The Wrong Sister (2 page)

He followed Micah out of their room. Micah quietly shut the door behind him and then walked over to the living room window and kept his gaze drilled out of it. The day was gray and overcast. Their house was in an exclusive neighborhood and all the houses butted up to a small, cool, clear lake. It was the type of lake where no motorized vehicles were allowed so it stayed peaceful and tranquil all year round.

Micah was a slim, tall man with dark hair and solemn features. He was classically handsome and formal; his style totally fit his looks and reflected his profession. He managed the investment portfolios for an array of clients, and judging by their lifestyle, he did well at it. They weren’t obscenely rich or anything, but they appeared to have far more money than Donny ever dared dream about.

Well, that wasn’t totally true. He might have made something of his firm someday, if he hadn’t married Vickie and she had gotten access to his money.

Micah cleared his throat. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back. His gaze was dark and pinned outside. “I screwed up, Donny. I screwed everything up and the thing is; everyone else is going to pay for it.”

He cheated. What else could it be? What else could cause this kind of reaction? This level of devastation. It made him sit down and rest his elbows on his knees. Micah cheating? It was almost as painful as one learning your dad cheated on your mom. It wasn’t that Micah was an older figure to Donny he was just such a good, upstanding, put together man it was impossible not to know him and be completely impressed by him. And his devotion to Tracy and the kids.

“What did you do? Did you cheat?”

Micah finally turned with an expression of surprise on his face. “No.”

Donny let out a breath. It was such a relief to realize he wasn’t totally wrong about everyone in his life. He just didn’t think he could handle it if Micah cheated on Tracy. “Then what?”

He turned back and stared at the lake. “I lost everything.”

Everything? Micah was being uncharacteristically grim and dramatic using words like everyone and everything. He wasn’t usually prone to using such all-encompassing words and overreactions. “Come on now, Micah, I’m sure it can be worked out. What happened?”

He laughed dryly. “You won’t think that when I finish telling you about it. It’s not just Tracy I’ve ruined. It’s you too.”

Donny jerked to attention. Micah stayed turned towards the view of the lake. His tone was hollow as he continued, “I lost all our money. I lost all your money. I made ridiculous, risky investments and then I embezzled money to try and cover the losses. I got caught. I’m going to jail. I stole from everyone, including my own wife and best friend, and now a client figured it out. He was decent enough to give me a week to get my affairs in order. This is me doing that. You are on my list of who I need to disclose what I’ve done to. I’m sorry. It’s for shit. I know that. I know how much you need that money. But it’s gone. I lost it all.”

Donny didn’t move. He heard Micah wrong. “You what?”

“I lost your money. I used it on investments I thought were going to give us all a double return in no time. I thought I’d make you rich and you’d never know how I did it.”

“You did what?!”
Donny stood up screaming it, his fists tightened as blood rushed into his head and left his temples feeling ready to expel the blood out of his skin. He suddenly leaned over to catch his breath it was as if Micah had simply turned and socked him in the gut.

Micah didn’t even flinch at his scream. “I told you. I screwed everyone over. I’m going to jail.”

None of it registered. He couldn’t take it all in. His best friend… was going to jail? Lost all their money? Embezzled funds? No wonder Tracy looked like a strung out zombie. He got it now. That fast he knew exactly what Tracy felt.

Donny started furiously pacing. “You no good lying sack of shit. Do you know what you’ve done to me? You’ve bankrupted me! I gave you everything I had. All my retirement. My savings. My businesses profits. I gave it all to you because I trusted you. I depended on you. In fact, I depended on you like I did no one else. How could you?”

His hands started to sweat. He pushed at his throbbing head. God, it was all his money in the world. It wasn’t much, but he’d entrusted it to Micah instead of sanely, and boringly leaving it in the bank. How? How could Micah have done this? Vickie had spent him nearly out of house and business. He had thought giving his financial affairs over to the reliable, intelligent, upstanding Micah McKinley was the smart thing to do so Vickie could no long have access to it. Now? It was gone? He felt his breathing increase and hitch.
No,
this could not be. There was nothing left. Nothing more. He wasn’t a rich man to start. He made an ordinary living running his own small business that took care of a multitude of technology-related matters for businesses; anything from planning upgrades of existing software or hardware to handling installation, upgrades and management of their clients’ computer systems to protect the office networks from hackers and malware. It wasn’t glamorous but it always paid the bills and provided a decent living. Now? He had nothing else.

After marrying Vickie and in attempts to get ready for supporting a family he’d taken out a business loan and bought out his two partners. He intended to build up the business and maybe even branch out to other cities. It looked feasible to do so. But that took working capital. Capital that Micah had lost. And now he had a loan to repay with not a lot of cash at hand to pay it.

He fell to the couch in shock so deep his legs didn’t want to hold him up. Micah finally turned. He sat too. Silence was thicker than it had been. “I thought pretty seriously about eating my gun. If I go to jail Tracy is going to lose everything. Even more than you. This house is gone. Our savings. The college fund. The retirement. It’s all gone. What I did to her is—”

“Why didn’t you?”

Micah glanced up eyebrows raised in surprise. Donny stared into his dark eyes, his own blazing. “Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”

Micah flinched at his tone. He stared hard at Donny, and then shook his head as if in agreement. He dropped his head in shame. “Because I’m too scared to even load it.”

“How long?”

“For…”

“Before the cops show up?”

“Three days is the end of the allotted time.”

Donny let out a breath. “You really did this?”

He shook his head. Tears filled his eyes. “I really did this.”

Donny felt his own throat close off. What was he going to do? His world felt like it was crashing around his ears. His business. His back-up. His plans. His bills. Shit! How would he even pay his next month’s bills? What if client’s fees didn’t come through? Sometimes he had to carry the business off of savings.

There was a gasp at the end of the room. Donny raised his face. Tracy stood there, ashen. She touched her hand to her chest in a gesture of helplessness. “You lost Donny’s money too? That’s why you needed privacy? Who else? Who else did you screw over?”

Micah jumped to his feet. “No one else you know personally. Just some clients.”

She shut her eyes. She swayed on her feet. “How could you? How could you do that to my family?”

Micah’s tone was hollow. “The same way I did it to my own kids. That’s why I was staring at that gun, Tracy. I
know
what I did.”

Donny suddenly stood up and grabbed Tracy’s elbow and led her to the couch. She seemed confused. He wasn’t sure she was processing any of it. He finally understood why she looked so devastated. It was supposed to be only money. But when it was all your money in the world; it changed everything. Suddenly, it was everything.

Micah pinned his gaze to Donny. “It’s not her fault.”

Donny threw Micah a dirty look. “I think I know that. I’m not a monster.”

“I need you to look out for her. She will need your help. She will be all alone. There will be an intolerable amount to deal with. There won’t be anything I can do…”

“Yeah, you’re pretty much fucking worthless, aren’t you?”

Micah held his gaze. “Yeah, I pretty much am. But they are not. She’ll need your help most of all. Please don’t take your anger of me out on them.”

He fisted his hand, closer to shoving it into Micah’s face. Through clenched teeth he uttered, “I'd never punish your wife or kids for what you’ve done. I know the damned difference. I’m not an asshole. Not like you.”

Micah nodded. “Thank you. Will you promise me?”

He frowned. “Promise you what? Why should I do anything for you?”

“Not me. Tracy, Ally, and Kylie.”

Donny suddenly jumped forward as he lifted his fist and slammed it into Micah’s face. He pinned Micah to the chair as he held his shirt front in his fists. “Don’t you use your family against me after what you’ve done to me. I don’t owe you anything. You took everything from me.”

Tracy screamed and stood up rushing closer but staying back an arm’s length in scared hesitation. Donny closed his eyes and forced his breathing to slow and even. He jerked his hands so Micah’s back was lifted off the chair then smashed it back down to nearly knock the breath out of him. Micah fell against the chair wiping at his bloody nose with the tail of his now untucked, white button up shirt.

Donny got up and stood there panting in furious rage over Micah. Tracy turned her head and nearly hugged the wall as convulsing tears filled her again. She nearly moaned in physical pain as she slid to the ground. Micah sat there unmoving. Donny flexed his fingers. Was this really them? Friends? Family? In all honesty they were his favorite couple in the world. Now this?

They had ruined him. Now Micah wanted what? Him to pick up all the slack? Play daddy to his kids? Screw him. Screw them. Screw himself for handing his entire life over to the prick.

“She’s basically raised your daughter. You owe her.”

Micah’s voice cut through the odd, long tension. Tracy straightened up and glanced at Micah, shocked. So did Donny.

Micah nodded. “We all know what your wife is. We know what she can’t do, and that’s take care of your damn daughter. Julia spends more time here than at home with her mostly
stay at home
mother. So don’t stand there and tell me not to ask for your help. You owe her. You owe Tracy. And no doubt she’ll keep paying any way by still nearly raising your daughter.”

Donny nearly jumped back on Micah and lost his mind in the anger spewing through his veins. They didn’t know jack-shit about what his wife was. They thought they knew. Everyone thought they understood. But they didn’t. They didn’t have a damn clue. Everyone thought they were well versed on what Vickie’s problems were… only what they thought and what was, were two entirely different things.

He swallowed hard. Micah stood up finally, still wiping at his bleeding nose. “
Please,
Donny. I need to know you’ll be there. We both know their father isn’t up for the things Tracy will need. He’s a good dad, but as you know they can’t handle shit when it gets real. This is as real as it gets. I need to know she’ll be all right.”

“Fuck you,” he said as he turned toward the front door. He stopped after he pulled it open. “And I would never punish them for you. I won’t promise you anything. But I will promise Tracy.”

With that he slammed the door and stalked down the front walk.

DONNY GRIPPED THE STEERING wheel as he sat silently in his car in his own driveway. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing thoughts that were now spinning out of control. There was simply no more money.

Opening his eyes, he finally let go of the wheel and slowly got out of the car before starting toward his front door. The small, well maintained development had other houses that were similarly sized and shaped, but theirs was a two thousand-square foot rambler. It was nothing spectacular, but he was extremely proud when he signed on the dotted line as its new owner five years ago. Before Vickie. Before Julia. Before Tracy. And before fucking Micah.

His heart plunged into his stomach when he entered the house. It was dark and without a trace of daylight. Damn. Not today. He nearly felt like sitting down in the front doorway. He couldn’t deal with this. Not today, of all days.

Shaking his head, he closed the front door, and clicked the light on. He passed through the cluttered living room and walked down the gloomy hallway. He opened his daughter’s door and turned on the light. She turned over in her playpen and blinked at the sudden brightness.
Fucking-A! Vickie!
How could she do that to his baby?
Their baby.
He crossed the room in three steps and lifted her up into his arms. Dried tears stained her face. She started to cry again, and he clutched her tightly to him, kissing her little, blond head and talking nonsense in soothing baby tones.

Despite the sweetness and care of his words, his head was seething with anger. He’d fucking kill Vickie this time. Too far. She’d gone way too far. She could not leave his daughter alone. Locked in a room. Her diaper soaked through. Hungry. Ignored. He’d think about killing her this time.

After an hour of trying to comfort Julia by changing her diaper, feeding her and rocking her incessantly, she finally wore herself out while he held her on his chest. He clung to her for another hour, letting her body’s warmth seep through his clothes and heat him up. Her hair needed a good washing, but he could do that in the morning.

Before he dropped her off with Tracy.

Damn. Just what Micah said. It was true. He rarely left Julia here anymore. He only had for the last few days because Tracy refused his pleas to babysit. Now he knew why. But look what happened when he left Julia home alone with Vickie. His heart clenched. How could any real mother do such a thing to her own child?

He carefully lay Julia down in her now clean sheets. She shuffled slightly, but stayed asleep. He gently closed her door, leaving it open a crack in case she woke up. This time, he would come immediately to her cries in the night.

With a heavy heart, and a killer headache, he confronted his wife. Walking into his bedroom, he found his wife unconscious, passed out after the bender she’d obviously indulged in today. The empty bottles lay strewn around her. He slumped against the door. How could this have become his life? How could she have become his wife? How could he have been so wrong about two people he cared about? Vickie and Micah. Their betrayal, and their consequent destruction of his once good life felt like a brick hitting him in the chest.

****

Tracy stared hard at her husband. “You did this to Donny too?”

“I wanted the same thing for him as I thought I could get for us.”

Tracy started the incessant interrogation again. “But why? Why, in the first place, did you ever start that? I’ve never asked for anything more than what we have. I never even dreamed we’d live as well as we do. There was no reason to do that. We have a fantastic life and future. I just don’t see
why
you did that.”

Micah heaved a long sigh from his tightened lips. He dropped down in the chair and held his nose carefully. He deserved so much worse than just a sucker punch in the nose. My God, he was a crook! An all-out crook, no different than if he held Donny up at gunpoint.

He shook his head. “I know. It was never you. I know what I ruined. I just… wanted more. I work for rich assholes who never even notice the extra money I make for them. It’s nothing they need. It’s no more than numbers on statements. Money they never touch. Maybe I just wanted a little of it. And my dad… I guess I just wanted enough to be able to stick my finger up at my dad for saying I could never make anything of myself. You know how he is. His endless digs about what real men do. I kept thinking if I could just make enough, and be really impressive, he’d finally consider me up to his standards.”

She stopped dead.
His father?
Micah did all that to prove himself to the selfish, narcissistic man who raised him? The man she barely allowed through her front door? Much less, near her daughters? His motivation behind it left her as broadsided as his deeds. Micah’s father was the most foul-tempered and dispiriting person she’d ever known. He’d always made Micah feel less than adequate for his entire life. They were a moderately wealthy family, but Micah failed him by not becoming the star athlete, student, scholarship-winner and perfection-striving robot that his older brother was. That was something his father never let him forget. Micah couldn’t stomach working for his father so he studied finance at a college that wasn’t nearly prestigious enough to earn his father’s approval.

He met Tracy during his sophomore year in college. Micah’s college roommate and friend was the older brother of her best friend. They often ran into each other at her friend’s house and spent a spring break flirting before he finally asked her out seriously. Barely eighteen, she was still a senior in high school. They hit it off immediately and never broke up. She faithfully stayed with him through another three years of college. They got married at the beginning of his senior year. She moved with him to a no-name school, a small private college in northern California. He left his small, hometown in southern California pretty much just to get away from his father.

Then he met Tracy.

His family expected him to return home, but Tracy could not move away from her own family. She was born and raised in Calliston, California, and loved it, and had no desire to go anywhere else.

So she began to completely disappoint his father, although Micah claimed he didn’t care.
Screw the old man!
But she knew how it ate at Micah’s self esteem and self respect. He still strove to gain the old bastard’s approval.

She was no prize contestant for his father’s approval either. She was… in a word: ordinary. There was no other way to describe her then, or now. She was nice. She was fun. She had a pretty smile. She was an average student. She usually didn’t cause trouble. She did not go to college. Her only real glory in high school was being a member of the varsity swim team. She didn’t really win all that much, or create any new records, but had fun doing it. That led to several summers during which she worked as a lifeguard at the community pool before switching to the pool’s office. That was before she had Ally. Then she stayed at home and worked a few hours a week by giving swim lessons to young kids. She was perfectly happy. In academics, perfection was reserved for her own perfect sister, Gretchen. Gretchen was the kind of woman whom Micah’s family would have loved. She was tall, model-beautiful and a child psychologist. Intelligent, successful, extraordinary, she was also warm, kind, caring, and wonderful.

The weird thing was: Tracy never harbored a shred of jealousy toward Gretchen. Gretchen moved across the country twice, finished a doctorate program, and twice got married to handsome, impressive men, while Tracy never did anything like that. She lived fifteen minutes from her parents and drove her kids around town. She ran errands in her mini-van, cooked dinner every night, and worked in her daughters’ schools. She was so soccer mom-boring it was a little weird she held no resentment towards Gretchen. They had always been best friends and remained so.

However, Gretchen was gone now, after moving across the country with her new husband and adopted daughter. The weight of her absence never felt as heavy to Tracy as it did in that moment.

So Tracy was not the kind of wife that could earn respect for Micah. His family blamed her for influencing his choice to not move home and join the family business. They pointed their fingers at her when he settled for a small chain investment firm that barely let him clear a couple hundred thousand a year. She also got the blame for his less than affluent means and lifestyle.

That was all shit in Tracy’s eyes, who believed they made a comfortable living and had a wonderful life. They made more than the average family and were blessed with plenty. There was nothing more they needed. They enjoyed their lives, and it was not just a display. They worked hard, vacationed, and raised their kids to be decent. Micah worked long hours, but he made up for it whenever he could relax with Tracy and the girls. He was totally there, and very engaged, loving, supportive, kind and thoughtful.

It didn’t bother her in the least that she wasn’t as spectacular as his family might have preferred in Micah’s woman. Tracy
knew
right down to her toes how much Micah loved her. He adored her. He revered her and always had, starting from the days when they were broke and living in a studio apartment after first getting married and starting their new life together. What did she care if his family were uptight snobs who never experienced any passion in their lives? She preferred to have fun and laugh, or hang with her girls to being forced to tolerate their cold, formal, boring lifestyles.

So now, to hear that Micah was doing this
for them
, his snobby family, was completely surreal to her. The pressures they put on him absolutely shocked her. She thought Micah was happy with her in Calliston, with their two girls and their normal, ordinary, and,
what she thought, was a
wonderful
lifestyle.

“You did that out of a juvenile need to please your family? Your father? The most demanding, uncompromising man on the planet? We agreed years ago he wasn’t worth our time or effort or emotions. He’s mean. He’s un-pleasable. You know that! How could you even try to seek the unattainable? Are you telling me, all these years, when I thought I was what you wanted, you privately agreed with your family and shared their opinions of me?”

The thought was almost as crushing as Micah being a crook.

Jumping up, he was right beside her in two steps. He simply scooped her up to his chest and cupped her face in his hands. “No. NO! That’s not it. Don’t ever think that. You are ten times better than any of them. You were and are the only person to whom I’ve ever felt I belonged to in the world.”

She started to cry as she stared up into his face. It looked like Micah. It sounded like him. This Micah, who held her, loved her, and supported her was her husband. Her Micah. Her true love.

Oh God. How could this really be happening? Tears spilled over her eyelids again and she hiccupped. She started to tremble. “Then why? Why would you do that? What possible reason could you have to throw away me? Us? Everything?”

He shook his head and his own eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to. It started slow. The economy tanked. We lost a lot of investments. I tried to pull them out and reinvest into safer stocks, but we got hit hard. Harder than I ever admitted to you. I didn’t want to worry you at first, I told myself, when actually, I didn’t want to disappoint you. I thought we could ride it out. But it went on and on and on. The economy didn’t relent, and by then, our entire savings was gone, and our retirement was half what it previously was. I got desperate. I reached out to every contact I could. I got a tip from someone I grew up with. I thought it was reliable.”

She gasped. “Like insider trading? That’s illegal too!”

“Yes, well, I thought, just this one time I’ll get ahead. Get us ahead. I thought I’d finally be able to give you the life you deserved.”

“Oh my God! We were living the life I deserved. I loved it. You had no right to destroy it.” She wanted to smash
her fist
into his nose, just like Donny did. “Not for some stupid status or ‘what we deserve.’ What a bunch of bullshit. White-collar, uppity, snobby bullshit. I can’t believe you ruined us. Just for that. How could you do it to Donny too?”

“Donny had just confided his concerns to me over what Vickie was doing to his personal finances. He feared his business was next to tank. I thought I could provide him the same boost I was giving us. So many rich assholes just keep getting richer and richer without ever noticing it. A million up, a million down, they don’t care. But a million for us? That would be life-changing. I thought it would work so I could reinstate everything and then some.”

“Oh, but let me guess: the get rich scheme didn’t work. Imagine that.”

He held her face, and his expression softened and fell. He shut his eyes before saying, “I love you. I will never be able to tell you how much.”

She grasped his fingers on her face, clutching his hands in hers. “You ruined it. You ruined us. I just don’t understand…”

“I know,” he whispered softly, bringing her forward and closer to him. He kissed her gently. His fat tears overflowed and finally streamed from his eyes. She clutched his shirt, and cried in deep, body-seizing sobs. He held her against him, but she screamed and railed at him. She nearly convulsed against his chest as his arms held her tightly. All she managed to whisper over and over again was “You ruined us.”