Chapter 26
Michonne veered towards her exit as she left the highway for her suburban neighborhood. Her appearance schedule had been light for once which meant that should would be able to pick up the girls sooner than expected from their afterschool play date. Maybe they'd do something special like take a walk in the park and get some hot chocolate so the girls could run themselves ragged for a while. She thought it too bad that Daryl had to work late and couldn't join them.
The phone rang in its dock at her console, and she glanced over to check the caller ID. She frowned and then sighed when she saw who it was.
"Hey," she answered after flicking the button on her steering wheel.
"Michonne," Andrea replied. "I'm glad I caught you. "Quick question for you: do you know any consultants that can analyze financial records? The guy I was going to use had an emergency and can't do it now."
Rolling her eyes, Michonne changed lanes and followed her usual route to the lucky parent hosting a gaggle of kids for the afternoon. "That's not exactly the kind of professional I have to deal with in my line of work. Why don't you ask one of your law firm buddies?"
"Ugh, I would but I don't really want to have to get into why I'm asking if you know what I mean." Michonne did know what she meant and it irked her that it didn't seem to bother her friend to impose upon Michonne after they'd had a long discussion about boundaries pretty recently.
"Well, I don't know anyone like that. Try calling someone from the bar association network. I'm sure there's some alumni you know that might point you in the right direction."
Hearing some shuffling over the line, Andrea didn't speak for a moment. "Right. Bar association. That's a good suggestion." Another pause, this one a bit more intentional. "Would you mind putting some feelers out…"
"Andrea," Michonne said sternly.
"I know we talked about this and it's no big deal. It's just—" Michonne waited as Andrea stumbled around for an explanation that didn't sound ridiculous. "Mich, I realize you want to stay out of it but I finally got Philip's second-in-command on my side. This is huge and it's only a matter of time before we take him down. What I'm asking, it's only sending a couple of emails that don't have to even mention what I'm doing. I'd just need some names or introductions, whatever works."
Sighing again, Michonne turned the corner and let the car idle at the red light of a busy intersection. Her mind reeled with how much this situation sucked. Her urge to help Andrea resonated so strong, yet the stakes for her, her family, and her relationship remained.
"Andrea, you know I support you in this. But I made my decision. I need to stay out of this from now on. That means no help, whatsoever. You want to complain and vent to me about what's going on, that's fine, although I'm pretty sure Daryl would prefer you didn't. Having anything to do with setting things up or pushing things along is more than I'm willing to do. I've got to think of the girls."
Another pause. Michonne realized by Andrea's eagerness and deflated unwillingness to argue with her that the woman had already guessed she'd be pushing her luck to ask. That kind of thing annoyed Daryl, but being a litigator, she understood the instinct to push as hard as you can to see what you could get, even in personal relationships.
"Fine," Andrea said finally, clearly disappointed. "Thanks for the lead though. I'll squeeze that into the other thousands of things I'm trying to juggle with this shitty investigation."
Michonne smiled. "Guilt won't work. I'm still not gonna do it."
"So cold." Andrea laughed. "No really, it's fine. I understand, Mich. I don't want you to think I don't respect your position, even if I always want you by my side for the hard stuff."
"Hey, I'm still on your side. Always. Only this time, I've gotta watch your back from a distance."
"Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Daryl, did you guys decide whether you're driving down to see your sister for the holiday."
For once, Michonne preferred the conversation turn to her complicated family situation. "We confirmed everything last week; all that's left is to be courteous about it and tell my family I'm bringing a plus one. I can tell Daryl is really looking forward to it, both to take the girls to Disney World and to not feel like he's the only one with a crazy family."
"I imagine he's curious too about your folks and your siblings. We all are, actually. I think James is the only one who's actually been in the same room as any of them for more than five minutes."
Thinking on that, Michonne figured her assessment probably held true. "Trust me, five minutes is already four minutes too long." Michonne pulled up to a house, hearing the sounds of happy activity coming from the backyard area when she turned off the car's engine. "Hey, I'm about to grab the girls so I'll check on you later. Call the bar association. Try the business section. There's always someone around who's been involved in some big SEC investigation or litigation over a transaction gone bad."
Again, Andrea's shuffling took over the line. "Will do. Kiss the girls for me. But not Daryl. I'm still mad at him."
"I'm sure he's broken up about it. Don't be sore. It's my decision not his, even if he was over the moon about it."
"I bet. Talk to you soon, Love."
"Bye, Andrea."
That didn't go as badly as she feared. Andrea had backed off when she asked, which seemed like progress. She felt lighter for having such a positive outcome from the interaction since, despite what she'd told Andrea or what she tells Daryl, she still feels badly about abandoning her friend while she's got her hands full of a volatile situation.
Twenty minutes later, she's ushering the girls into the house, mail in hand and still negotiating the terms of their trip to the park. In exchange for a smooth dinner and no whining before bedtime, they'd go play in the park and then have ice cream sundaes for dessert.
"Alright, ladies, go upstairs and change out of your school clothes. Chop, chop." Two sets of feet pounded on the stairs as they complied.
Michonne placed her bag on a chair in the living room and leafed through the mail. A large envelope caught her attention: no postage markings or return address. In fact, it only had her name on it as if someone had simply walked by and placed it in her mailbox. Maybe it's something from one of the neighbors. That sometimes happened when they sent invitations for parties or events.
Opening up the sealed package, she felt a stack of smooth sheets spill out. Sliding everything out onto the dining room table, she flipped through the items and felt her blood run cold.
They were pictures. Photo after photo of the girls: pictures of them playing during recess or walking with their friends and chaperone to the afterschool sitter; pictures of them getting in and out of her car to and from events and even a few pictures of them in her own backyard, taken from a distance. There were no other subjects, just the two of them. On the back of the last picture, a sentence in block letters jumped off the surface despite it's small print: "Keep our dear ones close so they don't slip away." It sounded benign but everything about the setup presented as a threat.
A common impulse is to try to rationalize away the sinister nature of receiving something like this. But Michonne had seen a lot of craziness and had no time for foolish denials. She pulled out her phone. Daryl picked up on the second ring.
"Hey." He didn't sound his usual casual self reserved for when he'd answer her calls. She wondered if something had gone down at work. "Thought y'all would be at the park right now." His tight inflection and the almost cold way he greeted her instantly increased her anxiety. Or maybe she was projecting her burgeoning unease onto him.
"Yeah, we are but I need to tell you something." She gave a quick overview of what she discovered. She didn't even have to voice her suspicions because Daryl went there on his own."
"Shit."
"Yeah," she responded.
He stayed silent for a few moments. "You gon' call the cops?"
"And tell them what? That someone put perfectly innocent looking pictures of my kids in my mailbox? Yeah, that'll go over well." Daryl didn't argue with her about it.
"I think you need to keep the girls close and lay low until you take 'em to James tomorrow night." Michonne could get behind that. "And damn, Michonne, no more bullshit. You need to cut Andrea off. This shit just went too far."
Michonne bristled at that. "I already stopped helping Andrea and it doesn't seem to have made a difference." The more she thought about it, the more angry she became. Who was Philip Blake to threaten her family? He was the one running around town wreaking having while everyone else tried to simply live their lives. Maybe Andrea had the right idea that taking him to task remained the only way to deal with a psychopath like that.
Judging by the tightness in his voice, Daryl seemed to be working up a nice temper as well. "Apparently, you didn't get far enough from her. This aint a game."
"Does it sound like I'm playing around, Daryl?" Now her irritation had a moving target in the form of her boyfriend. "In fact, Blake is going to find out just how serious I am after this stunt."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" His anger translated loud and clear over the phone. "Don't do nothin' stupid, woman. Sit your ass down and stay out of it."
As much as she cared for Daryl, he appeared intent on saying all the wrong things to her on this. She'd called him for support and backup, not to be chastised like a child.
She took a deep breath before responding. "I'm going to go take the girls to the park and think about this. I'll conveniently forget that you just talked to me like you did, alright." The girls chose that moment to come barreling down the stairs, asking a ton of questions about their adventure, especially why she hadn't changed into her play clothes like they had.
"I gotta go, Daryl. We'll talk later."
She felt him stewing on the other end, no doubt stressed and completely frustrated in her unwillingness to roll over and do what he suggested about the situation. "Just don't do nothin' crazy. I'll be over in a bit."
"I'm just going to the park, Daryl, not to stage a one woman assault on the man" she replied, annoyed.
"Hey, save that smart mouth for somebody else. I'm just tryin' a help." Putting aside her stress at the situation, she registered how strained he sounded, probably upset that he couldn't do much to address the situation from work—and because there really wasn't anything he could do about it anyway. She didn't like leaving a conversation angry.
"I know. We'll leave a spot for you at dinner. See you soon." He mumbled a reciprocal closing and hung up.
With the girls gathering a few items to bring with them and complaining about how long things were taking, Michonne changed quickly and got the three of them out of the house, triple checking the alarm settings before she left. She tried keeping up with their chatter as well. She'd put the envelope away and didn't want them to suspect that anything was amiss in their innocent world.
A couple of hours later, she returned to find Daryl's truck in the driveway and the lights on in the house.
The girls squealed and ran to Daryl when they spotted him coming from the kitchen area. They didn't see him as consistently during the week, so it always felt special when he joined them for dinner or for a weekend.
"How's my girls?" Daryl asked, cheerily enough for them but with a strained edge that Michonne had no problem detecting. They gave him a variety of answers and his follow-up questions seemed to delight them further.
"Alright, go get washed up, please. I want you both to work on your homework while I make dinner." The girls complied, still on their best behavior to ensure their ice cream treat later on.
Standing alone now with Daryl, she saw the tension in his stance and the stress around his eyes.
"I went all through the house and outside to check for anything that don't look right. It all seems fine."
"Thanks." She started pulling items out of the fridge, hoping to throw something quick and easy together for their meal. She was too emotionally exhausted to over-think anything tonight, including the situation with Andrea and the Governor.
Daryl came up behind her and held her, face buried into her neck. She held onto his hands gripping her tightly around the waist. They stayed that way for a long time, swaying into each other; Daryl's embrace surrounded her fully and he breathed her in with a tinge of desperation. The tension passed back and forth between the two of them until finally he let her go so she could continue with her task.
"I've been thinking," Daryl said, tentative. Michonne had a feeling she wouldn't like whatever words followed. "Maybe we need to deal with Blake and this situation face to face, explain to him that we don't have nothin' to do with what Andrea's stirred up."
Michonne frowned as she sliced up an onion, wiping at her eyes. "That's not going to happen. Even if I gave a damn about what he thinks, I'm not going to put Andrea in danger over this."
"Even though she's just fine puttin' you in danger? And the girls too?" Daryl walked over to the counter and leaned on it, arms crossed. "No, that's what we need to do to get him off our back."
She carefully placed her knife down on the cutting board. "We're not dealing with a reasonable person here who you can negotiate with point by point. Daryl, that man is a bully and I have no intention of giving into him. You give in and then they think they can take twice as much from you. I will not let that man think he has any power over me whatsoever. It's out of the question."
Beside her, he pushed off the counter and she heard him pacing around the kitchen. "This aint about ego, Michonne. Those damn pictures mean he's prepared to hit you where it hurts. You okay gamblin' with the girls? 'Cause that's what's insane."
"I'm not gambling with anything. I backed off and look where it got me." She picked the knife back up and continued to slice, precise but aggressive. "No, I should have gone with my instincts before and taken his head off, quick and clean. It shouldn't even have gone this far. I mean to correct that and he'll be sorry he threatened me." Her anger burned stronger with each thought.
Daryl paused. "What the hell are you talkin' 'bout? You sayin' you gon' go after him now? After everything we talked about on it? He went back to leaning on the counter with arms crossed again. "Well, that's fuckin' perfect."
The silence stretched between them. They could hear the girls every now and then walking around upstairs. The consistent click of Michonne's knife as she continued to prepare dinner broke into their icy impasse.
Michonne used the time to calm herself down. The last thing she needed was Daryl giving her shit about how to handle the situation. They'd tried it his way and yet here they were. She'd moved on to the potatoes laying in the sink and violently peeled them as she vented her frustration. After rinsing them off, she took her knife to that too, dicing them into perfect cubes in efficient fashion.
Through all of this, Daryl stood off to the side stewing. "I'm not gonna back down if that's what you're thinkin'."
She pursed her lips and bit back the sharp retort on the tip of her tongue. "I won't be bullied by you either, Daryl."
"Is that what this is now? I tell you what's on my mind and have a damn opinion and now I'm a bully? Or is it that I forgot my place again in your house with your kids."
Michonne turned her icy glare on him. "Don't you dare throw that at me, playing the victim like I haven't been more than generous in taking your feelings into account during all this." When Daryl's eyes flicked down to the knife she'd pointed at him as she spoke, Michonne scoffed and went back to her cutting.
"What am I supposed to think? Aint nothin' put a stop to him so we gotta do it direct. Rick warned me that you'd be hard-headed about it but I didn't think you'd act like a damn fool."
"Oh so you and Rick had a little chat about my business?" This situation just got better and better.
"Your business? What the hell we been doin' together for the last six months, hell, the last year? And when some asshole threatens my people, you better believe I'm gonna call about backup."
"So he knows about the pictures?" Michonne asked shortly.
"Yeah, he knows. I called 'em and told 'em. We both think you need to meet up with Blake and put this shit down right now."
"So that's what you two decided, huh?" The steel in her expression and in her body language made Daryl move a few steps away from the energy of her wrath. "I should just stroll on over to Woodbury and talk about the weather and the Braves over a cup of tea and then work out the details of my surrender?" Michonne put down her knife and turned to Daryl, hand on her hip. "Do you know me at all?"
The expression on Daryl's face surprised her. It wasn't angry or challenging, instead he exuded a deep sadness. "I'm tryin' to keep you safe. All 'a you."
His broken tone affected her, not enough to back down but enough to allow some of her irritation to recede. "You don't keep me safe, Daryl. We do that for each other. Like partners. That's the foundation of everything we've been working towards together." Wandering over to the stove, she grabbed her largest pot and flicked on the gas. He watched her as she began preparing the onions and other ingredients for her soup.
"So you aint even gonna consider it?"
"The only way I'm going over to meet with him is if I'm armed with something to hurt him." Daryl opened his mouth to protest. "Figuratively, as in legally hurt him. I'm not going to walk into his office with a knife and sit in wait for him, although that bastard deserves to be gutted." She went into the pantry for her stock and after a few minutes of stirring and seasoning, she covered the pot so it could simmer and cook.
Now she could devote her full attention to the man who felt like a stranger to her, not the man she'd spent so many months connecting with and thinking she could build a life with. It didn't make sense to her, this insistence that she back down and abandon Andrea like that. That wasn't Daryl's style at all. His loyalty and bravery were two things that she loved about him, but this Philip Blake situation had him compromising both. And she did want to believe that Daryl's position came out of what she and the girls meant to him. Yet it wasn't enough to convince her that his suggestion would work better than giving Blake the takedown he had coming to him. And the decision about their next move ultimately fell on her.
"There are ways to hurt him, ways that Andrea's been looking into and that will work." She faced him as she tried explaining herself. "It's more than just what he's doing to us," she pleaded. "He's hurt other people; and he'll keep on hurting other people if we don't try to put a stop to it, or at least be willing to help Andrea and the people in his own organization she's talked to who know what needs to be done. And I won't stand by and watch him continue to threaten me over his paranoid delusions that I'm plotting against him. That's the kind of enemy that'll never leave your doorstep."
Daryl glared at her. "For somebody who says they gave up helpin' out with Andrea's affairs, you sure do know a lot about what's goin' down." His accusatory expression was not kind. "You talk big about what you won't stand for. Well, I can't stand by and watch you walk into a pit full of snakes just 'cause they rattled when you passed by. Maybe it don't mean much to you, but I got things to lose here too. Things that mean the world to me."
His admission pulled at her heart but didn't sway it. "Then act like we're worth standing up for. Act like protecting us doesn't mean cowering and compromising and then spending every day looking over our shoulder."
He shook his head at that. He looked as if he wanted to argue the point and then thought better of it. Instead he walked over to the kitchen table and grabbed his jacket, checking his pocket for his keys.
"Where are you going?" Despite her frustration with him, she panicked at his sudden retreat.
"Away from here," Daryl said. His voice was tight and tense. For the first time in a long while, she couldn't identify what was going on with him, certainly not with his back to her as he headed for the door.
"So that's how it's going to be? You just walk out?"
Stopping abruptly, he turned on her. "What's the damn point of stayin'? You done made it clear what's gonna happen and don't give a shit what I think about it. If you gon' act like I don't matter, then you can do it on your own."
"That's not fair—"
"Aint nothin' fair 'bout none of this." He opened the door and stormed out, not offering another word.
Upstairs, she heard one of the girls giggle and then the sound of more shuffling. But neither appeared, still doing their homework apparently. Michonne stood by the door, not believing what had just happened; after about five long minutes, she heard Daryl's truck start up and drive off. She wandered back to the kitchen in a daze.
The girls eventually came down demanding dinner and she got through it somehow, carefully diverting their attention from Daryl's absence with a reminder that ice cream was coming. She got them to bed and cleaned up, all in a fog.
An hour later, she placed the last dish in the drying rack and wiped her hands on the damp dish towel as she fell into the chair at the kitchen table. None of the day seemed real—her phone call with Andrea, the pictures, the fight with Daryl. The things he said about her continued to sting. And it hurt. It hurt so badly that she couldn't breathe now that she had space to sit and process.
None of the pain convinced her that she'd been in the wrong, though, even if she truly understood Daryl's fears and concerns. Philip Blake needed to be stopped. This threat was the last straw for her.
An even bigger issue between her and Daryl is that they needed to be partners. He didn't get to team up with Rick to tell her how to handle things. He didn't get to boss her around or call her crazy for wanting to take out the vile force threatening her family. Even love didn't allow those things to go unchallenged.
The final toll, though, still ended with him walking out on her.
Michonne replayed their conversation over and over, glared at the envelope full of violations that sat across the table from her. She thought of her babies upstairs and what it would do to her if anything happened to them. She worried about the trouble it would stir up if her ex found out. She cursed Daryl and Rick and then Andrea. She cursed Philip Blake.
And when she'd finished, for the first time in years, she cried.
TBC...