would guess it's a start. And to this point, neither of us has called the other a nasty name."

"Except Kasey," Carrie put in.

"And if that keeps up there are going to be major problems," Kelly said. "I guess I'm used to her attitude but it is unacceptable that she has expanded to Mike."

"We joke and sometimes the boundary between Father-Teenager and Father-Adult gets a little blurred," I said. "But you can rest assure that I never called my father a name. Or if I did you can bet it was only once. Same with my mom."

Kelly and Carrie were nodding.

"But kids today are different," Kelly said. "We've coddled them so much. Our generation was raised with a sense of entitlement that we've expanded and passed on to our children. We're definitely doing them a disservice. I hate to think what Kasey's children are going to act like."

"I guess I'm fortunate that my folks were older," I said.

Kelly agreed.

"Your parents were the same age as my grandparents," she said. "They raised you with different values, different expectations. I think that was part of our problem, Mike. We looked at the world so differently. You were resigned to the fact that it would take time and hard work to get ahead. I thought it was owed to me. As many years as I was in school, no one told me that happiness wasn't a birthright. No one mentioned to me that the only way to find happiness was through yourself.

"I always blamed Mike for the fact that I wasn't happy. He didn't make enough money. He didn't have enough free time. He didn't want to do what I wanted to. I still blamed him four years after we divorced. He wanted to spent too much time with the kids. He didn't pay enough in child support. He wasn't fitting into the neat little spot I had reserved for him in my view of things.

"I realized a few months ago that through our marriage and after it, Mike was in the same situation as I was. He lived the exact same life that I led when we were together. He woke up in the same house with the same bank account and the same kids. And he was happy. He was happy because he refused to be unhappy. He would find happiness in spending an hour or two with Kasey — or even with me. I would watch his face light up over a raspberry milkshake, for God's sake. I think the fact that Mike was happy was what led me to finally file for divorce. I think if you're honest, Mike, you'll admit that we were headed there eventually. But at the same time, it wasn't something that I spent months debating.