I replied thanking him, but declining the invitation to apply on the grounds that his enforcement of ‘traditional values’ for the church members stood in direct contrast to my personal sighting of him in a Bozeman bar kissing a woman who was most certainly not his wife.
That did not go over well. He denied it of course. My parents believed him and told me my priorities needed attention.
My parents are not evil, though. Colbert has never treated me like anything less than a daughter.
He’s stiff and sometimes lacks insight into what it might be like to go from a tri-plex in Indy to living home-on-the-range with a rich new step-dad in Montana, but I’m grateful that he loves my mother and me, and he provides a wonderful lifestyle.
It was to my mother’s disappointment that I decided to go into pre-law with a future focus on being a public defender. Very non-glamorous. But I have to thank Colbert for supporting my academics when my mom would have been more than happy for me to get implants at sixteen and use college more as a search for my MRS degree, rather than a path to law school.
I never knew my own father. As cliché as it sounds, my mom was waitressing at the bunny club in downtown Indy, where she met a traveling salesman one night who baited her with hundred-dollar tips and a whirlwind week of I’ve-never-met-someone-quite-like-you.
Then, poof. Mr. Potential Daddy Warbucks was gone, leaving behind only his fake name and a sperm donation.
Mom opens her mouth to say something else, likely about my weight gain, but in usual Isabel form, she raises her glass, shifting the energy at the table with her magic smile.
“Here’s to me, here’s to you, here’s to no one getting the flu!”
“Cheers to that.” I clink her glass, then hold mine out to my mother’s, and she clinks the rim of her glass to mine as we call a silent truce.
I stare out the restaurant window as I sip the sweet, chilled liquid, seeing my stepfather’s black Ford F350 King Ranch pickup pull up, which, for the rest of the world that might not know, costs more than my mom’s Mercedes.
I raise a hand and wave as he comes around the front of the truck, catches my eye through the glass, then Isabel leans across and does the same.
“Hi, Dad!” she yells at the glass as he breaks into a slow cowboy loping jog toward the door, appearing around the corner inside a few seconds later.
“Look at this.” He smiles and brushes the flakes of snow off his suit jacket, leaving his black Stetson El Presidente on his head. In Montana, your cowboy hat is pretty much a permanent part of your anatomy, unless someone is singing the national anthem, praying, or you’re getting in the shower. I’m pretty sure cowboys even fuck with their hats on. “My three most favorite women. My whole family together again. Surprised the table isn’t surrounded by men trying to horn in on my territory.”
There’s the lie again.The whole family. I hate the way they pretend Colbert’s son from his first marriage doesn’t exist.
Granted, Cutter hasn’t been around in about seven years, but I remember the day I met him, when my mother brought me to the ranch to meet her new cowboy boyfriend and his son.
His dark eyes matched the waves of his hair. I remember thinking he looked more like a dad than a brother. He was already twenty-seven to my twelve, and I didn’t work the numbers until years later realizing Colbert was only sixteen years old when he became a father for the first time.
Cutter’s shoulders were so broad, I was sure he could fight a bear and win. I asked what he did, and Colbert hemmed and hawed while Cutter just told me plain: “I’m a cowboy. And I build fences. Ride them too. For miles. I like being outside.”
He crouched right down to me as I shuffled my feet feeling awkward and uncomfortable in this strange new world of bear rugs and log walls, and made me feel like I was the only person in the room.
“I’m Cutter.” He’d said, extending his hand for a shake. “What’s your name?”
The memory makes me feel like I’m being wrapped in a warm blanket. I only got to know him for a few weeks before he disappeared. But in that short time, I came to dislike how my stepfather treated him. He slept in the bunkhouse instead of the house, and I put together quickly that he was not a source of pride for Colbert. Instead, it was almost like how they put poor Harry Potter under the stairs.
Then, poof he was just gone.
It wasn’t until a year later, after Mom and Colbert were married, that they told me he was in prison. As far as they were concerned, he was no longer a part of our family.
Colbert musses Isabel’s brown waves, leaning down to kiss my mother’s offered cheek and nodding at me.
“Glad you’re home, Sadie. How’re your grades?”
I return his nod as he slides into the chair next to me, a perfect amber Macallan scotch appearing in front of him without having to ask. “Grades are top-notch. Dean’s list.”
“Again!” Isabel claps as Colbert hisses after a sip of the scotch.
“That’s my girl.”
Overall, as stepfathers go, Colbert is okay. He’s far more interested in making money than making waves, especially with my mother. He lives by the motto ‘happy wife, happy life,’ and luckily, his credit card can support what it takes to make that a reality.
That’s not my path. I’m not entirely sure what my path is, but I know what it’s not.
