Chapter 6 – Rick

For the first few weeks we spoke everyday. In between my father and I switching off on taking my mother to her chemo treatments, caring for her at home, making furniture, keeping up with Jeff, my mother's house in Atlanta, and trying to run both the farm and the business, I spent every hour thinking of her. Speaking to her. Texting her. Face Timing with her. Trying with everything in me to maintain a connection to the love of my life, to a time when everything felt so simple. When I knew that at the end of a long day of doing a job that I took pride in, the greatest gift I've ever known would be waiting for me at home, ready to welcome me into her arms. Into the warmth of her body. I was bereft without the actual velvet of her skin ghosting beneath my fingertips. During those few weeks the twinkle of her laughter, her beautiful face staring back at me through the artificial closeness of a screen, could soothe my saddened agitation with being overworked, with watching my mother's body seemingly devolve into a weakened husk of its former self. Her hair falling out. Her skin a pallid grey, instead of its sun kissed tan that used to be capped off with a thick head of hair, and rosy cheeks.

Each night I kissed Michonne's lips on the screen of my phone, held closely to my face with one hand, while I stroked my dick to the husky tone of her soft voice with the other.

"God I miss you, Rick…"

"I miss you too, sweetheart. I love you so much."

"I love you more."

Shortly after those early days, when my mother seemed to only get sicker and weaker, needing more of my father's and my attention, each night turned into only a few times a week of hurried calls and texts between my beloved and I. We were both trying, almost futilely, to hang on to a dream.

But my baby did everything she could to make it work. She did, and if nothing else I could never fault her in all of this. She was reaching out to me constantly. Always trying to find a time, a quick weekend, a holiday, an excuse really to come see me. To fly me to see her. A chronic pleading to find time for us. But there was something, this niggling voice that kept me from accepting her suggestions. That voice kept whispering with the serpentine hiss of every doubt I ever had about being the man for her. About whether or not I should have never left home in the first place. Maybe my mother never would have gotten sick? Maybe the farm and the furniture store wouldn't have fallen into so much financial trouble if I had been where I had promised my family I would be, doing what I had promised them I would do, instead of following my heart, and my dream girl to the life that I maybe never really deserved anyway.

Memories of how good that life felt, sustained me when she graduated without me because I couldn't afford to fly to LA to be there anyway. When she announced to me with a woeful uptick to her soft voice, that Richard Kleinman not only offered her a full time job working with him, but that he was going to now publish her underground fave comic series, Zombie Slayer, under his own production company, and that he would need her to relocate to London for a year while he consulted on another project, and together they worked on turning her comic into a volume of graphic novels. Pulling her further from me. From the life we vowed to have together. That we assumed a lifetime of friendship had earned us, but that we probably were not going to have now. Emotion welled behind those molasses brown eyes of hers, her face growing rounder in the weeks that we had been apart, as she asked me the question that tied a cement block to my heart and drowned it underneath my love for her. Should she take the offer?

At that time, I took it as rhetorical, and allowed the question to remain unanswered. Hanging darkly between the vast space between us. The space that grew wider each day.

I'll never forget the look of her, staring at me through my computer screen that day. The fits and starts of her words as I knew she wanted to say something else. Something more. Divulge a secret that would answer her question for us. She didn't speak the words. I didn't ask.

With a hardened heart I accepted this, despite what I knew about Michonne. What she seemed afraid to admit, and what I never acknowledged. Instead we continued on for nearly three months in a suspended state of what happens now, dancing carefully around the pit of unanswered questions that had become our relationship.

Then something finally happened. Like Michonne is apt to do, she surprised me. Surprised us all actually, and she just showed up in my bedroom.

Just like that she was here. Standing next to my bed, looking down at me, the glare of the early morning sun surrounding her form, emitting an ethereal glow that made her appear as some nebulous angel. A heavenly apparition that my lovesick mind had conjured from another night of dreaming about her. Blinking a few times to dust away the cobwebs that were preventing me from truly wresting myself from the heaviness of sleep, I was somewhat startled by how lifelike it had all become. The sensation of my dream girl now running her fingers through my hair, then lowering her face to mine with a series of soft, wet kisses.

"Wake up, sleepyhead." She whispered sweetly into my ear, then pulled her face back an inch or so to kiss me across the bridge of my nose, dotting the few freckles she always said she adored so much. The ones that had become more pronounced under the sun each day, perfecting my farmer's tan. "At least scoot over and make some room for me?"

Standing tall, she placed her hands on her widened hips for a moment, continuing to focus her gaze on me while I rubbed furiously at my eyes with my fists, intent on either living in this dream, or waking from the taunting beauty of it all to get on with the cruelty of my actual reality.

Not waiting on me to make the requested move, she began to relieve her form of her clothes, beginning with the buttons of her shirt. Dancing in the sunburst beams of early light darting through the windows, I could see the fine puffs of dust from the hard wood floors milling around her pretty little feet, encased in yet another pair of her favorite hi-top Chuck Taylors. These were silver, with splattered paint and glitter on them, and black marker doodles of her name and mine. Michonne loves Rick. I remember when she got them, and immediately began 'modding them to her taste' as she called it, with her own writing and drawings, making them instantly as unique and beautiful to me as she is. They were the last thing I purchased for her before I had to unexpectedly depart from my life in Los Angeles.

Perhaps that is why my brain was fixated on her shoes. Bewitched with every unspoken desire to simply see her, those shoes seemingly fulfilled those wishes and brought her to me. Walked her right to the side of my bed, where I slept alone, dumbfounded by her appearance.

Michonne was here, apparently deciding that the drip of time and circumstance was not going to rob us of the future we thought was so certain for us. Unfastening the last button on the blue jean shirt that I recognized as my own, peeling away the snug leggings that covered her lean legs. The ring I had given her on a thin gold chain around her neck. Her stomach slightly rounded in a way that I could no longer ignore.

And of course I had been ignoring it. Ignoring the changes in her body that my subconscious immediately placed a name to. She was tired all the time. Voraciously hungry more often than not, but also a little put off by things she usually loves like scrambled eggs. And her breasts were so sensitive that even three months ago, any time I even thought about getting too close to them she would give me that little smile wince thing she does when she's tasting a new food for the first time that she doesn't really like, but doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and admit she hates it.

I know Michonne's body; I know my girl. Even the taste of her was slightly different. The day that I noticed the first time she inched away in discomfort at the greedy way my palms enveloped and massaged her tender breasts, was the same day I realized there was something moderately fruity to the underlying taste of her pussy. Michonne noticed too. Sliding her tongue between my lips, she wryly commented as she kissed me when I raised my face to hers, my beard and lips coated with the silk of her essence, that she could taste the tang of whatever I had eaten earlier. At that moment lust urged me to ease my cock into her, to dismissively look past her comment, her sensitivity, the slightly different taste of her. But later, after we had both found the height of orgasmic bliss together, I held her in my arms as she snored away into dream land, and I pondered what the fuck was going on.

Eventually I put it all together. Well me and one of my work buddies Theodore, or as the kids in our programs called him, T-Dog, figured it out. Theodore and his wife Jacqui had five children of their own, and when I mentioned that this was the second week in a row that Michonne had fallen asleep before we got a chance to watch her favorite show, The Flash, he easily diagnosed that she was probably pregnant. Shrugging at the dumbfounded look on my face, he commented that every time his wife was pregnant she would sleep every day in her first trimester like she had just run a marathon. Which basically was what Michonne had been doing, with me finding her most nights huddled down under the blankets on our bed, softly snoring away before and after dinner.

Of course I already knew in my heart that T-Dog was right before he even said anything, and the prospect scared the shit out of me. Not because I didn't secretly like the idea of her being swollen with a life that we helped create together, that little part of me breathing and growing inside of her. Not because I didn't think that she would be the absolutely best mother. Hell she had mothered and bossed Glenn and Jeff for most of their lives. But because in the back of my mind there was always this little flare of panic that would ignite at random times to remind me that we were on borrowed time. Eventually Michonne would graduate, eventually our lives would demand more of us. More time, more money, more everything. We were already under a lot of stress to be enough for each other, how could we effectively manage the expectations of a loving functioning couple, professionals, and parents? My parents couldn't, and honestly, the thought of disappointing Michonne, and any potential child in the same way that my father had, frightens me. Levels my courage to the point that I had decided it would be best to just avoid the very idea of it until I had no choice.

Of course it's a selfish premise. A stupid one. I never weighed how Michonne would feel about this unilateral decision I had made for us to not have children. I suppose the fact that she never fought me on it, like she has done on so many things that she's passionate about, led me to believe that she was wordlessly on the same page that I was. But as I watched her body and her behavior change, the truth of our unexpected pregnancy revealed itself in the tiny details. And in full to me on that early morning.

Fully nude, Michonne eased her form into the bed next to me as I held the covers up for her, welcoming my angel's return. And it was heavenly. The sensation of her skin, soft, warm pressed into mine, with my arms around her, pulling her tightly into me, crushing her full breasts to my chest. Our baby, safe, secure behind the rounded curve of her stomach, pushed into my abdomen. Pressing the reality of his or her existence, with what felt like a jolt of awareness shared between us. A reckoning of what our love had unwittingly accomplished.

"You're here."

With her eyes closed, Michonne takes her time to respond, and only after a few soft cadences of breathing, in and out, she nuzzles her head under my chin and mutters in reply, "Mmhm."

"You're both here." I offer haltingly, almost afraid of saying the words, speaking what had previously been taboo into existence. But somehow emboldened past my own fear of inadequacy by the presence of the one person in this world who knows me, loves me, understands me regardless of my faults, I ease my hand between us and palm Michonne's stomach. My baby. "You and…our baby."

"Are you upset with me?"

"Never."

"Disappointed?" Michonne asks, a shaky lilt to her usually calm and easy tone. She's nervous, and I hate that I've done this to her. Make her question what we have done together. Something that was done out of love.

"I won't lie and say it's not unexpected. But never disappointed."

She's holding me tightly, arms around my shoulders, eyes tearing as she's sniffling against my neck, and I can tell by the tiny slump of her shoulders that she's not completely happy with my answer. But I have to be honest. I can't hide my feelings from her. If we're going to figure this out together we have to be able to tell each other the truth.

"I know you don't want kids, but-"

"But I love you more than anything in this world, Michonne. Even though we didn't plan things to work out this way, I'm happy to be on this journey with you. You're going to make a wonderful mother, and this child is going to be lucky to have you. That makes me very happy."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I'm scared, Rick. So much is happening, and I can't figure out how to move forward. Everything I've ever wanted is so close, yet it's so far away. I can see it. But I can't grab it. I can't have it." She sniffs, voice dampened against my neck. Her fingers grasp and clutch at the skin around my neck and shoulders, anxiety palpable in every word. I pull her in tighter, as close as possible, and place a few kisses on the top of her head. Sighing, relaxing her shoulders in apparent relief, she continues, turning her head to the side as she swipes at her cheeks and continues talking. "While I was in LA and you were here, I wanted to still make it real ya know. What we were trying to build. That future we had in mind. But, um, Kleinman wants me to work for him for real. To publish my comics as a stand alone, under my own brand. And I want that so bad, I want my comic to really get out there. But every single night that I was alone, and you weren't there to share that with me, I couldn't enjoy it. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe. I mean, you should be excited about that. Regardless of what's going on with me. This stuff here, with my mother is not your worry."

Easing back from me, leaning away to rest her head on her upturned hand, Michonne focuses her dark brown eyes on mine, the wetness of pooling tears softening the color. "Don't you see, Rick? It is. You're my worry. This baby we made is my worry. Our worry. And I need you to help me make sense of this. Of where things are with us. Whenever we spoke I could hear how defeated you were on the phone, every time you sounded more distant. Different. Further away from me. But I can't lose you to whatever is happening right now, so yesterday I just woke up and couldn't stand not being wherever you are. So I'm here, choosing you and whatever that means. I hope you will have me, this baby, and we can find a way to really be happy again. We can have this life."

"Maybe." I nod, wanting to believe in the hope that swirls in her beautiful eyes. But this world isn't made up of rainbows and unicorns. It's not a place for dreams. And I know that. Reminded of it every single day when I see my father bathing my mother like a baby. Her body thin and frail. When I watch my grandfather trying to make furniture with his hands, joints aching with arthritis, simply trying to help us keep up with furniture orders. To stay afloat. There is a plea in her voice though, an undertone in the subtle shake of her usually firm delivery, that drives me to not go down that path too far with Michonne. Not right now when she's so emotional. When I'm so emotional. Instead I try the simplicity of honesty.

"I'm afraid of what comes next. I won't lie about that. I'm scared to death of getting this wrong. Of how things are going to go with my mother, with the family business, the farm. With the baby. With us. Half the time I don't really know what to do, Michonne. I'm just trying to do what needs to be done. To make things alright. The only thing I know for sure is that being with you is the only thing that ever feels right for me. You are the only thing in this world that feels like it's made just for me. That gives me joy. Makes me whole. You and this baby make my world alright. Just knowing you…exist. So…I don't know…we'll figure out it. Right?"

Releasing the breath that she's been holding, allowing her frame to relax, Michonne eases out a whispery affirmation. "Right."

"Right."

XXXXXXX

"Hi, Mr. Kleinman, how are you, man?"

"I'm good, Rick. Michonne told me about your mother, I'm sorry to hear about that. Cancer is a bitch."

Looking over my shoulder to make sure that Michonne hasn't come out of the shower just yet, I nod my head as though the person on the other end of the phone call can see me and continue in a hushed tone, "Yes, it is."

"So what can I do for you, Rick?"

I rub my left hand across my naked chest, over my mouth, under my nose, for once second guessing what I have to do as I feel the cool metal of my ring grazing my skin. What I know is the right thing. My head knows that. But my heart? My heart is heavy. Heavy with the memory of yesterday's ceremony. An impetus occasion, small, quiet moment filled with hope, and joy, and love. Followed by a lively family dinner, the Andersons and the Grimes joined in celebration again. Then last night's lovemaking, a rededication of our bodies to each other, as I held my bride close. Kissing, licking, sucking every inch of her. Lapping at her essence dripping like the sweetest honey. The scent of which still lingers on the sheets, on my body, my lips, perfuming my fingers. And for the briefest of moments, it causes me to hesitate. Fall back into lustful greed. A powerful jealousy that would sequester Michonne here with me, far away from the world that deserves to also know her. To know her talent. And from the recognition of that talent that she deserves. What I'm about to do almost chokes me back into the same cowardice that fools me into thinking that there is any other way. But I know better.

"Well, I wanna thank you for this opportunity you are giving Michonne. This is what she has worked her whole life for."

"You don't have to thank me. Michonne is talented. She did this on her own. I would be a fool not to scoop her talent and her comic up. I like to think I'm no fool!" Richard Kleinman laughs into the phone, echoing a sentiment that I have silently considered about Michonne and myself many times before.

"She is, and because of that I'm just letting you know that she will be on a plane back to LA in the morning. She's accepting your job offer."

"Really? I mean, the offer is definitely still on the table, but yesterday she told me she would have to get back to me after a hiatus. She didn't say how long, but I got the feeling it would be months instead of days."

"No, she just needed a moment to reconnect and decompress."

I can tell that he's hesitant by the way he's slow to answer, but once he does, I can almost hear the smile in his excited voice. "Well ok then. That's good news cause me and some of the PR folks would like to keep up the momentum she has with her web series to launch her brand into print. San Diego Comic Con is next month in July, so if we could get an intro for her then before we head to London, that would make a huge difference for her. I think she's gonna be a star honestly, Rick."

"Me too. That's why she'll be back in LA. This is her time. I'm proud of her, and I want her to have this."

"Well alright, man. And listen, I know you're supporting your family in Georgia, but don't worry, I will keep an eye out for her."

"Thanks, man. And uh, just so you know, she's pregnant, pretty far along, and I plan to be back and forth to help her with that, but uh… yeah. Keep that in mind. She's sensitive to that right now, as am I."

"I understand. I got it. Yeah she's gonna be a big deal, so of course we will take care of her. No worries. And congrats, Rick."

"Thank you, sir."

As soon as I pull my phone away from my ear I feel a dip in the bed behind me and her arms wrapping around my waist. The built up tension flows off of me in waves. She has that effect on me. But her next few words stiffen me again, as I've been caught, and I realize that it's time to have a discussion that I was hoping to put off until later this evening after we've had more time to talk.

Inching her face to the side of mine, placing a series of pillowy soft kisses to my cheek and neck, Michonne asks the question I'm not fully ready to answer. "What were you talking to Richard Kleinman about, Rick?"

Clearing my throat, taking my time to ensure that I gather the right words to explain, I try to proactively soothe any agitation my admission might be met with, and rub my hands across hers where they are folded around my waist.

"I told him that you will be returning to LA shortly. Tomorrow actually. I already booked and paid for the flight."

The kisses stop. Glancing back at her over my shoulder, I witness her yanking her body back from mine and I instantly feel a twinge of remorse and sadness cloud my emotions. It hurts. But in my heart I know this is the right thing for her. Regardless of how my heart is breaking at the sight of the fury shadowing her pretty face. Or that my heart shatters into a million tiny pieces of fragile glass at the thought of my wife, and our baby leaving me.

Shuffling around on the other side of the bed with her back now to me, Michonne shields herself from me, gripping tightly to the stark white towel draping her body. "That's not a choice that you get to make on your own, Rick. I chose to be here with you."

"You chose wrong."

"I didn't. Just like how you chose to be in LA with me, I chose to say those vows to you and make you my husband. Now I'm choosing for me and our baby to be here with you." Walking over to stand in front of me, she jabs her finger at me, more accusation than declaration in her statement, in the angry waver of her soft voice. "You said we're a fam- a family. We just got married." Her voice breaks off into a quiet sob, and even though I want to reach out to her and hold her and take back what I've said, what I've done, I can't do that. I have to see this through. For her. She will resent me if she throws away this chance at getting everything she has ever wanted. This is her dream. The life we had together in LA? That was just the build up, the preamble to what her life is supposed to be, and I can't forget that. Even as I watch her tremble with anger, and hurt. The towel barely covers her body, her belly poking through. One delicate hand drops to our baby, and clutches the swell of its perfection as though protecting it from the harshness of my decision. The thin gold band I gave her shining brightly against her dusky skin. The other hand plays across her full lips, pouting against the tears that streak across her beautiful face, leaving behind glossy trails over the umber cast of her rounded cheeks.

"I know I did. We did. And I'm glad we did, but… you have a destiny that's separate from that. From me." I have to pause a moment, and I hate that my courage is failing me. Faltering when I need it to be strong. But she's so beautiful to me. So perfect. I hate hurting her. It hurts me more to see her in distress, conflicted by the mixed signals this all must be sending her. To know that I've done this, I've caused the most precious person in the world to me pain. She'll thank me later I promise myself, and level at her the words that will hopefully free her. "You're the most important person in the world to me. You and our baby. That's why what you do now with this opportunity is so important. You… You… go back to LA and be who you were meant to be. This way, we can have each other, and I can handle this here. And you can handle that there. This is the only way to have it all, Michonne." I stand and walk away. Metaphorically and literally. Dropping my heart at her feet. I don't need it anymore. It never was mine anyway. It has always belonged to her, and the vows we spoke yesterday with nothing but our family behind us, and our love between us cemented it. My dedication to her is eternal, but it's nothing compared to what this opportunity could mean for her.

I hope that in the time that follows, in the moments when she hates me, or perhaps doesn't understand my decision for us to be physically apart during this time, that she will remember that I did all of this for her and our baby. When she's happy, smiling, being the famous Michonne Grimes, that she will recall how she was every twinkle in my eye. Every star in my sky. How much I love her. Always have. Always will.

XXXXX

Five years later…

"I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore
I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore
I don't know what it's like to land
And not race to your door
I don't think I'm gonna go to LA anymore…"

"Rick! Rick!"

"Yeah?" I answer, squinting at the figures on the computer screen, narrowing my eyes as though it will increase the zeroes in the bank account, as I work on the payroll for the employees on the farm.

"Boy, I've been calling your damn name for almost five minutes. That's five minutes too damn long!"

"Sorry, Granddad." Reaching to my right, I pickup my phone. A tiny smile instantly tilts my lips at the picture on the screen of three little tanned brown faces staring back at me. Searching through the apps, I find the one playing music and cutoff the playlist that's been on rotation all morning. John Mayer's live album from a concert in LA in 2008. Michonne didn't care for it so much. Called it 'white boy blues music'. It's one of my favorites, and I can't say that the eerie lyrics to this particular song, especially the ones that just played, don't speak to me in a very personal way.

"I'm gonna steer clear
Burn up in your atmosphere
I'm gonna steer clear
'Cause I'd die if I saw you
I'd die if I didn't see you there…"

Personally I don't care who's singing the words. All I know is that they cut me, dig into my life's experience in an honest way that makes the man I am now feel more vulnerable than I've allowed myself to be in years. As with most things, that kind of thinking and feeling always leads back to my Michonne. Cause deep inside, the hole where I've buried my desire for her, she's still mine. But the wound from that burial, it's an open sore that even time hasn't healed. I won't let it. Maybe I don't want it to?

Feeling the vibration of my phone going off in my hand as my focus is still trapped on the screen, lost in the faces that stare back at me, I tap the messaging icon, and see that I have a new text.

'Your kids there yet?'

'Not yet' I reply, growing agitated at the question posed.

'Think I might be allowed to meet them this time? LOL!'

'No' I punch out with my thumbs, frustration at her pushiness growing by the minute. 

Scooting the device away from me, placing it face down, I leave the text conversation on that final answer. No. Maybe it comes off a little gruff, but we've had this discussion before and my decision hasn't changed. I'm not entirely comfortable with introducing her to my children. Not yet. Maybe not ever, and I know that makes her feel a certain way, but I can't be responsible for her feelings. Hell, I can barely be responsible for my own. And I've told her that before. That I'm not looking for something serious. That this isn't like before. I have been very clear about that. There won't be any railroading me into a relationship that I didn't explicitly sign up for. My heart isn't my own anyway. Still belongs to another. I've told her that too. Should've told Michonne, but at this juncture…what good is that going to do me?

Since Michonne and I broke up for good, I've buried my own feelings so deep under work, caring for my mother, trying to be as involved as possible with my kids, and hanging out with Shane and Daryl, that I don't give too much thought anymore to what I want. To what I need. Only allowing myself a sexual dalliance here and there. But definitely nothing serious. Nothing as tempestuous and romantic as what I had with Michonne.

Schooling my face from what I'm sure is a pained grimace at the very thought of her, one I've worn for years now, I look up to see my grandfather leaning in the doorway of my office, and remember why I've turned off the music in the first place. "What can I do for you, Granddad?"

"What's that look for?"

"What look?"

"That someone pissed in my coffee look. Squinting and scowling like that is gonna age you prematurely. You might not age as well as I have with that mean mug."

"You think you're aging well, huh?"

Combing through the long white beard that covers his chin and cheeks, he shrugs a little, "Well you know I'm one quarter Cherokee. My people age well under the sun."

"Wouldn't that mean I've got some Cherokee too? How come I'm not gonna age well?" I have to ask, amused by this conversation, and following him down this path that we have traveled on many times before.

"Don't work like that. You got too much of your mama's English or Irish or whatever in there. Though you are getting them freckles across your nose again from working outside without sunscreen on again." He gestures his fingers to my face, then allows a bit of seriousness to fall into his tone. "My favorite girl's babies are here. Glenn just pulled up outside."

"Ok. I'll be up to the main house in a minute. Let me finish these payroll checks."

"Nah, you don't have time for that. They'll be running in here any minute. I could see 'em from the big window in the workshop. Took off like little bolts of lightning soon as he put his car in park." My grandfather scratches through his beard again, a habit he's always had, and chuckles. "It's nice to have a piece of her here. They're just like her."

I agree with him, but I can't bring myself to say much more on it. The heavy weight in my chest when I think about her won't let me. All I can do is sigh out a clipped, "Yeah." And nervously scratch at my own beard because I know where this is going. It's a conversation we have every summer when the kids descend upon the farm. He tries to get me to stop being a fool, and my own father, who pretty much avoids the conversation at all, remains quiet on the matter altogether. My mother says it's guilt that keeps his mouth shut.

Granddad studies my face for a moment, and I can feel his eyes still on me as I try to avoid his scrutiny and turn to the stack of paperwork on my desk. Shuffling things around, trying to make the scattered mess neat. Purchase orders. Receipts. Medical bills. A metaphor for my life. I can't look up at him though because I already know what he's thinking and what he wants to say. He's the only one, other than my mother, who has dared to say it over the years, and I know he won't hold his tongue now. But I can't give him an opening, so I keep my eyes diverted, focused on the papers and the computer screen so I can gather myself.

"You, talk to my favorite girl recently?"

"Nope."

"Can't say I blame her."

"But you'll blame me?"

Sucking his teeth, from my peripheral I can see how he blinks at me a few times, his blue eyes a little less electric with age, but still just as piercing. Discerning. "Can't say I rightfully blame you either. Even though I maybe should."

Taking a long breath, I feel the sting of his words deeply. He's not wrong. I know it. He knows. She knows it.

"Well, none of that matters now." Rubbing my hand over my eyes, allowing the palm to graze down and pull away the weariness, I finally find the courage to lift my eyes to my grandfather's expectant stare. "Things are as they should be."

Nodding his head towards me, and gifting me with a sad smile, he hooks his fingers in his suspenders and offers only a few words before he turns on his heels to leave out of my office and back towards the front of the pole barn we use for manufacturing the furniture and running the farm business. "Not yet they ain't."

Before he can get away, and even before I have a moment to think over his words I can hear the raucous laughter of children, the pattering of little feet stopping my grandfather in the door, and the exasperated pleading of Glenn.

"No running, boys!"

"Gwandad! Daddy!"

Like a hurricane they tackle my grandfather's legs, then sweep into my office, their loud voices calling out to me, carrying them barreling into me on peals of excited giggling.

"Daddy!"

Thrown back a little by their tiny bodies hurling into mine, I steady myself against my chair, and hug them to me. My boys. Dropping kisses into the soft, downy curls that have grown long and unruly over their heads, I close my eyes and settle into the familiar childlike smell of them. Not sure how to describe it, I only know that the scent of graham crackers and grass always makes me think of them. Allows me to keep the memory of them alive in my mind even when they are not here. When they're away from me, living their young lives in LA with their mother.

"Carl, Andre, dudes you're making me look bad. You know your mother wouldn't want you running away from me like that. Can you tell them, Rick?"

Grinning up at the red, exasperated face of their uncle Glenn, with a tiny unicorn backpack slung over one arm, and my sweet angel asleep in the other, I reach my arms out to him to accept my daughter from his arms. "Your uncle is right. You especially shouldn't run through the workshop."

Easing my little girl down onto my now empty lap, as the boys have already moved on to begging Granddad for candy, Glenn huffs out a tired breath. "Thank you, Rick." Plopping down in the wooden chair in front of my desk, he hastily brushes back swaths of dark black hair from his forehead.

Hugging little Judith to me, and checking to make sure that like always, the combustible ruckus that her brothers keep up has not bothered her one bit. She's still fast asleep. For that I'm grateful. Getting these twin, five-year-old boys settled is going to be hard enough, but with three-year-old Judith cranky from an interrupted nap, it would be all but impossible. "No problem. Thanks for bringing them. As usual."

"It's my job." He shrugs, then taps out a quick text message on his phone. Probably to her. Letting her know that the kids have been delivered to me for my time with them.

"Long flight?"

"You know it. And these two don't make it easy, but ya know Judes is a good girl. And at least I wasn't alone." He absentmindedly offers, still tapping away at the screen of his phone.

"Oh no?"

"Nah. Well…you know. She's here. You knew that right?"

Shaking my head slowly, while simultaneously using one hand to move important paperwork away from Carl's hands that appear to be covered in something sticky, I raise my eyebrows at his question. "She's here? In Georgia?"

Finally raising his eyes from his phone, he gives me a soft smile, as he seemingly realizes how in the dark I am on what's going on. "Yeah. I uh- I thought she told you about the show."

"Glenn, I think you know that my estranged wife doesn't speak to me."

"Right, no I know that. But I thought she would have at least made you aware that she was going to be here for the show."

"What show? What are you talking about?"

Scratching at the side of his neck, and averting his eyes over to where Granddad is doing a magic trick and pulling quarters out of Andre's ear, I can tell that Glenn is uncomfortable. Which isn't new given how things are. Uncomfortable is probably an understatement for the awkward stalemate between Michonne and I. Glenn is just the neutral Switzerland trying to keep the peace.

Over the years, after Michonne left to go back to LA the first time, we have had our challenges. A new normal of difficult valleys in a life that was once full of peaks and highs. A stilted history of fits and starts.

Everything was good when the boys, Carl first, and then Andre only a short minute after, were born four months after she left, and the few weeks she stayed here in Georgia after their birth. We tried very hard to keep it all together then, with her living her at the farm. Our relationship was back in sync. We were joined together in the perfection of that shared experience, welcoming our unexpected twin boys to the world. Carl lean and slightly tan, with only a few wisps of chestnut brown hair swirling over his nearly bald head. And Andre, named after Michonne's grandfather, a little smaller, a little browner, and with a lot more hair. Nearly jet black and thick, what he lacked in size, he made up for in hair. Their birth delighted our families. My mother especially, when I showed her their tiny faces on Facetime from Emory hospital in Atlanta, as she commented from her own hospital bed in King County that she'd never seen such beautiful babies, and couldn't wait to meet them. It was the hovering of her stubborn illness that did not seem to want to leave, that kept her from doing so for quite some time though.

I hate to think about it, but while my mother was in the hospital, I was given a brief respite from the responsibility, the blunt weight of her sickness bearing down on me.

I was shamelessly allowed to be everything to everybody. It was what I had always tried to do, but probably failed pretty spectacularly at. Until now. I was a great husband then. Attentive, loving. Making sure that Michonne had time to rest, for self-care, to allow her emotions to settle after a long delivery, and the even longer sleepless days and nights trying to feed and care for two hungry babies. I was an even better father. Taking to the task of looking after my boys with pride. Changing diapers, bottle feedings, baths. I loved it.

Eventually though, the world came knocking, success looking to abscond with my wife and family again. The world that had gotten a taste of her genius wanted her back, and regardless of how abandoned it made me feel, left behind, I knew she had to go. And once again, I couldn't follow. And there it was again, that ripping feeling that nearly crippled me when I first sent her away, as though a part of me had been stolen. It had. Threefold this time. More agonizing than before.

Michonne's career had blown up, much the way Richard Kleinman and I had agreed that it should. After heading back to California after our wedding, and subsequent to her first of many appearances at San Diego Comic Con, her comic series had become more popular than anyone imagined. While she was back in LA, regardless of my monthly visits, the distance between us grew wider everyday. Physically and metaphorically. Emotionally. The professional demands on her expanded. The demands on her as a mother increased. And my absence outside of those sporadic weekends became a point of contention. One we never spoke about explicitly, but that we both felt deeply.

Michonne's resentment grew. I could feel it. I was paralyzed to change it, though I desperately wanted to hold on to her and our family. But maybe it was a bit of stubborn pride, sticking to the plan that I had unilaterally devised. Maybe some disappointment in myself overall that kept me from trying harder?

During that time my mother got worse, then better. Suddenly better. Cancer free. Remission. The elongated periods of sickness, constantly dodging the grim reaper with the toxicity of chemotherapy flowing through her body, had come to a halt. She was free. Free to try her hand at life again. At love. A concept that had seemingly soured for me.

Irreparably it seemed that things were at a standstill between Michonne and I, until the brief weekend her and the boys spent in Georgia when my parents remarried, and we made Judith.

My parents remarried on a spring day at the same church they had married at before nearly thirty years ago. Surrounded by many of the same friends and family, with a few new faces thrown in. It was a celebration of everything she had fought for. Everything my father had ushered her through to get her to the other side of her illness.

I don't know what it was. Yeah. Yes, I do. It was simply seeing her. Dressed in a flowery pink dress, those new wide hips of hers, sprigs of baby's breath tucked in the downy softness of her locs, as she stood up with my mother as one of her bridesmaids. So fucking beautiful. Stealing my heart all over again. I had to have her. I stalked her all around that reception until she grudgingly danced with me, gave me just enough of her affection that I grew intoxicated from the closeness of her. Michonne softened her stance enough to where she would let her mother take care of the boys for awhile. We drank. We laughed. We danced some more. And with her in my arms again, I was whole. I was with my best friend, cracking jokes, making fun of my cousins' jerky dancing to the Cupid Shuffle, and their incomprehensible ease with the Boot Scootin' Boogie. That evening I experienced a light weighted joy that only she could bring.

Drunk from the contact high my newlywed parents were on, Michonne and I snuck away that night, back to my room. We made love. We made Judith. Foolishly I thought perhaps we had also remade our connection. But she was gone in the morning. Apparently she had seen the error of her ways in the light of day, and decided, with a note that hinted at finality, that this wasn't going to work.

Life is funny though, and nine months later, my little princess was born. Judith carries my mother's middle name, and is very much like her grandmother. Calm, gentle, but feisty when needed. She even sports the same smattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose she shares with my mother and I. She's a beautiful baby girl, with so much life, and love, and just pure kindness in her. Dishing out hugs to those she loves. Always so gentle, even in her youth, with the animals on the farm. But God she also reminds me of Michonne in the way she bosses her brothers, but cares for them, trying to keep up with their boisterous play and games. Fearless, never shying away from a challenge. Trying to climb trees with her little arms and legs. Jumping right into the pond behind the house, when she was only two. And in her facial expressions. Jude looks like me, poor girl. Somehow born with my blue eyes, and chocolate curls. That personality though? That's all Michonne.

Judith's conception and birth was a little hopeful hail mary I guess. But again the reality of life's expectations kept me apart from my family. Still in Georgia, managing the family businesses, and of course the bills. The farm bills. The monstrous medical bills left over from my mother's treatments. How ironic that my mother's new lease on life, and my parents' rediscovered love for each other, didn't free me up to be with my family, and the woman I loved. Love. If anything, it more tightly tethered me to this place. To the circumstances of the situation here. And as a result, here I am. Missing my kids growing up, relegated to custody agreements, and visitation rights. Missing my girl. My best friend. The only woman I've ever loved. Passing time with faceless women, who will never have my heart.

Bringing my focus back from the past, to refocus on the present, I'm giving my attention back to Glenn.

"Yeah, they're making a TV show of her comic. Shooting some of it here in King County, some in a studio closer to the city. Michonne is the creative director, and and executive producer. It's big time, bro."

"Hm. Sounds like it."

"That's why I thought she told you about it cause she'll be here until October when the show wraps shooting."

"Michonne is going to be in Georgia all summer?"

"Yep."

"He with her?"

"Well…"

"Nevermind, I don't wanna know." I claim, tossing up my hand to stop Glenn from answering the question. I do want to know though. But I don't. It's a part of her life that I can't get comfortable with. Of course she would have moved on from me. It makes sense. It's been years since she and I have been in a real relationship. Our marriage exists mainly on paper now. I've slept with my share of women. Spent my few moments of free time with one in particular. But, my heart? It's still Michonne's, but I know her. She's closed her heart to me. Frozen me out. And that's why I don't want to hear about him. Know anything about her life with him. The life she leads loving him, and raising my kids. With him.

Leaning forward, Glenn makes eye contact with me, and probes further, "You sure? I mean… you've moved on right? It's all water under the bridge with you two right?"

"Is that what Michonne said?"

"She doesn't say anything to me about you."

Of course she doesn't. Michonne has always been the less emotionally volatile of the two us. She's not thinking about me. I should know that. But, damn. That hurts. Pains me enough that I have to drag my palm across my chest, just above my heart. "Nothing?"

"Nah. But you know her." He shrugs, and I can tell he's trying to play it off. Take some of the sting away. But I do know her, and that makes the ache that much worse.

Allowing my gaze to swing over to where Granddad is now entertaining both boys as they show him something on Andre's mini tablet, I take this brief second to gather my emotions and harden myself against them.

"Good. There's nothing to say, so…" clearing my throat I refocus the conversation just as Maggie, my assistant manager for all things Grimes family furniture and farming are concerned, knocks on the door frame and enters my office.

"Oh my gosh! Look how big you all got! Rick, they grew so much!" Maggie exclaims, holding her hands over her mouth as her eyes widen in delight at seeing the kids again. Maggie has been a life saver around here, and when she completed her agricultural science degree and was looking for work, I hired her on full time. No longer just the girl from one farm over, helping around the farm and the stables, Maggie has grown into a shrewd businesswoman, and a hell of a farmer. Still can't make furniture for shit, but no one's perfect.

She's even become a big help in allowing me to manage my time working during the summers when the kids are here in Georgia with me.

"Auntie Mags! Looka wha I got!" Andre squeals with glee, climbing down off of Granddad's lap to show Maggie his tablet. His chubby hands reach for her, urging Maggie to pick him up. Andre's round face makes him seem much younger than Carl, whose features are a bit keener, his face less chipmunk cheeks, more freckled. They both sport my long legs, and wild dark curls though, which I have shorn closer to my head over the years as the bits of gray have started creeping in as I get closer to my thirties. "Zeke bought one fa me and one fa Carl!"

Instantly Maggie's greenish eyes shoot up to meet mine at the mention of Ezekiel's name, growing even wider than before. I can't hold her stare, and instead I look away, feeling the tension at the mention of his name growing in the room. All of the adults are seemingly frozen, while the boys are blissfully unaware.

Maggie clears her throat and tries to move us all past the moment, "Oh he did? Well you both must be very grown up and responsible boys then?"

"Nah, he just wanna keep us busy on the pwane." Carl absentmindedly responds, not really paying anyone else any attention, his head dipped low, using his tiny, sticky fingers to press all over the screen of his own device.

"Well… that's good too. It's a long flight from California."

Andre quickly answers her, pushing his tablet closer to Maggie's face to show her his new toy. "Too long! My mama was so tired. She wanna sweep the whole time and not pway games on my tabwet. She just keep her head on Zeke shouwer and sweep. But I got so many games to pway!"

"Mama sweeps awot." Carl offers, and I can't help but look to Glenn for answers.

"Is something wrong with Michonne?" I ask Glenn, hearing the alarm in my own voice as it raises an octave.

"No. She's just been all over the place. Flying back and forth to London, then she was in New York to see her attorney. Then back to LA to get the kids. She's very busy is all." Glenn replies, staring more at Maggie than to me. His response cools me off a little, as I could feel myself getting worried at the thought of Michonne being unwell.

Maggie smiles my way, "See, Rick, nothing to worry about. Right, Glenn?"

"Yeah. Yes, Mags. I mean, Maggie. Maggie." Maggie startles a bit, as Glenn pops up from his chair, and is standing at attention, closely at her side.

Poor Glenn. He's had a crush on Maggie for years. They even went to the prom together. But with her father not only being the town veterinarian, but also the preacher at the Methodist church, I don't think things have gotten too far between them. Maggie went to college in South Carolina, and Glenn in Florida, and then with him moving to LA to work for Michonne, it seems unlikely. Then again, the rosy tinge coloring her face and cheeks as she becomes aware of his closeness to her makes me wonder if perhaps I'm wrong.

"Well if she's gonna be around in Georgia, you tell my favorite girl I said to come see me! Just cause she's tossed out the baby," Granddad jabs his thumb towards me, "don't mean she gotta throw out the bath water!" he finishes, pointing back to himself.

"Uh…I will. I'll tell her. This is her texting me right now. I need to go meet her at the set. If you need anything you can give me a call and I will take care of it. Boys, you be good. Watch your sister. Your mother will call you tonight on your tablets ok?"

"Ok." They both answer, again distracted by their devices.

XXXXXX

I can hear them in their rooms talking to her. I can hear her voice. Clear as a bell. Her voice still holds that same smoky softness to it, a slight whispery airiness as she asks about their day, and reads a few pages of a book to them as they get ready for bed. She's reading 'The Hobbit' to them. It's one of her favorite books, and I remember when she and I read it together when I was in middle school. Standing in the hallway, not wanting to disturb their post bath and teeth brushing Face Time with their mother, but also wanting to listen to her voice, I lean against the wall and close my eyes. It's like she's here. Against the darkness of my closed eyes the outline of her curvy frame almost appears, a welcome accompaniment to the twinkle of her laughter as Carl asks his mother why the dragon doesn't have to give back the gold he stole and share? She always makes him and Andre share with Judith. It's a cute moment, and I have to be careful not to allow my chuckles to grow too loud to where my clandestine eavesdropping might be discovered.

Just as I hear Michonne telling the kids she loves them, and will talk them tomorrow, I hear a screech and then frantic screaming.

"No! Mama! Where my wooby?!"

"Did you check your backpack, Judes?"

"Mama, my wooby! Where my wooby?" Judith sniffs, her distress seeming to grow with each second that she realizes her blanket is not in her bag. Since she was born, Judith has slept with a pink blanket that my mother crocheted for her. She cannot sleep without it. There has not been a night in her short three years of living that she hasn't had her 'wooby' which is the name that she came up with for it. No one knows where the name came from. All we know is that if she doesn't have it, she's not sleeping. And neither is anyone else.

There's an audible grumble that comes from one of the boys, as though he knows what a missing wooby means. Everyone in this family knows what that means, and feeling the panic rising in me as I hear Judith's sobs coming into the hallway, I rush around the house to see if maybe it was dropped somewhere. With no luck, I hurry back upstairs to the kids' room, just in time to hear Michonne signing off of Face Time with a few parting words, "It's ok, Judes, Mama is on her way to bring your wooby. I'll be there soon."

Did Michonne just say she would be here soon? Be here soon? Here?