Page 33 of Good Days Bad Days

“Can we help you?” he asks, the blinding lights on the dark SUV making silhouettes of the two approaching figures.

The beep of the car’s security system engaging is immediately followed by the headlights going dark.

It takes a second to clear the spots from my eyes, but I soon recognize the voice that calls out from the darkness.

“Mom!!!” Olivia breaks into the porch light’s circumference at full speed, slamming into my body like she’s trying to merge our molecules. She hugs me more aggressively than she has since reaching puberty.

“Olivia,” I gasp once I catch my breath, dazed from the impact, confused to find my child suddenly standing in front of me in a town I’ve intentionally shielded her from for her entire life. “How . . . where . . . why?” I stutter, when from behind my daughter, the second figure comes into focus.

“Hi, Charlie.”

It’s Ian, hands in the pockets of his green Columbia jacket, wearing a canvas burnt-orange cap with a frayed bill, his dark hair curling up around the edges by his ears.

His beard is a bit longer than I’m used to, and dark circles are clearly visible under his brown eyes.

It feels like every organ inside of my body flips at the same time, reminding me this is the man I love and the resulting nausea reminding me he’s also the man who hurt me.

And now he’s here, standing in front of me.

“Don’t be mad at Ian. It was my idea,” Olivia says. “I told him I was coming and begged him to join me.”

“She’s very convincing.” Ian smiles his heartthrob TV smile but with a touch of a hard edge, eyes darting between me and Cam, who I’d nearly forgotten was standing next to me. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met,” he says directly to Cam, who’s no longer in his defensive position.

“Oh, this is Cameron Stokes. My . . .” I search for the right description and decide to be as general as possible. “We grew up together. This is my daughter, Olivia, and . . .”

“I’m Ian, Charlie’s husband. Nice to meet you,” Ian says, shaking Cam’s hand, pumping once before dropping it and folding his arms across his chest, his tungsten wedding ring with redwood inlay standing out on his left ring finger as a stronger statement of our union than his self-introduction.

Cam makes some generic, friendly greetings as my head spins, recalibrating my plans for the night, week, month.

Cam touches my elbow, drawing Ian’s gaze.

“I should go,” he says with a stiff grin that looks more like a grimace. “I’ll call you later.”

I’m about to apologize and thank him for dinner and a beautiful evening when he walks off without waiting for my response. All three of us watch as he gets in the car and pulls away, the Wisconsin license plate receding as he turns onto the main road.

“I’ll get your bags,” Ian says to Olivia, the stormy heaviness hanging over him fading a bit with Cam’s departure.

“Seriously, Mom, don’t be mad,” Olivia says as Ian wrestles her luggage from the trunk and I unlock the deadbolt with the code from the property manager.

“I’m not mad, I’m just surprised. I wish I’d known you were coming.”

“I tried calling you from the airport, but your phone was off. Besides, if I’d told you any earlier, you wouldn’t have let me come.”

“I told you we could go to Cabo. Why come here rather than the beach?”

“I’ve already been to Cabo. I’ve never been here. I want to know about this stuff, Mom. I want to know where you came from.”

Where you came from. That phrase hits me as we cross into the dark living room just like it did when she brought up her interest in our call last night.

That’s exactly what I’m doing digging through my parents’ house and with my visit to Janesville and my trips to Shore Path to talk to Betty.

I don’t know where I came from, and as a result, Olivia is missing a piece of her history, too.

“You sure you won’t stay? We have snacks,” Olivia asks Ian as he drops her luggage by the door, holding up a bag of cheddar popcorn she found in one of my cabinets.

I add a half-hearted offer for him to stay on the couch and am relieved when he turns it down.

“Tempting but I’m wiped. I’ll let you two have some girl time.

” He reaches for the doorknob, assuring us both he has accommodations in town.

Standing on the welcome mat, something in the kitchen catches his eye, and he shakes his head.

I follow his stare and see my sparkling three-carat solitaire and white gold band blinking back at me from the island counter.

Compassion rises inside me, thinking what it must’ve looked like seeing me and Cam on the porch, how excruciating it is to sense you’re losing the person you love.

Then I remember—Ian is the reason I’m so intimately acquainted with that sensation. This isn’t the same. I’m not sneaking around behind his back. We are separated. He knows that.

My empathy dial clicks back a few levels.

“Hey,” I call out as he opens the door. “Thanks for bringing her.”

“Bringing me?” Olivia chimes in. “Remember? I brought him.” She tosses a kernel in her mouth, talking as she chews.

“More like a willing hostage,” he says, still avoiding eye contact.

I’ve never seen Ian so jittery, anxious, lost. “Good night, sweetheart,” he says to Olivia as he heads out.

And when his headlights disappear from the front window, I turn to my daughter, suddenly realizing her motivation for this surprise visit.

“Olivia Grace. What are you up to?”

“What? Who, me?” she asks with an exaggerated air of innocence, licking her cheddar-coated fingers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Olivia,” I scold, an accusation tickling the tip of my tongue, “I know what you’re doing.”

As a little girl, Olivia was obsessed with the 1961 Hayley Mills classic, The Parent Trap. I considered it a phase, and eventually, she grew out of it when her father and I both remarried other people.

We watched the film a few years back with the twins for nostalgic fun and to see if it’d held up over the years.

When the boys got bored, Olivia and I snuggled up just the two of us, hating Vicky, the evil stepmother wannabe.

We sang along with the random musical number and laughed at the psychotic lengths the twins go to to reunite their parents.

“Why did you ever like this movie? Those girls are sociopaths.”

Olivia laughed, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a child-of-divorce thing.”

“I knew it. You wanted to Parent Trap me and your dad, didn’t you?”

“At first,” she admitted. “But then I realized things were different for me.”

“Different how?”

“Different ’cause you and Dad married nice people. Dad’s happy with Natalie and you’re happy with Ian. Now they’re part of my family, too.”

I remember fighting through my emotions at her stunningly mature perspective—we are a family and that family is worth preserving.

Was worth preserving, I think, watching Olivia staring at the picture of her grandmother in her wedding dress that still hangs on the fridge. Maybe still is. But I don’t know, yet. I can’t know, yet. The last thing I need is some little plan inspired by a Disney movie.

“Don’t try to Parent Trap me and Ian.” I say the ridiculous phrase firmly. “I have my reasons.” She doesn’t know the whole story, and I’d rather let her think I’m a coldhearted bitch than let her read those Instagram messages.

“Ew. It’s not that deep, Mom,” she says, rolling her eyes and opening the refrigerator to search for more snacks.

I sense a whole vault of previously unreleased animosity loaded into how she says “Mom,” letting me know it absolutely is that deep.

It’s probably so deep that it’s a part of her foundation, and if I push too hard or dig in unthinkingly, it could crack, and our connection could crumble.

So, I drop the topic of Ian and ask about school instead.

Eventually, I end up sharing some of the clues I’d collected from my parents’ house.

Olivia reads long segments of The Classy Homemaker out loud and does a Google image search on the ribbonlike name tag I’d found.

The internet agrees it came from a Playboy Club, which by 3:00 a.m. makes both of us fall into a giggle fit.

After dozing on the couch for a few hours, she wakes me up with Ian on speaker, asking him to meet us at my parents’ house.

She’s doing it again, the Parent Trap plan.

Grumbling, I turn over and cover my head with a knit throw blanket.

Olivia is letting me in more than she has in years.

I know what it’s like to go through adulthood without my mother.

The taste of connection I’ve gotten with Betty has made me crave a healthy connection with Olivia even more.

How can I say no without being a total hypocrite?

“Fine,” I give in. “Tell him to bring coffee.”