Worth the Weight Read online

  “How did you know I came home the other two summers?”

  “I knew.” He waited for her to comment on that, when she didn’t, he continued, “She was a lot of fun. A little wild. We partied a lot together, hung out, got drunk, had sex, you know, the stuff you do in your early twenties.” He looked at Liz, but she still didn’t say anything.

  Hadn’t she been doing the same thing at State? He sure had imagined she was. He’d imagined her with lots of guys. It was easier than imagining her with just one.

  “Dana said she was on the pill. She wasn’t. She got pregnant. We got married.” He was precise, succinct, as if he was rattling off the sports scores, not the most pivotal time in his life. It was the only way he could do it and not totally lose it. Liz made him so raw, always had, and he was already on edge from their earlier physical contact. He knew if he hinted at the turmoil of emotions that he’d felt at the time, he’d be curled up in a fetal position crying for Gran in no time flat. Not exactly the image he wanted to project to Liz.

  “Why would she say she was on the pill if she wasn’t?” She turned from staring at the still water and looked down at him.

  “She wanted to get married,” he said, shrugging.

  “Come on, people don’t really do that. Purposely get pregnant to trap someone into marriage?”

  “No, Liz. People you know don’t really do that. People I know, it happens plenty.” He let the harsh cynicism go from his voice. “It doesn’t matter, really. Ultimately it takes two to tango, right? I could have used a condom, I didn’t have to…”

  “What? Trust the girl you were dating? Yeah, why on earth would you do that?” She gave him a soft, understanding smile, and turned back to gaze at the lake.

  She never could take her eyes off the water, he remembered. What was she doing living in Detroit? Living in any city? She loved this place. He was just about to mention this to her when he realized they were still on him. Still digging into his past. Okay, let’s get that over with, then we can do Liz. A smirk crossed his face as he let his imagination run free with the thoughts that “do Liz” could encompass. He was glad she wasn’t looking at him anymore, couldn’t see the horny smile plastered on his face.

  Get it together, man! Your daughter’s probably crying herself to sleep over the stress of this camp thing, then finding her father on top of a semi-naked woman. Your son’s like a stranger to you. Gran was looking so tired lately, a phenomenon never seen by Finn before. You’re a gazillion bucks in debt, and looking to be more so. And all you can think about is “doing” Liz Hampton?

  He was jarred from his thoughts by Liz’s soft, “I’m sorry, Finn.”

  “Don’t be. It might have been under shitty circumstances, but it did give me Stevie. And believe it or not, I love my son like there’s no tomorrow.”

  She turned back to him. “Why wouldn’t I believe you love your son? The way you took care of your sister, the way you looked after your grandmother? Of course you’d make a wonderful father. It would never occur to me to question that.”

  He was grateful for her honest words, clung to them like a drowning man clings to a life jacket. Which, in a way, was exactly what he’d become - a drowning man.

  “Go on,” she prodded, with both her tone and her body. She nudged his hip with her foot, now bare, her sandals tossed aside, lying somewhere on the grass just off the blanket.

  He snaked a hand out and clasped her ankle and held it. He ran his fingers over the ankle and up her calf, cupping the muscles and tendons. She let out a soft sigh. “I always felt like one of your horses when you did that to me. Like any minute you’d lift my calf and make sure I hadn’t thrown a shoe.”

  He chuckled, realizing she was right, the caress was rote for him, the same one given hundreds of times to his horses. “No need to worry, Liz, I never thought of you as a horse. Other than wanting to ride you till you were all lathered up.”

  The belly laugh that he loved escaped her and she drew her leg out of his grasp, tucking it back with her other, under her skirt, winding her arms tight around them. “Not so fast, mister, you can’t wriggle out of this one with suggestive talk. Spill.”

  He exhaled a deep sigh, sensing there was no escape. “Okay, okay. Where were we?”

  “Stevie being born. You married to Dana.”

  “Right. Well, Gran and Phoebe moved into the trailer and Dana and I took over the farmhouse. She tried for a little while after Stevie was born, she really did, but...” He felt kind of cheesy, he didn’t want to bad mouth the mother of his children, even if she was a treacherous bitch. But this was Liz, and he wanted – needed – to tell her the truth. Tell her what his life had been like while she’d gone off to college, started her own business, and had surely been surrounded by men.

  “Well, it kind of finally dawned on me that Dana wasn’t going to grow out of the partying phase.”

  “When did it finally dawn on you?”

  “When she left a six-month-old Stevie alone so she could go to a bar.” At Liz’s gasp of disbelief he went on, “I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Gran and I had gone to a parent-teacher conference with Phoebe and it was running behind schedule. Apparently the two hours we were gone was longer than Dana could go without a drink once she realized all the booze in the house was gone.”

  “Oh, God.” Her voice was faint, but he could feel her concern. At least it wasn’t pity, he couldn’t bear that.

  “Yeah. I tried to help her, but she didn’t want to be helped. You’d have thought I’d have learned after my mom, eh?”

  “Right. Your mother.”

  “I guess a case could be made for me getting hooked up with Dana in the first place because she was like my mother. You know, I couldn’t fix her, maybe I could fix Dana? Classic enabler. All complete bullshit, but…whatever.” He waved his hand in front of his face as if to dismiss the whole awful mess. “Anyway, I didn’t - couldn’t - leave her alone with Stevie anymore. Watched her like a hawk. Hounded her when she’d drink. After a while, she split.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. I still don’t.”

  “So, Annie has a different mother than Stevie?”

  “No. God no, do you think I’d get hooked up with someone else and have another child so soon?” He didn’t let her answer, was afraid to hear what she might think of him. “No, Dana came back, sober, said she wanted to try again for Stevie’s sake. Stevie was three then. And I needed her. I hate to admit it, but the reason I took her back was because I needed someone to help. Phoebe, Stevie, the farm, the horses, it was too much for me alone. Gran was great, still is, but she raised me practically single-handedly, I wasn’t going to let her raise Phoebe and my son too if I could help it.”

  He waited for her response. He still felt guilty about not caring more about Dana. He figured she had sensed all he wanted from her was a mother for Stevie and resented him for it. Thinking about it now, Finn wondered if things might have turned out differently if he’d been able to feel for Dana what he’d felt for Liz.

  Too damn late for thoughts like that.

  Liz said nothing, he assumed waiting for him to go on, which he did. “We were okay for about a year. Not great, but okay. Then Dana got pregnant again.”

  “Not another lie about the pill?”

  “No, she was on the pill, but what I learned later was a lot of mornings she’d be so hung over she’d either forget to take it or her stomach would be so bad, she couldn’t hold anything down. It was stupid, plain stupid.”

  “So, Annie was born.”

  “Yeah.” A single word, but his tone implied a joy and wonderment he could not put words to. The day he’d held her had been the happiest of his life. Where as Stevie had seemed a miracle, but so daunting, Annie had fit into his arms and nuzzled into him and it had felt liberating. It gave him a sense of purpose that he’d never known he’d been lacking. “She was so tiny, so perfect.” His voice caught at the last, had a strangling
quality, and he waited, trying to get himself under control.

  Liz gave him some time, then said, “But she wasn’t perfect, was she?”

  “No. Not perfect, at least not physically. They didn’t figure it out until she was nearly a year old and still hadn’t rolled over or sat up. Her lower vertebrae had not fused properly and she was not capable of holding herself upright. She has feeling all over, thank God, so in theory she can walk. She can move her legs. They fit her for a brace that she wears all the time, even to sleep in, to keep her spine straight, and she’s in a wheelchair - obviously.”

  “That’s it? Nothing they could do? Seems like they’d be able to do something for that, some sort of operation or something.”

  “They can. They’re going to, God willing.” He snorted, sarcasm creeping in, “I guess I should say First National Bank willing.”

  “Huh? This is about money? That girl’s been in a wheelchair for…how long?”

  “Nine years. She turned ten last April.”

  “For nine years, and it’s because there was no money for an operation? That’s horrible. That’s…that’s…”

  “Stop sputtering, little Miss Save-The-World. God, you haven’t changed a bit, have you? That’s nice...reassuring, I guess.” She was staring at him, wide eyed with indignation over the injustice done to his little girl. “They couldn’t do the operation until her bones had matured to the point they’re at now. They felt that an artificial fusing wouldn’t hold during the growth period that happens from three to ten. They’re not even sure if it will hold for the next eight-year growth period, but they feel if they don’t do it now and she doesn’t start using her legs, she may not be able to later. They’ll probably have to do the operation again when she’s eighteen or twenty if the fusing doesn’t hold.”

  Lizzie let out a deep breath which sounded to Finn like relief. “Oh, okay. Where does Dana play into all this.”?

  “She doesn’t. Not anymore. The stress of Annie’s circumstances made Dana’s drinking - which I hadn’t even realized she was doing again - come out. I told her I’d do whatever I could to help her stop, but she could not be drinking around the kids.” He threw his arm over his head again, as if to blot out the whole, tawdry doings. He wouldn’t bore Liz with the ugly details of the numerous fights they’d had. “Phoebe had graduated and moved to Flint for work, so she wasn’t able to help with Annie. Dana had to stay sober. And she couldn’t, she just couldn’t, so she took off. That’s when we got divorced.”

  “Do you see her often?” She quickly amended herself. “Do the kids see her often?”

  “No. Never. She came back once.... she won’t be back.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I paid her the money I’d been saving for Annie’s operation to give up all legal rights and never see them again. Her idea, not mine.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “That was five years ago. When we first got Annie’s diagnosis, we started saving for it. I have health insurance for the kids, which I pay through the nose for since I’m self-employed, but it won’t cover the operation. It’s a type of lumbar fusion, but this particular type is labeled experimental, so it’s not covered.”

  “Rat bastard insurance companies.”

  He smiled at her show of empathy. “Exactly, though my language was a bit more colorful.

  “Anyway, I started saving every cent from the farm that I could for the operation. I had nine years to get the money. At the time she was diagnosed the operation would have cost $50,000. Now, it’s over four times that. But, it was doable. I took second jobs as soon as Annie got old enough to be left with Gran and Stevie in the evenings. I made some good investments with what I did save. A couple of my horses were getting good stud fees. I was going to have enough. Barely, but enough.

  “Then Dana came back. She was making all kinds of noise about the kids coming with her, that they should be with their mother, that no court would give custody of a little girl in a wheelchair to a man. That she’d move them to Arizona where the weather would be good for Annie - like she had fucking asthma or something. Not even a clue about her own daughter’s condition.” His disgust was apparent.

  Liz shook her head, making her ponytail swing. “This sounds like a bad Lifetime Movie.”

  “I know. If it hadn’t been happening to me, I never in hell would have believed it.” He reached out and ran his hand down her hair, stilling the ponytail across her back. It lay between her shoulder blades, jet black against the blue of her blouse. “It was all a total bluff, of course, but I couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t take the chance. She knew I had some money saved. She suggested that she’d leave the kids for good if I gave her the money to start over.”

  “Blackmail, using her own children. You sure can pick ‘em, Finn.”

  “Don’t generalize, Liz, I picked you too, remember?” They both smiled at that, though neither one was looking at the other. “I can’t forgive her. She made my daughter’s life tougher than it needs to be. But…hell, I don’t know…she was sick, an alcoholic…part of me felt sorry for her.” He sighed. “The other part of me wanted to kill her.

  “It was then that I knew I had to get her out of the kids’ lives. A woman who could demand the money she knew was going for her daughter’s operation? It was worth it to me to give her the money and start saving again. But, I made sure it wasn’t just a first installment. I got a lawyer and made her sign over all legal rights to the kids and agree that she’d never come back to Houghton or attempt to see them. She was only too happy to sign, the bitch.”

  “Did the kids know what was happening?”

  “No, thank God. She came to see me when they were in school, and we met the other times at the lawyer’s office, away from the farm. They haven’t seen her since she left when Annie was two and Stevie six. Annie has no memories of her and Stevie’s are pretty fuzzy. You can’t miss what you never had.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  She looked down at him. “Nothing, I guess. I just wonder if that’s true. That you can’t miss what you never had. I think you can. I think that those are the things you miss the most.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  She turned her head back to the water. “Yes, I think I am, though I never put it in those terms before.”

  “What do you miss? What did you never have that you miss?” He could almost hear the accusing tone in his own voice. Damn, he hadn’t meant it like that.

  “You think I’ve always gotten everything I wanted, don’t you? You thought that back then, and you still think it now. Spoiled rich girl. Well, I was neither rich nor spoiled.”

  “I know that.” And he did. Her father was a prof at Tech and her mother did something with one of the charities in town. They weren’t rich, and she wasn’t spoiled, but compared to Finn, she was the rich goody-goody that lived on the right side of the tracks. His own issues, he knew. Hell, there weren’t even railroad tracks in the entire Copper Country, let alone between Liz and himself. Only the ones that he’d created in his head when he hadn’t felt worthy of her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. But I am curious, what do you miss in life, Liz?”

  She laid her cheek on her knees, turning her head to the side, away from him. “I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t put a name to it, it’s just this fear that wraps itself around me so tight I can barely breathe. And all I can think of at those times are that I’ve missed something. Somewhere. I let something slide, something got through my grasp that I should have hung on to.”

  She lightened her tone, teasing, self-effacing, her good-ol’-Lizzie voice returning, “It’s nothing that a pint of Ben and Jerry’s doesn’t cure.”

  “Liz,” he reached up from the ponytail he was still stroking to place his hand on her neck, but she pulled forward, out of his reach. She pretended to wipe some nonexistent grass from the front of the blanket until he dropped his hand. She leaned back to her ori
ginal position.

  “So, you got Dana out of your life and you started saving again. Then what?”

  “Well, that pretty much brings us up to now. We have a pre-surgery consultation next week in Ann Arbor. If that looks good, they’re going to schedule the surgery, probably for this fall sometime.”

  “Finn, that’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah, in theory. I still can’t even come close to paying for it even after taking out a mortgage on the farm and saving for the last four years.”

  He could almost see the light bulb go off over her head. “Your horses. That’s why you sold your horses.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Finn, you loved those horses.”

  “You don’t even realize what love is until something like this happens. It wasn’t even a choice.” He dropped his hand from her altogether and put it behind his head. “God, I can’t believe I just said that. My life really is a bad Lifetime movie.”

  “How much are you short?”

  “About a hundred thou. And another fifty thousand to get the farm out of debt.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know, not chump change, eh? I wanted to sell the farm, but in this economy, it wouldn’t have gotten us much more than the mortgage did to put toward the operation. And it would have put us in the position of renting or buying something else anyway. Plus, at the farm, we’ve got ramps built for Annie, special shower, stuff like that.”

  She said nothing for a moment. He could see her wheels turning. She took a deep breath. he held his, sensing what was coming. “Listen, I don’t have that kind of money, Finn. Most of my assets are tied up in my firm. But, if I moved some things around, cashed some investments in, I could probably come up with thirty thousand. Maybe forty. It’s yours.”

  “No.”

  “Why? It wouldn’t be enough, but it could help.”

  “No, Liz.” His voice was unyielding.