There was a couch behind the passenger seat that pulled out into a bed, and that was where Tyrone slept. He’d gotten used to it after the days on the road, and it was almost as comfortable as his bed at home. His dad had said it ought to be, since the RV had cost the admiral as much as they’d paid for their house.
He saw his mom and dad coming back from the direction of the truck stop. They had a couple of big paper bags and a cardboard carrier of soft drinks. This was a treat, since Mom usually cooked in the RV.
“There’s a place to park around the side of the buffalo pen,” his dad said. “We can eat and watch the buffalo roam.” He rattled the bags.
“Flawless,” Tyrone said. “As long as it’s not downwind.”
The fries were good, the onion rings really good, and the burgers had a kind of smoky, odd flavor. Not bad, but different. Tyrone swallowed a bite of the burger and said, “They cook burgers kinda differently out here.”
His father smiled. “It’s not how they cook them, it’s what they make them out of.”
Tyrone looked at him. “Huh?”
His father pointed out the window over the table and grinned real big.
Tyrone looked at the buffalo. He looked at his burger.
Ah…
Both Nadines laughed.
All of a sudden Tyrone wasn’t that hungry. Then again, he was going to eat this burger, and he would do it if it killed him. No way was he going to let his dad get this one, no… way.
He smiled, took a big bite, and smiled again, mouth full. “Good. I love it.”
9
Michaels felt as if he were a thousand years old and mostly turned to dust as he held the phone’s receiver in a death grip that threatened to break his hand or the instrument. He kept his voice as light as he could.
“… really great, Dadster, and all the kids in my class love him.”
His daughter was talking about Byron Baumgardner, a teacher at her school in Boise — and his ex-wife Megan’s boyfriend.
No, not boyfriend—fiancé. They were getting married at the end of the month. And they wanted to have Byron the bearded wonder adopt his daughter, move in and take over as her father, and deny Michaels visitation — if he allowed it.
Needless to say, Michaels had not been invited to the wedding.
His initial inclination had been to fight it to the death — preferably Megan and Byron’s death. He didn’t like either of them right now, and at their first meeting had put the bearded wonder on his ass when the man had grabbed him. Megan had been doing her usual slash-and-burn number on him, and when he’d said something back in an angry retort, dear young Byron had taken it upon himself to defend her honor. Without thinking about it, Michaels had decked the man, thus proving that the silat he’d been learning actually worked.
In retrospect, that had been a mistake, but boy, it sure felt good at the time.
Well, Byron the bearded wonder would find out about how much honor his new love had the first time he crossed her — Megan fought dirty, always had. Michaels had overlooked that for a long time, blaming himself for a lot of their troubles, but eventually he realized it wasn’t all his fault. Yeah, he had spent too much time at the office, and yeah, he could withdraw into his own head and not engage even when he was home, but he had been a good father, and when Megan started throwing the lousy-dad crap in his face, it was hard to smile and shrug it off.
But would taking his ex and her new love to the legal mat and trying to choke them out benefit Susie? How would an ugly custody battle affect her? Sure, kids were resilient, they could bounce back after really nasty trauma — mental, physical, whatever — but did he want to be the one who caused that trauma?
No. Even if it was mostly Megan’s doing, she was going to be the person who got Susie out of bed every day, the person Susie would come crying to when she fell and skinned her knee, the person who could, with a few well-chosen words, plant a lot of lies about dear old dad that would slowly and surely turn his daughter against him. And he wouldn’t put it past Megan, not after what he’d learned about her after they had split up. She had a mean streak, and it was a lot wider and deeper than he’d ever imagined it could be.
Getting into a tussle with her mother over Susie’s affections would be a losing proposition, no question. At least until she became a teenager and rebelled…
Susie, now eight, continued to talk about what a swell guy Byron was, and as much as he didn’t want to agree with that, Michaels didn’t say so. Poisoning a well was never a good idea in his mind, you never knew if somebody you loved might drink from it — or if you might have to drink from it yourself someday. Susie was going to be living with the man, and what good would it do her to be in the middle of a pissing match between her real father and the new stepdad?
What harm might it do her?
Truth was, Byron probably was a nice guy. If he’d met him away from Megan, he suspected he wouldn’t have had any problems with him. Yeah, he’d been out of line when he got between a divorced couple in a long-running fight he didn’t understand, but he would have done the same thing in Byron’s place. Michaels had been ragging on Megan — justifiably so, in his mind — but what kind of man were you if you didn’t step up to protect your woman? Even if she was in the wrong?
Or even if she was somebody like Toni, who could protect herself better than you could?
Michaels shook his head. Toni ¡sn’t your woman anymore. Don’t go there.
“So when are you coming to see me, Dadster?”
“Pretty soon, Li’1 Bit. Next month.”
Yeah, next month. Friday, July 1. The day of the first round of the custody hearings. His lawyer, Phil Buchanan, was confident they could win, or at least stall things for a long time, or so he said. But the question was: Did he really want to do that?
“Spiffy! Did Momster tell you that Scout caught a rat?”
“A rat?” Scout was a toy poodle Michaels had come by when an assassin, a woman disguising herself as an old lady walking her dog, had used the little beast as part of her subterfuge. Fortunately for him, the dog had barked at just the right time, saving his life. He’d thought about keeping the pooch, but figured he needed more attention than he could give a pet, so now Scout was his daughter’s companion.
“Oh, yeah, we heard them fighting under the porch last night and then Scout came out dragging it by the neck! It was a big rat, all brown and bloody, and it was dead, but he bit Scout on the leg, so we had to take Scout to the vet to get a shot so he wouldn’t get rat disease. He’s okay, though.”