Page 50 of Off Limits

“We can talk downstairs. Honey,” I turn to Danica. “Your mom and I are going to have a quick chat in private. If the pizza comes, my wallet’s on the kitchen island.”

She nods, pale and serious.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Melanie hisses, as soon as we enter the den.

I blink. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Are you two hanging out?”

“Melanie.” I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “She lives here.”

“Here? With you?”

I know I need to keep my emotions under control, I need to stay calm and collected for Dani, but the question—Melanie’s absolute ignorance about her daughter’s well-being—has me seething.

My words are venomous as I spit them out. “Your daughter has been living here since Social Services called me to come get her from the fucking pig sty you moved her into and then abandoned her in.”

A beat. “Social Services,” she scoffs. “That’s a lie, Jean-Luc. She’s eighteen.”

“She’s eighteen now, Melanie. She was seventeen when you abandoned her.”

She says nothing, and my voice gets scary low as I continue.

“She had no money and was practically starving. She didn’t want to call me and have me find out that you’d rented out the house. Even after everything you did to her, she thought she was protecting you. She stopped going to school because she didn’t have bus fare. She didn’t leave that fucking apartment. I don’t even know what she ate. Do you have any idea at all what you’ve done?”

Melanie throws her hands up in the air. “Everything’s always about Danica, isn’t it? Jesus. What about me, J.L.? Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?”

“Unbelievable,” I hiss. I walk over to the bar at the far side of the den and take down a glass, pouring out a shot of whiskey and taking a healthy slug. Melanie follows me over and helps herself to a glass as well.

“This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go,” she says, leaning her elbows on the bar beside me and staring at herself in the mirrored wall behind the bar. “I’ve been going through a lot, and it hasn’t been easy. Now my friends say you had them evicted from my house, and you’ve stopped the child support payments. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to look after myself?”

A deep fatigue settles over me. I’d almost forgotten how exhausting it is to talk to Melanie. “I had your tenants evicted from my house, yes. And I don’t pay you child support, as Dani is not my child. I voluntarily made payments so that you could look after her—which you’re clearly not doing. If you want my money, you’ll have to sign the damn divorce papers so you can get your alimony.”

“J.L.” She’s calm now, lifting blue eyes to me in an appeal that’s almost sincere. “J.L., I’m sorry. I know…I know I fucked everything up. I fucked up our family. You think I don’t feel bad about that? I wish we could go back. I loved it, you know? You as a dad, just the three of us against the world? Those are some of my happiest memories.”

I clench my fist until I can feel my nails biting into my palm.

“You were always such a good dad,” she says with soft sentimentality. “So patient with Danica, so kind. Remember when you two took those cooking classes together?”

I know that Melanie is deliberately trying to play on my emotions. The years we spent together as a family are my happiest memories, not hers. She always felt constrained and imprisoned by both Danica and I. But for a second, it stirs something sentimental in me. A memory pops into my head of the three of us at an amusement park one summer evening. Dani was about nine and Melanie and I had just gotten married. Melanie had a light sunburn across her nose and Dani was skipping up ahead of us, holding the cheap, oversize teddy bear I’d won for her, and I felt so proud—holding my new wife’s hand and keeping a watchful, paternal eye on my new stepdaughter. There was pride in being a husband and a father. I felt serious at last, grown-up. My own father might have been proud of me for once if he’d lived to see the moment.

Although he certainly wouldn’t be proud of me if he could see me now, I think, remembering how I woke up beside my stepdaughter this morning.

“Don’t you even want to speak to her, Melanie?” There’s despair in my voice, the anger ebbing away to a kind of sad resignation. “Don’t you even care what happens to her?”

“Of course I do! She’s my daughter.” For a moment, I almost believe her. For a moment, I’m almost relieved to think that she might actually love Danica after all.

“But I’ve been going through a lot,” she continues, and the illusion shatters. Melanie doesn’t care about anybody but herself. “I’ve been going through a lot, but I’m doing the work, you know? I’m figuring a lot of stuff out. Stuff that I wish I could have figured out a long time ago, so that I never would have hurt you the way I did. I wish, I mean…I wish I could undo those things, J.L. I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”

I don’t say anything. Months ago, I wanted to hear those exact words more than anything. Despite everything that had happened, shortly after Melanie left, all I wanted was for her to come back. I had delusional notions about how we could rescue our relationship, how the cheating would stop if I could just understand her better, if I could just love her harder.

But eventually I realized that life without Melanie is better. Melanie is beautiful, sexy, and fun, and I was besotted with her. But she’s also selfish, cruel, and wildly unstable. Without Melanie in my life, things are calm and peaceful. All I really missed, I came to realize, was the sex. And as for that…

Well. It doesn’t bear thinking about at the moment.

“I think you need to speak to Danica.”

“Eh,” she shrugs. ”You as much as said she’s mad at me.”

---