ChapterOne
Parker
Iknew as soon as I saw my ex-wife’s name pop up on my caller ID that she wanted something. I almost didn’t answer. The only reason I did answer is because her dad’s a great guy and he recently called me to tell me that he hurt his shoulder. I thought that maybe she was calling me to give me an update.
But then I answered, and she spent ten minutes beating around the bush. So I knew she wanted something, something that wasn’t a little ask. Then she said something that clued me in.
“Did you know that Lucy got in to Stanford?”
“No. Lucy and I didn’t really keep in touch after the divorce.”
Mostly because I think she had a bit of a crush on me and she’s a gorgeous girl who wasn’t technically related to me. I thought it best if we just let it go. She’d been sixteen and just getting into dating boys.
And believe me, those boys were looking, but it was no longer my job to play protector over her virtue. That fell back on Marion, my ex. Marion is the ultimate helicopter mom, so I knew she could handle it.
I was usually advocating for Marion to give Lucy a little more leeway, but when the boys started coming around, I let her have free rein. That was when things were falling apart with our marriage, anyway.
I almost feel bad for Lucy, leaving her there with her mom all up in her business. Then again, Marion and I weren’t married for long. She’s a power player in the marketing industry and I think she saw me as more of a plaything than a partner.
She’s only seven years older than me and I make just as much money as she does, so I was by no means a trophy husband. Still, she treated me as if I were. I realized that I was sticking around to look out for Lucy, but that was just making Marion hold on tighter. So I walked away.
I’m not at all surprised that Lucy would move from Portland to Stanford. In fact, I’m a little surprised that she stayed so close. She’s a smart kid. I pictured her moving to Harvard just to be on the other side of the country from her mom.
Then again, Stanford is pretty far from Seattle, where Marion lives. It’s not like she can just drive down. She’d have to book a flight because there’s no way that Marion would drive the fourteen or whatever hours it would take from Seattle to Palo Alto — where I live.
Here it comes. She wants me to be her lookout while Lucy’s here. I refuse to spy on my stepdaughter — former stepdaughter? Ex stepdaughter?
“I was wondering if you’d check on Lucy.”
“No.”
“Come on, Parker.”
“No. Absolutely not. I’m not going skulking around the dorms at Stanford. I’m almost forty years old, for fuck’s sake.”
“I didn’t expect you to go skulking. I made sure Lucy has your number. I’ll text you hers. Just go see what her apartment’s like. I’m in Europe right now and she refused to wait until I got back to move in.”
“The dorms are open?”
“She’s not living in the dorms.”
I snort. “I can’t believe you’d let her get her own apartment.”
“I didn’t have much choice. Did you know they have gender inclusive housing at Stanford?”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“Except it means they’ll put girls and boys together. I’m not talking in the same building or the same floor, but in the same room. They will assign boys as roommates with girls.”
“I’m sure there’s a way to opt out of that. They can’t force that on anyone.”
“But then it could be right next-door.”
And that won’t be the case in an apartment? I don’t say that aloud, because that will just send her into an overprotective spiral. I’ve witnessed that too many times and Lucy was usually the one who took the brunt of that.
“So,” she continues. “You wouldn’t have to go to the dorms. Just check her apartment. She demanded that she was able to pick out the place, otherwise she was going to move into the dorms and take out student loans to do it.”
I smile, proud that Lucy learned to stand up for herself. I wouldn’t mind seeing the woman she’s grown into.