Sean hadn't had a private leisurely shower in eight years and even though he was eager to reunite with Stacey and Deanie, he helped himself to a twenty five minute shower in the comfort of his parent's bathroom. The hot water ran down his toned body rapidly, blessing every curve and crevice of his build. He kept his eyes closed as the shampoo rinsed out of his locks, playing over the last time he showered with his wife. She was working in the evening and had their apartment to herself since Deanie was in kindergarten and Sean at the shop. As a surprise, he came home at noon with the hopes of a hot meal, but was greeted by the sound of running water instead. He peeled the shower curtain back slightly and watched her head go from one side to the other, the steam rising out of the shower as hot water cascaded down her bare chest. Her back was to him so Sean took it upon himself to wander down her perimeter, his eyes tracing over her hips that he was an obvious fan of. Stacey had been curvy when they met, a playground for a body in Sean's mind, but after bringing Deanie into the world, she couldn't shrink her hips down. It bothered her to no end, but Sean only encouraged her to leave them be. She turned around slowly to finally rinse her hair and she gasped at the sight of her husband watching her, not expecting anyone else to be home. She smiled with a hand over her chest as she realized it was only Sean. He peeled off his shirt and then stepped out of his pants and briefs to come in and join her, hands instantly going to her hips as if he needed them to help keep his balance.
Opening his eyes, Sean looked himself over in the mirror and shook the excess water out of his hair. He wondered if Stacey had changed much. He hadn't seen her since their divorce was final. It wasn't a shock to him since she told him that she wouldn't be able to come by as much anymore. He should have figured that she had moved.
He asked his mom a series of questions before leaving. She told him that he did, in fact, look alright and smell good. She told him that Deanie had grown up quickly, but happily, that the teenager had a knack for mischief like her father, but was a much better student than him especially in English. It wasn't until Sean asked what Stacey's new phone number was that Mrs. Cameron went silent. She compromised and called his ex-wife for him, thinking it would be better that way.
"She didn't pick up." Sighing, Mrs. Cameron put the phone down from her ear and sat back down at the kitchen table across from her son. Sean was practically shovelling scalloped potatoes into his mouth, but he stopped with a look of hopelessness. "She could be working. She's a manager now."
"I know." He said after swallowing, reaching for his glass of water to clear his throat. "Why is everyone reluctant to tell me her address? What do you think I'm going to do?" Sean asked.
"You aren't known for rational decisions, Sean." His mother reminded him sternly. "We're just all considering what's best for Deanie."
Frustrated, Sean hunched forward and gripped his gold locks tightly in one hand, thinking of how to handle the situation.
"Does she know I'm out?" He checked, sliding his blue eyes over to his mother before she took his plate and walked away.
"I don't know." Honestly, she replied over the crash of the plate and fork joining the other dishes in the wet sink. "I don't know what Stacey and…" Quickly, Mrs. Cameron stopped herself. "That's why I'd like to talk to Stacey myself first, make sure everything is okay, find the best time for you to go over there."
"Mom, come on." He helped himself out of the chair and went straight to the kitchen counter where his mother stood, much shorter than he, and put one hand on each of her arms before laying his gaze on her. "I haven't seen Deanie since she was six. I don't want to wait one more day, you got to understand…" Sean hoped that she did. There was a time where the two of them were estranged and he remembered coming home, while it was an adjustment, and ultimately been the best thing for them. He was just a few years older than Deanie was now and he needed both his parents.
"Oh, fine." Exasperated, she heaved a heavy sigh and gave him his daughter's new address.
Over and over in his father's pick-up, Sean practiced what he would say when he arrived at 19 Witten Gate. He cleared his throat and tried different 'hello's' and checked a couple alternations of smiles in the rear view mirror at red lights. His heart was threatening to beat right out of his chest, his nerves were on high, but Sean tried to keep hopeful. Maybe, she would rush out of the house and leap into his arms. Maybe, she would weep uncontrollable tears of joy. He didn't want to think about the alternative, the door slamming in his face, the look of disgust in her big brown eyes.
After an hour and a half of driving, he was close to their new home, somewhere just ten or so minutes away. He passed by the overwhelming Yorkdale shopping center and figured that was why they moved out here. It was close to Stacey's new work. Sean imagined that Deanie spent a lot of time there, as well, remembering how much girls enjoyed walking around the mall when he was Deanie's age and spending almost all of his time with Emma and her friend, Manny. He found his way easily to Witten Gate, following the instructions his mother drew for him on a napkin. He thought she might have had the wrong street though since every house was large and looked like it could fit two families each. He was anticipating a small bungalow, yellow in color since that was what Stacey always talked about when they were planning their life, and a small garden outside the front door for Deanie to toss a baseball around in. 19 Witten Gate could not have been further away from what Sean envisioned. The place was luxury in house form. The front yard seemed to run on and on with green of a luscious mantis, a tall stone gate built around it and leading up a stone driveway where a large red Escalade sat sparkling under the sunshine through the tree branches. The house was two stories with four huge bay windows in the front, hibiscus trees aligned with the path leading up to the brown door. He had only been to houses that large when he was a teenager crashing house parties. Sean studied the napkin after turning off the truck, making sure it really did say '19 Witten Gate' and that his eyes hadn't deceived him for nearly two hours.
Deciding that this was the right house and Stacey must have won the lottery or was in major debt, Sean hopped out of the truck and cleared his throat as he headed up to the front door of the house. He rehearsed mentally for the last time what he would say when he saw his two ladies again before striking the brown door with twice with his fist and then ringing the doorbell.
"I got it!" On the other side, he heard the sound of a girl and he knew right away that it was Deanie. The sound of her voice caused chills to grow through his arms. He fixed the sleeves of his one button up shirt pointlessly and took in a deep breath. When the door finally swing open, Sean looked down out of reflex, expecting a giggling little girl with her arms high up in the air. He scanned upwards, his eyes taking in two long straight legs, and found Deanie looking back at him peculiarity. She had been very obviously growing in the past eight years. She was almost at his height. He couldn't believe it. She was a straight needle, no twist or curve to her. Deanie was practically ninety percent legs, five percent long ponytail, and five percent everything else. Sean gasped as he studied her face, she still had his smile and his stare even with her mother's eyes.
"Can I help you?" Curiously, Deanie asked while leaning her side up against the door. Her free hand played with the bottom of her blue sundress. It would have been appropriate on anyone else, but due to being taller than most girls her age, it was far too short.
It hit Sean like a sucker punch to the gut, and he knew how those felt, Deanie didn't recognize him. A thousand words rushed from his head to his mouth, but they couldn't come out. What could he say to her? Maybe his Mom and Ellie were right, he should have waited. He should have called ahead. He had just been so anxious to see her. He stood still, his eyes lost, while Deanie waited. She wondered if, maybe, he was canvassing.
"Deanie, you're going to be late." Muffled, but strong, a man's voice came from upstairs. Sean heard quick footsteps and the sound of whistling. He felt protective suddenly and wanted to charge into the house as if it was his, push away any man who dared to try and replace him. As he felt his blood pressure rising, he spotted the last person he thought he would ever see again in his life. It had been years, decades, and Sean had practically forgot all about him, but there he was, his hand messing up his daughters ponytail with a giant smile across his face, Craig Manning.
Craig and Sean just stared, hypnotized by the surprising sight of one another. Deanie's eyes shifted back and forth between them, trying to decode what was happening around her.
"Dee," Cautiously, Craig began, moving his hand onto his stepdaughter's shoulder. "Go get ready for your lesson." He reminded her in monotone. Nodding, she took off up the stairs like a bat out of Hell, happy to be away from the awkward tension.
Craig didn't waste a second. As soon as he heard Deanie's bedroom, he stepped outside, backing Sean away as he shut the door behind him.
"Sean, what are you doing just showing up here?" He asked, knitting both his hands into his brown hair and gripping it in distress. "You have to call. That could have been so traumatic for her!" Craig's arms threw themselves open animatedly.
Sean thought that was a most ridiculous question. What was he doing showing up there? His family lived there! What was Craig Manning doing there?
"Traumatic? I'm her father." He felt as if that title was still rightfully his even if he hadn't been around to act in his role.
Craig stopped his own terror for a moment and his eyes set solely on Sean. He felt pity for him, but he also wondered if he could even hear himself.
"This is my house, Sean, and I'm not saying you aren't welcomed here but you have to call ahead. You can't just show up. Stacey and I haven't had a chance to talk to Deanie about you yet. She doesn't know you're out."
Sean felt the gold band he wore as a symbol of his marriage to Stacey on his finger. He was always proud of it and he had slipped it back on as soon as the prison returned it to him, he hadn't even left the walls of the institute before it was back on his hand. He studied Craig's left hand next, a ring circling his left finger tightly and shining in Sean's blue eyes tauntingly.
"How long have you and Stacey been married?" He asked, his Chet heaving like he was losing all his breath, as if he had just been physically fighting Craig.
"Two years." He sighed, dropping his head and rubbing at his temple. "Sean, you need to go. I will talk to Stacey when she's home tonight."
Sean opened up his mouth to speak, ready to point his finger right in Craig's face and tell him he was going to stay there until he damn well felt like leaving, but the front door opened and Deanie re-emerged, taking Sean's breath away.
"Hi." She peeped like a mouse and stepped out of the house. "I'm sorry to interrupt, I'm going to be late... Could I get a ride?" Swinging a black violin case in front of her with both hands, a bag full of sheet music loose on her bare shoulder, she asked Craig. Sean almost answered her with a 'yes' though. He couldn't believe she didn't recognize him. Didn't she have photos? Had she not seen their dozens of home videos?
"Uh, yeah...yeah!" Craig snapped out of his conversation with Sean and focused back on being a dad. "We're done here." He said directly to Sean and headed over to Deanie as she was locking the door.
"Bye." Skipping off the front steps, her ponytail swinging back and forth at metronome, she waved lightly at Sean like she would any neighbour. He lifted his fingers to try and wave back, fighting his urge to tell her to put on a longer dress and that he loved her so much.
Craig watched for Sean to get off his property and back into his truck with untrusting eyes. He climbed behind the wheel of his SUV and put on his sunglasses, only backing out when he saw Sean drive away.
"Who was that?" Deanie asked, watching the white pickup drive away out of her mirror.
"Just an old friend of your mom's." He said for now. He remembered a time, ages ago, when he and Sean were close friends but that felt like a different life. Craig was a record producer in Toronto now, his life resembled nothing like the one he was building when he was a high school student at Degrassi.
He didn't judge Sean for his stint in jail. Craig didn't think he was a horrible person. Hell, he had been to rehab when he was younger. Everyone made mistakes, but Craig made it his priority to protect his stepdaughter. He promised that to his wife in his proposal and he had come to love Deanie as his own quickly. He couldn't just let her father walk back into her life when she hadn't seen him since she was three feet small.
Sean drove to nearest gas station, filled up, and turned around to Witten Gate again, but this time he parked a few houses down from 19. While he waited, his mind reeled with the fact that his ex-wife had married Craig Manning. He pulled out his old cell phone after slamming his hands on the wheel a few times and dialled the new number Ellie had given him.
"Ellie Nash." Cheery, the voice on the other line chimed like a bluebird.
"Craig Manning, Ellie? Craig fucking Manning?!" The first time he said his name, Sean sounded astounded, but the second time his rage was evident. The air was hot as he exhaled through his nostrils over and over. "Well, Ellie?" He had forgotten just how indebted he was to the ginger haired girl. Sean was blinded by how angry he felt.
"I wanted to tell you." Wishing she had something better to say, she finally replied. "I didn't know how, you know? In what world, would you have taken that news well? You had enough going on."
"I had nothing going on, I was incarcerated!" He argued.
"Don't yell at me. I understand you're upset, but I am the wrong person to take your frustration out on, Sean." Ellie knew how to be stern with Sean. He had pulled all kinds of stunts that tested her patience when they were teenagers living together. If he thought he could revert back into his thoughtless ways with her, the golden haired boy had another thing coming. "I warned you not to go over there right away." Ellie held her ground, reminding him that she had tried to prevent the ordeal he now found himself in the middle of.
Sean slammed his open palm against the wheel again and, as the sun lowered behind the tall birch trees in the neighborhood, he saw headlights illuminate the large house he had stood a trespasser on before. It wasn't Craig's SUV though. It was a small black mini cooper. He started up his truck again, reversing slowly, while Ellie remained quiet on the other line still. Sean's blue eyes studied the back of the head he could see in the car and he knew without having to see another inch of her body that it was Stacey in the driver's seat.
"Sean?" Ellie checked, her voice a little frightened by his silence. There were few things more frightening than an angry man silent. "Sean, are you still there?"
"I have to go, Ellie. I'll call you later." He said without thinking. As soon as he hung up, Sean shoved the cell phone with great force into the pocket of his jeans and rushed out of the car. His mind was prepared, he thought, he was ready to lay into his ex and tell her just how livid he was. He was going to demand to know how she met Craig, why she married him, what Deanie knew about him, and that his daughter sure as Hell better not be calling Craig Manning 'dad'. As soon as his feet hit the Manning's driveway pavement, he froze. Stacey spun around with her wide doll eyes at the sound of movement and stopped him in his tracks. She looked like she was about to faint at the sight of Sean at her home, but to him, she was still the stunning beauty that he knew he was going to marry the moment he saw her across the room at Ellie's first photography showing years ago. Her body was still toned, but still the shape of an hourglass. She was donning a tight black pencil skirt that was hugging her hips that he loved so much with a crisp white blouse tucked into it. Stacey's purse, a designer bag from Craig that was a gift just because, dropped to the ground as her mouth fell open.
"Sean…" She breathed out.
"This is so you, Stacey!" From the end of the driveway, he shouted, his hands curling into fists before letting them go in frustration and grunting loudly. "You would look fucking beautiful when I come to yell at you."
"Yell at me?" Her head went back as she squinted at him in confusion. "How did you get my address?" She wandered over to him, her tall heels clicking against the cement. "What are you doing here?"
"You're my wife; I shouldn't have to ask around for your address."
"Ex-wife!" She corrected.
"And I'm here to see Deanie. Deanie Cameron, not Deanie fucking Manning!" Enraged, his eyes shot open and went red as he screamed right in her face.
"Don't come to my house after eight years, Sean, and start shouting at me because I moved on!" Stacey had never been scared of the wrath that Sean possessed. She could always match his volume; she could throw every insult back at him and keep him in his place. While he always went after strong women, he never quite found his match until he met Stacey. He knew after their first screaming match that he wanted Stacey to be his for life.
He could feel her hot breath pushing down on him as she stood as close as she could to his body without actually being close enough to touch and as Sean's heart was racing, he cracked a smile and shook his head as he started laugh. Eight years locked away, but he and Stacey were unchanged.
"You need to leave, Sean." Stacey was not amused. "Don't you think there's a reason I didn't pick you up this morning?" Lifting a brow, she asked him rhetorically. "I'll call you sometime this week…maybe. I can't…I can't do this right now." She threw her arms up, her large iceberg of a diamond ring shining in what was left of the sun, and shrugged before turning to leave, but Sean took a wide step forward and pulled her back by the left arm.
As if on cue, Craig's vehicle sped up behind them, screeching on the road. Usually, he would pull into the driveway, but he saw the scene on his driveway playing out and couldn't wait. He jumped out of the car, keys in hand, and rushed over to shove Sean away from his wife.
"Don't grab her!" He warned and Sean's hand instantly retracted. "Are you alright?" Sucking in his stomach, Craig looked down at his wife and checked, putting a flat palm down on her stomach and kissing the side of her head as she nodded and whispered 'yes'. "I thought I told you to leave. I said we'd talk and call you." He had been benevolent with Sean before, but now Craig was pissed.
"I can't wait. I want to see my daughter." Sean put his desire to punch Craig out cold and went straight to the point.
"Deanie!" Stacey took her fingers from her long brown locks and snapped her fingers. "Where's Deanie?"
"She went to Josie Del Rossi's." Craig mentioned casually, Sean's head almost spinning at the idea that another person he went to high school with was around. "Look…" He didn't want to say it, but their surrounding neighbors were coming out of their homes and watching the three adults argue. The last thing Craig wanted was to be the headline of the neighborhood gossip column. "come inside, we can talk." Stacey looked at him like he was growing a second head, but he ignored it.
"Okay." Sean didn't consider it for a moment. He wanted a further look into his wife's new life without him, her life with the kid he knew to be a bipolar headcase in high school.
"I got to get groceries from the car." Craig walked away, getting back into his SUV to park it properly while Stacey kept a steady pace ahead of her ex, walking to the door and then letting him in.