Wife-in-Law

by Haywood Smith

  Kat shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She glanced into the living room to make sure we were alone. “I didn’t do it with anybody either.”

  “What?” I teased. “Wildwoman Kat?”

  She sniffed out a short breath. “We both know that’s pure nonsense. I tried free love before I met Zach, and it just felt like I was giving away important pieces of me for nothing. Once I knew what life was like with him, I could never make love to anybody I didn’t care about and trust with both my body and my heart. I like the male attention here, but for these men, sex is just a job. Thanks to Zach, I know how amazing and spiritual it can be.”

  “You’re lucky,” I told her. “I never had that kind of sex with Greg. I loved him platonically, so our love life was hardly spectacular.”

  “You were good to him for a long time,” Kat said. “Better than he deserved. Try to think about that, instead.”

  “You loved him better than I ever did,” I confessed.

  She gave me a sidelong squeeze. Talking about it was healing, somehow, but we didn’t bring him up again.

  The ship’s horn sounded, and the intercom came on. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be docking in Hawaii tomorrow morning. Our stewards are ready to assist you with your packing. Please let them know, and they are at your service.”

  All good things come to an end. Then the day came that I had dreaded. After two days in the air, we arrived at the Atlanta airport, and it was over. The cold felt sharp when we hurried out to our limo, and Atlanta was as noisy and polluted as it always had been, but now, I noticed it more.

  By the time we pulled into my driveway on Eden Lake Court, it was afternoon. I kissed Kat good-bye in the limo, then showed the driver into the house with my bags. I tipped him forty dollars, closed the door on the stale air of my cold, empty house, and watched as he took Kat home.

  Bed. I needed a long soak, then my own bed.

  I was adjusting the taps when the phone rang. I hurried into the bedroom to pick up. “Hello?”

  “Hey.” It was Kat. “It feels really weird in this house all by myself, without the animals, even.” We hadn’t picked them up from the Pet Ritz. She inhaled a juicy sniff. “I got used to havin’ you right across the cabin.”

  I could hear the letdown in her voice. “I’m just right across the street,” I said. “You want to spend the night in Amelia’s room?”

  “Nah. I’ve gotta get used to it sometime.”

  “Well, just call if you change your mind.”

  “Okay. Bye.” She hung up.

  I had just taken off all my clothes and was adding bath salts when the phone rang again. Again, I hurried to answer in case it was Kat.

  It wasn’t. “Where’ve you been?” Mama scolded. “I was getting worried when I didn’t hear from you when y’all landed.”

  “Mama, I just walked in the door, and I need to take a bath and soak, because long flights really dehydrate you.”

  She paused, then asked, “How long will that take?”

  Why did she care? “I don’t know. An hour?” When she didn’t respond, I prodded, “Why do you need to know?”

  “I’ve got that surprise for you, all ready for tonight.”

  The last thing I wanted was to unwrap some package before I’d even finished unpacking my suitcases, but there was a strange intensity in Mama’s tone. “I’ll finish and get dressed by five,” I relented. So much for bed.

  “I’ll tell them six, just to be safe,” Mama said. “Enjoy your soak, sweetie. I love you.”

  She sounded so normal, it scared me. “Mama, where are you?”

  “In Phoenix with Claude,” she answered.

  “Is everything okay?”

  She sighed, then said, “It’s about to be, I hope. Just remember, your mama loves you.”

  “I love you too.” I went back to my bath, soaked till all the hot water was gone, then put on a comfortable jogging suit and lay down on the bed to wait for the surprise to be delivered.

  It was almost dark when the doorbell rang. I flipped on the porch light and looked out to see a tall, thin, white-haired man standing with his back to the door, his posture bent by the heavy weight of the large cardboard box in his hands.

  I opened the door. “Yes?”

  He turned, his face vaguely familiar as he studied me intently. “Elizabeth Callison?”

  I nodded.

  Where had I seen him before? Somewhere, but he’d looked different …

  His eyes welled. “Betsy-girl, you sure did grow up, didn’t you?”

  What? What did he say?

  His mouth tried not to crumple, but a tear escaped his familiar blue eyes as he choked out, “It’s me, Daddy. Surprise.”

  I stood there frozen, stunned. This was Mama’s surprise?

  Daddy got a grip on himself. “Do you mind if I come inside? This is pretty heavy.”

  “Of course. Where are my manners? Come in.” I led him toward the kitchen. “Please let me fix you something to drink.”

  “Nice place you got here,” he said, standing there with the heavy box.

  Nothing like your mother’s hung unspoken between us.

  “Thanks.” What do you say to the prodigal father? “I’m afraid I took the opposite approach to Mama’s. I’m crazy clean.”

  “Works for me,” he said with a shy grin.

  I moved a chair away from the kitchen table to give him easy access to the table. “Here.”

  He deposited the box, then sank into a chair. “Whew. Feels good to put that down.”

  I wanted to hug him, but felt awkward about it, so instead, I stepped over to inspect the box. It wasn’t taped shut. “What’s in it?” I prodded.

  Daddy smiled and opened it up for me to see. “Take a look.”

  I stepped closer and saw that it was full of letters and snapshots, some of them brown with age. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of letters, neatly stacked. And they were all addressed to me in Daddy’s slanty penmanship, with the addresses scratched through and “Return to Sender” written in Mama’s handwriting.

  All the air went out of me.

  Return to sender? Mama wouldn’t set foot out of the house for anything—but that. She’d gone to the mailbox to keep my father from me. Return to sender. And kept it from me all these years.

  I felt like I’d been blindsided by a commuter train.

  Daddy looked down. “I wrote you every day for six years, till they started coming back stamped ‘No such person at this address. ’ So I wrote your mama, but I got the same thing.” He glanced at me and sighed. “I should have made sure, but I was working twelve-hour days to pay your child support to the courts and save up enough to try for custody again. So I put it off till I got back Stateside, which kept getting delayed by another contract, and another. Sorry. Guess I let you down.”

  Overwhelming love and sympathy for my father battled a sucking vortex of hurt and betrayal aimed at my mother, and I baptized the evidence of Daddy’s love with big, slow-falling tears that smeared the ink on the envelopes.

  “Oh, Daddy,” I whispered, “you have nothing to apologize for.” My mother did, but she could apologize till eternity, and it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Betsy, look at me.” Daddy met my reluctant gaze with a steady one of his own. “Don’t go letting your mama spoil this.” He could still see right through me, just as he always could. “We should be celebrating. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “If it wasn’t for her,” I said, the words shaking with bitterness, “I’d never have lost you.”

  “Don’t think about that now,” Daddy said with a calm I envied. “Think about me.” He pulled an envelope from the box. “Here. Start with this.”

  I opened it as if it was a sacred thing, which it was. The date inside was November 23, 1962.

  Precious Betsy,

  We have two days off for Thanksgiving, but nobody around here has any turkeys, so I am eating fire-roasted mutton with mashed
chickpeas and olive oil—with my fingers—in a Bedouin tent made from handwoven fabric. The Bedouins weave their tents supertight and thick to keep out the wind and sand for generations. Beautiful handmade rugs cover the ground in deep reds and blues and caramel, and these, too, were made to last. They are the only color in this brown, desert place.

  Though the Bedouins don’t put down roots in houses like Americans do, they bring their heritage and traditions with them, in their close-knit families. Just like I bring you with me, in my heart, wherever I go even here, half a world away.

  Though I haven’t been able to contact you, I am still thankful that you are my daughter, and I think about you every day, wondering what you’re doing and what you look like now. I pray that you won’t forget me, and that I’ll find you again someday, and you can read these letters.

  Love,

  Daddy

  Poor Daddy.

  And Mama. How could I ever face her again, now that I knew the full extent of the evil she’d done to both of us?

  I boo-hooed.

  “Aw, honey.” Daddy got up and put his arm around my shoulders, drawing me into the chair beside his. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  His peace spread into me through the comfort of his sheltering arm, and I laughed through my tears. “These are good tears,” I lied, “not bad ones.”

  Daddy wasn’t fooled. He kissed the top of my head the way he used to when I was little. “Don’t worry about me, sweetie. I’ve forgiven your mama. It wasn’t easy, but she was sick, and terrified of being left alone. She did the best she could.”

  I’d believed that, too, before I found out the truth of what she’d done.

  Daddy went on. “Now, thanks to Claude, she’s back on track, taking her meds and doing the right thing.”

  For how long?

  “She told me Claude took her with him to Al-Anon meetings,” Daddy said, “and it helped her so much that she worked her way through the steps to the one where she makes amends for past wrongs. That’s when she paid somebody to find me, then called to apologize for lyin’ to you and the judge, and sendin’ back all my letters.” He tightened his embrace. “That’s why I’m here. She’s making amends to both of us.”

  Would he still be so gracious if he knew it all? “When you were packing to leave, Mama told me you had another family, one that wasn’t crazy, so I let you go and hoped you were happy.”

  Daddy let out a low whistle, but maintained his composure. “There was never another family. And precious few women at work. I was so angry with your mama, and so obsessed with getting you back, that I ended up running off the few half-decent girls I met.”

  Was there no end to the lies Mama had told me? But I could spend all night bumping into that, and it wouldn’t do a bit of good.

  Daddy was back, and I meant to make the most of it. “I’m so glad you’re here. How long can you stay?”

  Daddy cocked his head. “Well, that depends.”

  Good. He didn’t have a deadline. “Where are you staying?”

  He shifted, uncomfortable. “Well, I haven’t actually found a place yet. By the time I got through security and rented the car at the airport, then got stuck in traffic, I barely made it here on time.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Then you can stay here, as long as you want.”

  My father was back!

  “Don’t get up, Daddy. I’ll fix us some supper.” What did I have in the freezer? “Do you still like butter peas?”

  He grinned, relaxing at last. “Love ’em.”

  My daddy was back! I had a million questions, but before I could ask them, the phone rang, and I flinched, fearing it was Mama, but it was only Kat. “Hey.”

  “Hey. Are you okay? I just saw that car parked in your driveway, and I—”

  “I’m fine. As a matter of fact, I’m fabulous. Thanks to Mama, which is an irony of galactic proportions, I am sitting here with my long-lost father.”

  After a startled pause, Kat exploded with, “Ohmygosh! What’s he like? What does he do? Where does he live?”

  I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and told Daddy, “My best friend Kat, who lives across the street, wants to know where you live and what you do.”

  Daddy exhaled heavily, his mouth flat, then confessed, “I used to manage a car factory, but the company went bust, taking our pensions with it, so now I am involuntarily unemployed.”

  Ouch.

  “What’s he saying?” Kat demanded.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Daddy didn’t skip a beat. “So I lost my house,” he went on, matter-of-fact. “Then the condo I was renting went into foreclosure. That’s when your mother found me. Worked out perfect. So I packed up and came here.”

  “Betsy!” Kat scolded. “Tell me what he’s saying.”

  For the first time in forever, I hung up on her. “Oh, Daddy. I’m so sorry you went through all that.”

  Then the most brilliant idea in the universe struck me. “It gets really lonely here by myself,” I told him. “Would you be willing to try living here? I’ll be traveling with Kat a good bit, and you could look after our houses while we’re gone.” A man had his pride.

  Shame tightened his expression. “Darlin’, that’s a real generous offer, but you don’t even know me. I couldn’t just horn in on your life like that.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I challenged. “Who says? You know nothing about me either. Like how I butted in when I found out my ex was cheating on my best friend across the street, and she accidentally killed him, and it was all my fault? Got anything to top that?”

  Daddy’s eyes widened. “What was that again?”

  “Infidelity, manipulation, and murder, to put it in a nutshell. But don’t worry,” I told him. “The DA dropped the charges, so Kat got double the insurance. Enough to hire me as her personal companion. Or accomplice, more accurately.”

  “And I thought my life was colorful,” Daddy said wryly.

  It might have been colorful, but he was still my beloved father, and that was all I needed to know. “Trust me, there’s lots more where that came from. But if you move in, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about all that. And about your two beautiful granddaughters, and your amazing great-granddaughter and grandson.”

  Daddy brightened. “Okay,” he said, “but I have to warn you: I never lie, which can get awkward.”

  I closed my eyes with a grateful sigh. “Truth. What a relief that will be.”

  “You’ve got to promise you’ll tell me the truth, too, if I ever do anything you don’t like,” he qualified.

  “Done!” I stuck out my hand to shake, and he took it in affirmation.

  We were hugging when Kat burst in—she has a key—wearing her new fur coat over flannel pajamas and big, fuzzy blue slippers, her hair like Medusa. “Don’t tell me this is all over but the huggin’,” she demanded. “’Cause if it is, I want an instant replay.”

  I laughed. “Daddy, this is my best friend, Mrs. Greg Callison, aka Kat-with-a-K, from across the street. She knows no boundaries when it comes to our friendship.”

  “It’s about time you came back,” she scolded Daddy as she shook his hand. “Betsy thought you were dead.” She motioned to me. “And this is my best friend, Mrs. Greg Callison the first, who hung up on me just when things were getting good over here.” She turned back to Daddy. “So fess up. What did I miss?”

  Daddy winked at her, then came back with a sassy, “Betsy can tell you her secrets if she wants, little girl, but I’ll hang on to mine.”

  Kat was captivated. “Well, aren’t you the daddy?”

  “Daddy just retired,” I told Kat, “and I asked him to move in with me.”

  Kat sized him up. “You’re not gonna try to come between us, are you?”

  Daddy laughed, then told me, “I like her. She’s a straight shooter.”

  “And a Democrat,” I retorted.

  Kat refused to be deflected. She folded her arms and stared at Daddy. “You didn’t answer my
question.”

  Daddy’s eyes crinkled with smile lines. “I will never try to come between you.”

  I started to change the subject, but Kat raised a staying palm my way and asked Daddy, “Do you use drugs or alcohol, and how much?”

  “Kat!” I glared at her, even though I was dying to know the answer.

  “Just lookin’ after you,” she told me, then confronted Daddy yet again. “Well, do you?”

  Daddy faced her squarely. “Clean and sober since 1991. I find life a lot better when I’m not under the influence.”

  It was true, I could see it.

  “Good,” Kat said. “That just leaves one more question.”

  Daddy and I braced ourselves.

  Kat suddenly seemed very young, and very fragile. “I could use a father too. Do you think you could adopt me?”

  Daddy pulled her to his side with one arm, and me with his other. “Works for me, as long as it’s okay with Betsy.”

  “It’s very okay with Betsy,” I said without hesitation. The Daddy I knew had room in his heart for all of us.

  Kat let out a long, relieved sigh, wiping her eyes free of tears, then pulled away and headed for the front door. “On that note, I’m goin’ to go home to sleep for three days, and I don’t want to hear a peep from either of you.”

  “Bye,” Daddy and I said in unison.

  When the door slammed, he motioned to a chair at the table. “You must be whipped. Sit down, and let me do the cooking.”

  My eyes widened. He cooked?

  Of course he cooked. He’d fed me and Mama all those years, and it was good.

  Thanks be to God. I got my daddy back, and he could cook! “That would be great.”

  While he was concocting something that smelled wonderful and singing country gold in the kitchen, I went to my little office and e-mailed Mama, thanking her for giving me back my father, and assuring her that I forgave her for what her illness drove her to do. (Okay, so the forgiveness part wasn’t true yet, but I was working on it, so one day it would be.)

  Mama e-mailed back with humble thanks, swearing that she would never, ever stop taking her meds again, a promise I prayed she could keep.