Chapter Twenty-Five: Sixteen Years, Eight Months
"So how does Zoe feel about all this?"
Tony had gotten two postcards from her already, but they had been all about her and what she had been doing and he had gotten the distinct impression that she was deliberately not saying anything about him and Michelle.
Michelle shrugged. She was a lot calmer than she had been last month, and smiling, smiling because of him! He was still trying to get his head around it all, and was really finding it hard not to smile all the time.
"Actually I think the thing that upset her most was that I didn't fly out to Paris with her." Michelle said. "She's a teenager, she's a romantic at heart… she always saw Oliver as more of a temporary fix than anything else; wanted you and I to get back together in the end. She's ecstatic. She actually squealed over the phone."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, she never liked Oliver that much anyway. They argued a lot. She just put up with him for… for my sake."
"She never told me that. She always said everything was fine."
"That doesn't surprise me. Zoe has this tendency to… not tell you little things that she thinks might upset you. She'll tell you the big ones, the ones you would be mad at her for not telling… but things like, if she's being picked on at school, or she's got a bruise the size of Africa down her leg from falling wrong at karate… those are things you really have to push for her to tell you."
"Yeah, I've noticed that she always seems to be very… very conscious of other people's feelings. You've done a good job raising her."
She smiled again. "Thanks. But you've had quite an influence on her yourself."
Tony returned the smile, shaking his head. "Yeah, right."
"No, really! She's always asking to hear stories about you… that got on Oliver's nerves after a while, so she stopped asking me very often, but your parents are always happy to oblige. You're Zoe's hero."
"You're serious?"
"Yes!" Michelle laughed and nodded. "A few years back she even wrote to the President asking him to release you. She was very disappointed when she didn't get a reply."
"Aw…" Tony sighed. "I miss her."
She nodded. "I know. Me too."
"Yeah, how are you coping, being all by yourself?"
"I'm not all by myself! I have you."
Tony looked at her skeptically. "Not really."
"Well, fine, but still… I dunno. It's not that bad, and it's like… like I'm finally one hundred percent sure that I'm doing the right thing, for the first time in years."
"One hundred percent?" Tony smiled.
Michelle smiled back. "One hundred and ten."