Days Like This

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Authors: Laurie Breton
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his eyes, his strong jaw line, his thick, curly blond hair, except that
his stopped at his shoulders, and hers tumbled in a wild cascade down the
center of her back.
    Atkinson took the girl by the
hand and drew her forward.  “Paige,” he said, “I’d like you to meet your father
and your stepmother, Rob and Casey MacKenzie.”
    The girl squared her jaw. 
Glanced at Casey, then at Rob.  “Hi,” she said.
    Casey returned her greeting, but
Rob remained silent.  She glanced over at him, concerned for an instant, until
he reached out a hand toward his daughter.  The girl hesitated, then shrugged
and reached out her own hand.  He took it in his and held it while they studied
each other.
    A tear rolled down his cheek.  He
cleared his throat.  “Is there some place we can talk in private?”
    “The kitchen,” Lorraine Harriman
said.  “Right through that doorway.”
    He shepherded his daughter into
the kitchen, leaving the rest of them standing awkwardly in the living room. 
Over the sound of the television, Casey could hear the soft murmur of his
voice, but couldn’t tell what he was saying to the girl.  “Sandy and I were
friends,” Lorraine Harriman said.  “I’ve watched Paige grow up.  I’d figure out
a way to keep her if I could.  But Sandy was determined that Paige would go to
her father.”  Lorraine’s mouth thinned.  “I’m still not sure it was the right
decision.”
    Casey reached out and took the
woman’s hand in hers.  “I want you to know that my husband is one of the good
guys.  I’ve known him since he was twenty, and I’d trust him with my life.  We’re
not living any kind of wild rock-and-roll lifestyle.  He hasn’t even been out
on tour in more than a year.  We live a quiet, normal life in the little rural
town where I grew up, in an old house just down the road from my dad’s dairy
farm.  She’ll have aunts and uncles and cousins nearby, and her grandparents
are right here in South Boston, so she’ll get the chance to see you when we visit
them.  And we have so much love to give her!  We have a strong marriage, but so
far, it’s been just the two of us.  Paige will make us a family.  I won’t lie
and say this hasn’t been a shock, because it has.  But we’re both thrilled
about Paige.  We’ll do right by her, I promise you.”
    Rob and his daughter returned
from the kitchen, both of them silent, but some of the tension seemed to have
dissipated.  The little dog ran to Paige and danced in circles around her feet,
and she crouched down to rub its ears.  Atkinson glanced at his watch and said,
“If I can have just a few minutes of your time, Mr. MacKenzie, we have some
business to go over.”
    Rob disappeared back into the
kitchen with the lawyer.  “Are those your things on the porch?” Casey asked the
girl.  Still playing with the dog, Paige nodded.  “Okay, then,” she said
briskly.  “We might as well start loading the car while your father’s tied up
with Mr. Atkinson.”
    She stuck her head into the
kitchen, where her husband and the attorney were sitting at the table with a
thick manila envelope between them.  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said.  “Car
keys?”  Rob pulled them from his pocket and tossed them to her, and she blew
him a kiss.
    Outside, on the porch, she eyed
the stack of boxes and said, “Is this everything?”
    Paige nodded.  “Everything
else—all my mom’s stuff—went into storage.”
    “Okay, then.  Grab a box, and let’s
get started.”
    Together, they carried boxes,
suitcases, guitar, and bicycle down the long flight of stairs and up the hill
to where Rob had parked the Explorer.  Casey opened the tailgate and began
packing the rear cargo area tightly with boxes, while Paige squeezed the
suitcases and the guitar into the back seat.  They debated how to fit in the
bicycle, finally managed, after a couple of failed attempts, to maneuver it in
and close the tailgate. 
    Brushing grit from the

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