Faceslaps, Literal and Figurative

Brenda did not have a good poker face. "I didn't—I didn't do anything!"

Michael Townsend crossed his arms and glared at his wife. "Didn't do anything? Hah! Brandi throws a party and causes hundreds of thousands in damage, but you're there defending her, pleading that she's young, it wasn't her fault, don't let this get on her record. Then Valentine tests positive once, without independent verification, and you tear her a new one? Let's not even get into Brandi coming out with hateful, racist lingo like that. I thought the two of you were better than that!"

"Then where did she get the pills from?" Brenda shot back.

"Probably from our medicine cabinet. Remember when I had that abscessed tooth a few months back? They gave me acetaminophen with codeine to take afterwards. There were a few left over. I meant to throw them out, but I must have forgotten. Was it right for her to take them? No. No more than it was right for Brandi to get into the liquor cabinet. At least Valentine didn't text twenty kids to come over and share!"

Remy woke up with all the yelling, and Cherie and Kristal appeared at the door to the family room. All three were pale, silent, terrified, and starting to get tearful.

"Val's room has been emptied out. Everything. Brandi's right about that, that's not how someone runs away. But if you threw her out—Brenda, where is Valentine?!" Michael demanded.

"I don't know! I, I, I was angry. I wanted to teach her a lesson." Brenda cried.

"A lesson? You packed up all her stuff and threw her out to teach her a lesson? That's bullshit. I'm calling the police, and if anything's happened to her—." Michael reached for his phone, but even as he started punching in the emergency numbers, it rang.

"Judy! Valentine—."

"Is safe and sound here with us," Judy's voice came out on the speakerphone setting, more than loud enough for Brenda and Brandi to hear. "Michael, we need to talk about this. And you need to listen for a change, before I take this before the court."

"Great, I can come get her tomorrow—wait, what?" Michael began and stopped himself.

"Do you remember seven years ago when you met Brenda and decided to take Valentine back? I asked if I could adopt her then, because she'd been through enough upheaval in her life. You said no, that Brenda would love her just like Cammie did and Brandi was excited about having a sister."

"I remember," Michael sounded tired.

"How did that work out, hmmm?" Judy asked. "Brandi has never stopped calling Val racist names and bullies her. Brenda, who was a homophobic and trashy person from the start—honestly, who names their kids after the contents of a liquor cabinet?—has been working Valentine like a slave whenever she isn't in school."

"I did NOT name my kids after the contents of a liquor cabinet," Brenda seethed.

"Brandy, Sherry, Cristal champagne and Remy Martin cognac. I call it like I see it. Then, Michael, you're never home and when you are you don't listen to Valentine. I know that from when you were growing up. You only hear what you want to hear and you shove your responsibilities off on others."

"This isn't helping, Judy." Michael told her.

"My intent is not to help you, Mike. I'm completely on Valentine's side here—and Cammie's, because life as it is in your house is not the life she wanted for her daughter," Judy had fire in her voice.

"What do you want, then?" Michael asked.

"Custody of Valentine, with guardianship papers, plus five thousand dollars to replace what Brenda ruined when she threw everything of Val's into garbage bags, the better to throw her out like trash. In exchange, you can keep collecting the interest checks from Valentine's trust fund until she turns eighteen or goes to college, whichever comes first.

"You can see I'm being generous with you here, Mike. If we take this to court, you'll end up turning over the trust fund, interest and all, plus keeping her on your insurance, and paying child support as well."

"That isn't a given," Michael complained.

"You want to bet? Look, Valentine is miserable with you. I don't think Brandi and Brenda are capable of doing a sincere turn-around in how they treat Valentine, not when they've been such b***hes for the last seven years. You and the triplets, who I've never even met, can come and visit here when it's convenient for us and you'll still be her dad." Judy was not budging an inch.

Michael sighed. "Can I speak to Valentine?"

"Sure. She's right here."

There was a rustling, and then Val's clear young voice came through. "Hey, Dad."

"Hi yah, Val. I guess…I guess I let you down, huh?" Michael said.

"Yeah, you could say that," Valentine replied. "Let me down, blew me off, however you want to put it."

"You don't usually talk back!" Michael said, sounding startled.

"I don't usually get dumped at a bus terminal and told I'm a piece of s**t addict who should have been flushed at birth, either," she retorted.

Michael sent a glare in his wife's direction. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. So—you don't want to come back?"

"No. I don't. Dad, I had a really horrible day. I had a really horrible last seven years. I don't feel like having a long conversation with you right now. Kiss Cherie, Kristal and Remy for me, and tell them I love them." Valentine said.

"I will," Michael said.

"If you love them that much, why don't you come home to them?" Brenda put in, nastily.

"Because of what you just said and how you said it, a million times over, over the last seven years. Goodbye."

There was another rustle, and then Judy's voice came back. "That's it. Good bye for now, we'll set up the details tomorrow." She ended the call.

"All right," Michael said. His eyes were narrow and furious as he regarded his wife and her daughter. "We are not going to discuss things right now, because I am so angry I don't know what will happen. But the two of you…are not who I thought you were, not at all. I have been blind, willfully blind, for seven years."

He paused. "Is there at least something to eat for dinner?"

"Yes!" Brandi put in. "I made it."

"Daddy, is Valentine not coming back?" Remy asked. She had always been closest to Val.

"Uh, not tonight, sweetie. She's sleeping over at Aunt Judy and Aunt Ali's tonight."

"But who's gonna tuck us in?" Remy persisted.

"I will," he said. "But everybody's got to eat dinner. We're all hungry. First thing, though, why does this place reek of bleach? It's enough to kill my appetite."

"Ask her!," Brenda pointed at Brandi.

There was nearly an argument right then and there, but in the end, Brenda and Michael wrestled the stained and bleached sofa out to the garage for the time being. Brandi set the table in the meantime.

With the source of the bleach smell out of the house, another odor made itself known—the smell of something burning.

It turned out to be the roast, which was burned on the outside and not just raw but cold on the inside. Moreover, it was not a cut intended for roast beef, but a tougher, cheaper cut that absolutely needed to cook in liquid or it wouldn't be tender—in other words, Brandi should have cooked it as a pot roast. In the end, they made peanut butter sandwiches and ate those for dinner.

The atmosphere around the dining table was about as cheerful and warm as Antarctica. Michael excused himself early to put the triplets to bed, while Brenda and Brandi put the dishes away and then got the clean laundry from the dryer.

Brenda took one look at what came out of the dryer and lost her temper. Upending the basket on the floor, she screamed at her daughter, "You worthless, lazy little b***h! You washed it all together?! Everything is stained! The delicates are ruined! I should have thrown you out instead of Valentine!"

"It's not my fault! You were the one who told me to do it and didn't tell me how!" Brandi yelled back.

"You've done the laundry before. What went wrong this time?" Brenda snarled.

"Me do it? I always got Valentine to do it." Brandi kicked the basket back toward her mother. "You're just going to have to hire a maid or a housekeeper."

Michael descended the stairs to meet them at the bottom. "What makes you think we can afford to hire a maid or a housekeeper?

"You see," he bent over to retrieve the laundry basket and started picking up the clothes, "while we had insurance coverage on the house and everything in it, the boat was a different story. Because boats aren't used much between November and April, I only took out seasonal insurance on it, for May through October. It was late February when it caught fire.

"So it was completely uninsured. And guess what? We still have to pay off the loan I took out to buy it. You know what else? I can't recoup the money from whoever decided to fool around with it and set it on fire, because we can't identify who it was. Nor can I sell it, because, as you know, it's burnt up. Plus when you use your insurance, the rates go up. They go up a lot.

"Also," Michael picked up the last few pieces of clothing, "what Judy said about Valentine's trust fund makes a lot of sense. It was Cammie's money. What right do I have to use the interest off of her money for my needs or my wife's needs or my other children's needs? Maybe it'll go a small way towards making up for the last seven years of misery Valentine suffered."

"But—." Brenda began. "We need that money. I was counting on it. Brandi's going to school in a couple of years."

"Well, now you can stop counting on it. It was never hers anyway," he said. "I hope you enjoyed that party, Brandi. Unless you can get scholarships, it's the reason you're not going to college. And you get to take over all the chores Valentine did."

"Sh*t. But Mom was the one who threw her out. If I'd known this was going to happen, I never would have plant—." Realizing what she was saying a little too late, Brandi clapped both hands over her mouth.

Brenda's eyes grew wide. "What? What did you say? You planted those pills on her?"

"No! No, Mom, I didn't!" Brandi protested, but it was too late. Brenda hauled off and hit her across the face.

Far away, in the Rainbow Lodge, Valentine Xuelan Townsend slept peacefully on her new bed with the moonlight bathing her in its aqueous beams. Nainai kept watch over her from the desk.