Hugging Deidre felt more natural every day.

     Margo joined him at the door, while Electra stormed up the stairs.

     “It’s a good thing I’ll be able to track Electra’s spending after you leave to go back to wherever you’re stationed,” I commented.

     “Leave? Darlin’, I’m here to stay,” Jay announced. “I thought you knew.”

     “To stay?” I squeaked. “Stay?”

     “I retired. I’d been in the Marines for twenty years.”

     Margo looked as though she couldn’t breathe. Jay turned Deidre loose and reached for his wife, his ex-wife. She pulled away and stepped back. Her eyes looked like saucers and her complexion paled.

     “What’s wrong?” He looked at his daughter. “Does she do this often?”

     “No,” Dee pulled away and grabbed her mother’s arm. “Mom?”

     Margo still hadn’t spoken. She looked about to pass out, but she still stood.

     “Where do you hurt?” Jay asked, though he didn’t try to touch her again.

     Margo shook her head. What the hell was wrong with her?

     “Should I call someone?” Jay asked.

     She shook her head again, then left the room toward an area away from the kitchen.

     Jay knew he must have looked confused, because Deidre said, “Her bedroom suite is that way.”

     “Should I stay?” he asked.

     “No, I think something you said caused her reaction.”

     Jay thought about what he’d said. “You mean that I’m staying?”

     “Ah, guess she didn’t realize you retired. I don’t remember telling her.” Dee shrugged. “I figured you already had.”

     “No, your mother and I don’t have much communication.”

     “Is that why she was so startled when you picked me up on Electra’s birthday? Maybe you two could do better about communicating, now that you’re back. Do you ever write her? I don’t remember seeing a letter from you to her.”

     Jay didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t tell her the last letters he’d written her ten years ago had been returned unopened, so he didn’t see the point in writing to her.

     “Daddy, you could email her.”

     “Not without her address. Besides, I’m here now and we’ll act like adults where Electra is concerned.”

     “And where I’m concerned, too?” She looked so eager and young and vulnerable, younger than seventeen.

     “Yeah, where you’re concerned, too.” He couldn’t tell the kid he wasn’t her daddy. She loved him, though he didn’t deserve her love.