Chapter 30 David #2
She folds her arms. “I told him I was young and in a terrible marriage, and that when I tried to leave, you made it impossible for me to take Michaela.”
For one second, I genuinely can’t speak.
Not because I’m shocked she lied. That part is so predictable it barely qualifies as new information.
It’s the shape of the lie. The fact that she took my years with Michaela—every bottle, every fever, every preschool drop-off, every terrified night after Kelsie vanished—and turned them into evidence of my abuse.
“You told your billionaire husband I kept you from your child.”
Her jaw tightens. “I told him what he could understand.”
I stare at her.
There are moments when anger feels hot. This one doesn’t. This one feels surgical. Clean enough to kill with.
“And when did reality become inconvenient?” I ask. “Before or after you married his money?”
“Fuck you, David.”
“No,” I say immediately. “Fuck you.”
Her eyes go wide, more at the tone than the words. I almost never give her this. She’s used to measured David. Restrained David. David who keeps his voice level, his hands still, his devastation private. But that was who I was before.
“You sold that man a lie so he wouldn’t find out you walked away from your daughter because you didn’t want her.”
Her jaw tightens.
“I never said I didn’t want her.”
“You left her alone in an apartment for fourteen hours. Before that, you’d disappear for days at a time.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“She was eleven months old—a baby.”
Kelsie opens her mouth to respond but clamps it shut when the garden door opens.
“—and the chrysalis stage is actually the most interesting part because the caterpillar has essentially dissolved its own identity and reconstituted itself as an entirely different organism, which raises questions about continuity of personhood that I think the courts are not prepared to—”
She rounds the corner into the sitting room and stops.
Her eyes move between me and Kelsie.
Thomas is a step behind her. He takes in the scene and his expression shifts.
“Everything OK?” he asks.
“Just catching up,” Kelsie says, forcing her mask back into place and smiling up at him.
“Right.” Thomas doesn’t sound convinced as he turns his gaze to me. “Mr. Kingsley.”
“Thomas.” I keep my eyes on Michaela. “Hey, monster.”
Her face relaxes immediately.
“Hey, Daddy,” she says. “I’ve had several experiences.”
“Have you.”
“Yes. Some were acceptable. One involved iced tea with mint in it, which I found unsettling. Also, there was a caterpillar, but Thomas says it’s technically a butterfly larva, which feels like elitist phrasing.”
I almost smile. “That does sound elitist.”
Thomas huffs a laugh. Kelsie does not.
Michaela steps toward me before anyone can frame the moment, and I crouch automatically. She comes in close enough that I can smell grass on her sweater, and her arms go around my neck in a quick, hard squeeze that makes everything feel right in this world.
I close my eyes for half a second and hold her back.
“You OK?” I ask quietly.
She pulls away just enough to look at me. Her eyes are clear. Tired around the edges, maybe. Guarded. But clear. “I’m currently operational.”
That’s not an answer, but it’s the answer I’m getting in front of witnesses.
“Good,” I say. “Ready to go, monster?”
Michaela looks at me. Then at Kelsie. Then back at me.
“Yes,” she says. “I believe I am.”
Thomas rushes to grab her backpack for her. “I’ll walk you out.”
Kelsie does not offer to come with us.
She stays in the sitting room, one hand lightly touching the stem of her wineglass, posture immaculate and detached, as if departures are things that happen around her rather than because of her.
Thomas, meanwhile, collects Michaela’s backpack from beside the patio door and falls into step behind us with the easy, competent air of a man trying very hard to keep a situation from becoming more uncomfortable than it already is.
I get Michaela into her coat properly in the foyer, though she insists she’s perfectly capable of zipping it herself and then immediately gets the lining caught.
“Sabotage,” she mutters.
“Clearly,” I say, freeing the zipper.
Thomas opens the front door for us. Cool evening air slides into the polished house. Michaela steps out first, then pauses on the top step and looks back toward the interior.
“Goodbye,” she says, with impeccable manners and absolutely no warmth.
“Goodbye, dear,” Kelsie calls from somewhere behind us.
Michaela’s face doesn’t change. She takes my hand instead.
That, at least, is honest.
We head down the steps toward the curb where I’m parked. Thomas follows with the backpack slung over one shoulder, still trying to make this feel like a normal end to a normal afternoon.
“The caterpillar really was impressive,” he says, mostly to Michaela. “I’ll send you that article about monarch migration if your dad says it’s all right.”
“That would be acceptable,” Michaela says gravely. “Provided it’s from a credible source.”
“I’ll do my best to meet your standards.”
“Thank you.”
I open the rear door and steady Michaela by the elbow while she climbs in. She sits back while I fasten the buckle, because despite her endless campaign for independence, she still leans into these small rituals when she’s tired.
Thomas extends the backpack toward me. “She’s a remarkable kid.”
I take it. “She is.” I glance up at him. He’s a couple of inches taller than my six-two frame. “And thank you. For helping this go as smoothly as it could.”
His expression shifts at that—approval, maybe, or surprise that I’m willing to offer him even that much. He slips his hands into his coat pockets and glances back toward the brownstone, toward the open door, the warm foyer beyond.
“When I came in,” he says carefully, “it was hard not to notice the atmosphere.”
That is one word for it.
I close the car door gently before I answer. “It’s been a long time since Kelsie and I have had a conversation. There’s some history in the room.”
Thomas gives a slow nod like he’s trying to be fair to everyone involved and not quite succeeding. “She’s trying, David.”
I look at him.
He means it. That’s the thing that makes it hardest to stomach. He isn’t posturing. He genuinely believes he’s standing up for a woman making a difficult, sincere effort.
“She just needs a little space to settle into this,” he adds. “To find her footing as a mother again.”
Again.
For one dangerous second, I almost say it. The obvious thing. The true thing—she was never a mother to begin with.
But I tamp that down and go with, “My only concern in this situation is my daughter’s wellbeing.”
Thomas studies me for a moment like he’s looking for something under the words.
“I believe that,” he says.
And because I’m tired, because my daughter’s in the back seat and I can feel Kelsie’s house behind me like a set of teeth, I say the thing I probably shouldn’t.
“Then I’d suggest you start asking yourself why your wife left you to do the actual parenting part of today.”
A crease appears between his brows. “She had a migraine.”
I hold his gaze for a moment, then nod. “If you say so.”
The silence that follows is brief and uncomfortable. Thomas’s jaw shifts once, controlled, as if he’s making an active choice not to take offense.
“I know you and I are unlikely to see this the same way,” he says. “But I am trying to do right by Michaela.”
“Then do that,” I say. “Do right by her. Not by Kelsie’s version of events. By Michaela.”
His face stills.
Then he inclines his head. “Good night, David.”
“Good night.”
I get into the driver’s seat before I say anything else inflammatory. The door shuts with padded finality that should be satisfying and isn’t.
Michaela’s quiet in the back.
Too quiet.
I start the car, pull away from the curb, and do not look in the rearview mirror again.
We’re three blocks away before she speaks.
“She didn’t play with me.”
My hands tighten on the wheel.
“Thomas played with me. Thomas found the caterpillar. Thomas made the lemonade and sat with me while I ate. Thomas asked me about school. Thomas wanted to see my drawing of Archie.” She pauses.
“She took pictures. And she asked me why I didn’t want to call her Mom.
And then she said she had a headache and went inside. ”
I keep driving. I don’t trust my voice yet.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, monster?”
“Is it possible to be present and absent at the same time?”
The question is so precise it nearly takes me off the road.
“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”
“I thought so.” She’s quiet for another block. “Can we go to Miss Nora’s? I need to see Archimedes. Strictly for decompression purposes.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“And cookies.”
“We’ll ask.”
“And possibly to discuss the legal implications of metamorphosis, because I’ve had some thoughts, and Thomas, while enthusiastic, isn’t trained in jurisprudence.”
Despite everything—the sitting room, the mask, Kelsie’s flat eyes, Thomas’s honest handshake and the word trying sitting in my throat like gravel—I smile.
“I’m sure Nora will be happy to hear your thoughts.”
“She always is.” Michaela unfolds the drawing of Archie from her backpack pocket. Studies it. “He helped. When it got hard, I looked at him.”
My throat closes.
“Good,” I say. Because I can’t say more than that. Because the wall is cracking, and she needs it to hold.
I drive toward Nora’s house.