Chapter 4

"Mike, I appreciate what you've done," Carrie told me on the drive back home. "But I'm not someone you have to save. I can take care of myself and I'm used to handling problems myself."

Her voice wasn't angry. There was no hint of unhappiness there. It was a simple statement of fact to Carrie. And I felt like an ass.

I drove quietly for a few moments as I reflected on the past three or four days. The longer I reflected the more I felt like an ass.

"Sorry about that," I replied sheepishly. "I don't normally act that way."

It was the best I could offer.

"I think part of it is my real personality," I continued. "I mean, I'm not a control freak but I do tend to get things done. I think another part is the fact that I want to impress you. And I think a part of it just the fact that I am pretty angry about the whole situation and passing that anger on to other people, like the fine folks at the DMV, is necessary.

"I realize, of course, that you deserve the opportunity to be angry with people, too. But, hell, maybe I should have just stopped at 'Sorry.'"

"I'm not mad," Carrie said gently. "You've really done a lot. And I meant it when I said I appreciate it. I wouldn't have thought of file a public-records request for my birth certificate. I wouldn't have thought to call the DMV and see if my expired license could work as proof of ID. So I probably would have been calling you about those things anyway.

"All I'm trying to say is that I don't want things to get started badly. I don't want you to think I'm some doormat that people can just walk over. I don't want you to think that I can't stand up for myself. I told you I'm not one of the 'woe-is-me' crowd."

I was nodding my head as she spoke. But I didn't speak. It was a thoughtful few minutes in my car before Carrie spoke again.

"You certainly do seem to have a lot of answers," she said. Then she punched me on the arm. I think she wanted to show she wasn't upset — something I think I had already recognized — and that we were still friends.

"I have answers but I rarely know the questions," I replied. My remark was greeted with a slight chuckle. It was more than it deserved.

"I'll admit that I was overwhelmed when I saw the cops tearing down my street yesterday," she said. "I'm certain that when you found me, hunched over in the seat was when your Papa Bear mentality kicked in. But I'm not a frail waif you've rescued off the street. I just didn't want you to think that you're going to have to go through life slaying dragons and battering down doors on my behalf."

I glanced over at her for a moment.

"I wasn't pouting, if that's what you think," I said defensively. "Mostly I was thinking about how big a jerk I've been the past couple of days. I didn't mean to usurp control of your life from you. I understand what you're saying and I agree with you."

"Oh," Carrie replied.

The conversation turned to my life after a few more minutes of silence. I gave it a general treatment: Married at 20, divorced at 32, two kids, etc. Carrie seemed to want to delve further.

"What caused the divorce?" she asked.

"Disinterest," I replied. It was my standard offering and I barely missed a beat. It also happened to be true.

"That's a strange answer," Carrie remarked.

"We were kids when we got married," I told her. "In all probability we never would have married the other if Kasey hadn't come along. Neither of us wanted to be married and we certainly didn't want to be married to the person we wound up with. Our personalities are totally different and they became more divergent as we grew up and expanded our interests."

"You seemed saddened by that," she replied.

I would have to say she was right. There were parts of my life that I found very unsettling — and not just in terms of self interest. Kelly's life had been thrown off course by our lack of foresight. My life turned out pretty much the same as I expected it to because I truly didn't have very high aspirations.

Kelly, on the other hand, came from a family of success. Her father was an architect and her mother was an author. Her brother was a corporate CEO and her sister was a national marketing director. Kelly was almost 40 and she hadn't been able to leave her mark on the world — with the exception of raising a pair of pretty terrific kids.

For me, that would have been enough. For her parents, it was enough. They thought the sun rose and set with our children. Kasey and Mark were their only grandchildren and Kelly's parents treated them like royalty.

It wasn't enough for Kelly. Before we married she had hoped to be a doctor — a medical doctor, not a Ph.D. But she was smart enough to understand the rigors of med school and residency wouldn't coincide well with being a parent. She also understood that our financial situation would preclude me from being primary caretaker to our kids while she gained her M.D.

Instead she opted for sociology. In all honesty, I have only a vague idea of what sociologists do. I understand they study the structure of society but outside of that I'm pretty much clueless. I guess that explains my disinterest statement pretty well.

Carrie listened intently as I spoke.

"So you would have been happy being a stay-at-home dad?" she asked.

"Eminently," I replied. Every time I thought of doing that, a smile lit my face. This time was no exception.

"Wow," Carrie exclaimed. "That might be the first real smile I've seen from you in two days. So, why didn't you do that? I mean, from the start."

I sighed.

"A multitude of reasons," I answered. "I was a year ahead of Kelly so I was closer to my degree and the workforce. Kelly still harbored dreams of medical school until reality set in when Kasey was about 3. By that time she had friends who were second- and third-year residents and she saw them coming apart at the seams. She was only a sophomore when she got pregnant and she was planning to return to school in the fall. She switched chemistry to a minor and picked sociology as her major. Of course, she didn't count on the dearth of jobs for sociologists in the real world — just as my political science degree is worthless. So she got her master's then her doctorate."

I gave a grim chuckle.

"I think she only did that because she had ordered stationary when she was 12 with Dr. Kelly Wells on it. She didn't want it to go to waste."

"It would explain the divorce, too," Carrie said humorously. "Oh, wait. She didn't change her name back to Wells."

There was a pause.

"That seems strange," she continued. "I've only met Kelly a couple of times but she seems to harbor somewhat feminist views. I would have expected her to retake her maiden name."

I bit my lip.

"A part of that is my fault but not all of it," I said.

Carrie gave the motion for me to continue.

"The kids," I said. "At first, I refused to let her change the kids' names. She planned to retake her maiden name and she wanted to add a hyphen to the kids' names. I refused because she was being such a bitch about visitation. I mean, I eventually relented but Kasey put her foot down. She said there was no way she was changing her name and that she would fight her mother in every way possible to prevent it. She was maybe 14 years old. She went so far as to contact an attorney. I guess that pretty much left Kelly being a Cavenaugh whether she wanted it or not."

"I like that kid already!" Carrie said.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I loved my daughter with all my heart. But there were times when she tried my patience mightily.

"She can be standoffish," I said diplomatically. "She is not always considerate of other people's feelings and she tends to shoot from the hip with her comments. She refuses to backtrack even when she's been proven wrong and she tends to say things just to hurt people. She does this mostly with her mother and I find the disrespect she shows Kelly to be troublesome. I've tried to intervene but Kelly always insists that she understands that Kasey is upset with the way the divorce was handled. She seems to think she'll get over it eventually. I have my doubts."

I think my turn to a serious subject caught Carrie off guard.

"Are there other trouble spots with Kasey?" she asked. "I mean is she rebellious in other ways?"

"You mean does she smoke pot, drink or screw around," I said. "Not to my knowledge. She has never been picked up for shoplifting. Her boyfriends are all seemingly normal guys. She brings them by to meet me before their first dates. It is not a rule but she does it anyway. It's funny, she is very open with me. Probably more so than I prefer. I really missed so much of her early life. I don't think she tells me things just for the shock value but some of them shock me nonetheless."

"Such as, if I'm not intruding?" Carrie asked.

I sighed and frowned.

"She is sexually active," I said. "Dads don't really want to know that. Dads don't need to know that stuff. But she came to me to discuss it. She wanted my opinion and she wanted to talk about things. It was a pretty adult conversation and one I wasn't prepared for. I would be more comfortable talking with Mark about it. But when it came time to go the gynecologist for birth control pills and a check up, Kasey asked me to go with her. I think it was only then that I realized that being a parent means doing a hell of a lot of things you don't want to."

"But you went," Carrie said. Her tone of voice didn't lead me to believe it was a question.

"Of course," I answered anyway.

I could see her smile even in the darkened car.

"Of course," she echoed. "I don't think you get some of it. My dad was sort of like you. He worked so much and that just made the time we spent together so much more special. At least to me. I cherished each and every moment that we shared because I understood how much he was doing just to make sure that we could afford summer camps and braces. My mom was around all the time so I tended to take her for granted.

"But Kelly is going to have understand that Kasey is always going to resent the fact that she took her away from you for so long. Then you gave up your life to move closer to her. You agreed to start your life over with nothing just so you could be closer to her. She is old enough to understand what her mother did and how you responded. She respects you for coming closer to her because she couldn't move closer to you.

"It strengthened what she already thought about you — that you would give up anything for her — and she'll never forget it."

I hazarded a glance to my right. There were tears glistening in Carrie's eyes when the headlights from a passing car caught them. She wiped them and smiled slightly.

"It hits a little close to home for me," she said. "My mom left my dad when I was 10. We moved away and she married someone else. She expected me to just transfer my affection like she had. For three years, I rarely saw my dad. He would come down when he could but it wasn't often. Then one Friday he picked me up at school. We drove to a house on the other side of town and he told me he had retired and moved there. He gave up his career because being closer to me was more important to him that money.

"When I turned 16 I petitioned the courts to give him custody. My mom didn't take the news well. In fact, she refused to speak to me again. A year or so after I moved in with dad, she moved away and I haven't spoken to her since. She never accepted the fact that it was her doing that led to the rift between us. I was too young to have a say in the matter and as soon as I was old enough, I made sure everyone heard what I had to say."