Chapter Nine

He was angry at Michelle for calling last minute, needing him to do something for her daughter. There it was, just like that, Keithe’s real feelings surfaced.

Dressed for work and since he had agreed, Keithe only had plans to pick Stoney up, drop her off at her dad’s home, since he was out of town, and head back into the office. Driving toward the Dallas–Fort Worth Airport, Keithe couldn’t help but reminisce.

He remembered three years ago as if it were just yesterday: the realization that Stoney, who he’d initially met through Mike, was Michelle’s daughter. A daughter she’d left in her mother’s custody, then unremorse-fully, losing contact with both.

Although the experience was out of a Twilight Zone episode Keithe was eventually grateful to be a part of the reunion, which grew to both being overjoyed with the ability to be back in the other’s life. Inadvertently helping Stoney find the part of her that had been missing all of her life had been rewarding. But Michelle hadn’t bothered, never mentioned, not so much of a breath, that she was indeed someone’s mother. Nevertheless, when the time came to help her purge from her past, Keithe was right there for his wife to accept what God had done by allowing her a second chance.

Keithe had tried to put his feelings on the back burner so he could be there spiritually and emotionally for Michelle, who had lost all of her cool and dignity when reality invaded her world. And he did. He even gave of himself to Stoney, who had successfully used him to get closer to her mother. But the whole while, and even as the dust had settled, he hadn’t been real with himself. He still had pain in his heart due to not being thought of in all the matters going on.

During that time, even now if he thought about it long enough, Keithe had been embarrassed. Humiliated was more like it. Even if no one thought him to be a fool, he was his worst critic. He’d given his best years, his twenties and thirties, to a woman he fell madly in love with, with her sharing the same sentiments. Or so he thought. Not being a dad was something he’d settled with when Michelle let him know early on in their marriage that parenting was not on her agenda. He was okay with that because he felt being an adopted brother in the Big Brother program in their community would suffice. And it had. At least until the day that Stoney and Michelle embraced one another in a mother/daughter hug.

“This is so wrong on so many levels.” Keithe slammed his fist against his steering wheel’s horn, making the sound blare underneath his knuckles. Adding a smirk and a friendly wave, Keithe felt like a moron as the guy in the vehicle in front of him thought him to be honking at him out of anger.

It wasn’t their entire fault. It wasn’t all Michelle’s fault, and Keithe knew that. He didn’t have to agree to go without being a father. He didn’t have to just buy into the story that the scar on her bikini line was from a childhood accident. He could have protested or just been honest, letting his wife, fifteen years his senior, know he wanted to be a father. But he hadn’t and now he was paying the price.

“By the time I meet someone and date them, get to know them and marry, sheesh, I’ll be fifty myself.” Keithe just didn’t like the figures.

Taking the ramp that would take him to the Delta airline arrivals, Keithe slowed as he started looking for Stoney immediately. When he saw the Southern belle waving her hand excitedly, a smile etched its way onto Keithe’s face. He honestly couldn’t blame Stoney. She was just a daughter on a mission to find out who she was and where she’d come from.

When Keithe first met her, a fellow church member at Mike’s church, Stoney was just a shy, lost young lady. She literally lived in the world alone, not knowing if blood relatives existed for her. Hooked on prescription drugs back then, Stoney had reduced herself to mere skin and bones due to all of the worry of not knowing what her life would evolve into. Through all of her own internal investigations, once she figured out Keithe could have possibly been married to her mother through trial and error, Stoney lost it, literally.

Stoney had been on a manhunt, stalking Keithe and eventually following him four hours from Dallas to the home he and Michelle had built in Houston. Breaking and entering into the house when Michelle was alone, Stoney’s emotions and psyche got to be too much for her and she lost her cool, hurting herself and Michelle in the process.

But thankfully, today, Stoney got it all back together.

“Hey, Pops.” Stoney bent down to speak through the window before she dragged her pink and green luggage toward his trunk.

With his car flashers on, Keithe released his seat belt and stepped out of the vehicle. Watching out for other cars as they passed, Keithe made his way toward the back of his Porsche. “Hey, Stone Cold.” Keithe called out the nickname given to his stepdaughter from Mike.

With the look from his stepdaughter, Keithe quickly remembered Stoney no longer cared for Mike. Never knowing about Mike’s lifestyle, Stoney felt betrayed when the truth about him being homosexual came out. At the moment, he couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t blame you,” he said without following up.

Stoney let go of trying to handle her luggage and gave it over to Keithe. “Thanks, Pops.”

Swearing she could hear Keithe growling, Stoney held up her manicured hands and backed her way to the driver’s side of the car. Once again, it seemed she had over packed.

Sitting and fastening herself in, Stoney waited until her stepdad put the car in drive before she dug deeper. “What’s really going on with you and your friend? It doesn’t sound like you to be badmouthing Mike.” Stoney could not have cared less, but figured it all tied into the way Keithe hadn’t been corresponding with her and her mother. “Did he do something to you?”

With a check of his rearview mirror, Keithe thought of what to say. No doubt Stoney would go back and tell her mother all she thought she wanted and needed to know. “Oh. You know. Mike just being Mike,” he said. “We just have that old best friend, grown man beef going on.” Taking a quick glance over at Stoney, Keithe smirked and hoped it would be enough.

“Hmm. Maybe best friend beef, but grown man beef ... that I doubt.” Stoney crossed her arms on top of her seat belt. Dressed in a yellow cardigan set and brown khaki pants, Stoney crossed her feet at the ankles and wiggled her feet.

“I see you still haven’t forgiven Mike?” Keithe was glad he could ease the subject from his own woes with Mike.

“You know I forgive because God honors that. But to forget is a whole other story. I just don’t like liars and deceivers,” Stoney said.

Keithe pursed his lips as he listened to the young woman who loved the Lord but quickly forgot about her own flaws. Which in turn made him think about his own flaws. “I see,” was all Keithe cared to say. With so many different emotions going on in his own mind, Keithe pushed play on his CD player and listened as the music flowed from one inspirational song to the next.

There really was more he could elaborate on with Stoney as far as Mike being a liar and a deceiver, but he retracted his thought.

If his memory served him correctly, Stoney had known who he was before he could even fathom who she was. Yet and still, never did she let him in on the possibility of him being her stepfather. Stoney had simply befriended him, and asked him questions in hopes of him slipping up and telling her all she needed to know about Michelle. And he had.

Even with her harboring hurtful feelings from Mike’s doings, Keithe knew Stoney loved the Lord and would eventually see the error of her ways. And to help the process, he would no doubt continue to pray and lift her up before the Lord.