Free The Family You Choose by Deborah Nam-Krane

She found a date tonight, thank God, because I
don’t know how he was going to tap dance around this."
    "Oh please tell me that means that you’re
going to Michael’s house tonight?"
    "Wouldn’t miss it, even if Richard hadn’t
practically begged me."
    "Wait, he wants you to come to dinner with
us?"
    "Wants is too strong a word. I thinks needs
is a better one."
    Miranda nodded to herself. She wished she had
some sane moral support herself, and right now Alex didn’t count.
"Just so you know I’ll be happy to break his fingers if he tries to
touch you."
    "Don’t worry. He’s not going to surprise
me."
    ~~~
    Miranda and Zainab were on the bottom stairs
of Michael’s house. Richard and Alex were about ten feet away from
them, speaking very softly.
    "Richard, I swear, I didn’t know until
yesterday."
    "And you couldn’t call?"
    "I honestly didn’t think it was going to be
an issue so quickly."
    "It never ceases to amaze me how much you
underestimate him."
    "The same might be said for you."
    "I would have called."
    Zainab and Miranda walked up to them. "Sorry
to break this up," Zainab said, putting her arm through Richard’s.
"But do you think we should go in now?"
    Richard looked up at the house and sighed.
"No time like the present."
    Michael opened the door and smiled. Miranda
thought it was strange that he actually seemed happy to see them,
but that couldn’t be the case. No , she thought as she took
off her coat, now we just wait for the other shoe to
drop.
    "Wow, Michael," Zainab said as she looked
around. "You put all of this together in two days? It looks like a
real home."
    "Because that’s what it’s always been,"
Michael said, but not to Zainab. "My real home."
    "So," Richard said slowly, "where did you
order in from?"
    "Order in?" Michael said with a smile. "I do
know how to cook, you know."
    Miranda shook her head. "No, I actually had
no idea you knew how to cook."
    "Life is just full of surprises, isn’t it?"
Michael smiled at her, and there was that odd look again.
    Alex glared at Michael. "Miranda, I think you
should give Zainab a tour of the house now, don’t you?"
    "But it isn’t..." She stopped. It didn’t
matter that it wasn’t her house. "Sure, Z, let’s see what we can
find. Although I’m sorry to say, my tour probably won’t be as much
fun as Richard’s." Zainab knocked Miranda on the shoulder as they
left the great room.
    They found a small bedroom. Miranda looked
around. Every other room in the house had been updated and dusted,
but this room was almost exactly as it must have been some sixteen
or seventeen years ago. This must have been Michael’s room. His
childhood bed was neatly made with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
bedspread, and there were quite a few baseball bats, mitts and
balls piled in his closet. Despite herself, Miranda smiled to think
of him as a little boy who liked to play catch, since she’d never
seen him show any interest at Alex’s house.
    "Are these Michael’s parents?" Zainab asked,
pointing to some photographs hanging on the wall. They weren’t
posed family photos, but pictures of a smiling little boy with his
parents. Michael was dark-haired then as now, but here he was
skinny, wiry and smiling, as if someone had just told him a joke.
His familiar, handsome, red-haired father with sparkling blue eyes
was smiling too and mussing his son’s hair. His dark-haired mother
was smiling as well, but her smile looked more drawn and for the
camera than for her husband and son.
    There were others, such as one of Michael and
his father in the Public Gardens and another of him with his
mother, perhaps when he was four years old, walking to school. His
mother looked happier there, smiling at her son. Miranda looked at
her in both pictures. What had happened in the ensuing years?
What was she like right before she died? And then she had a
sadder thought, what might Michael have been if she hadn’t
died? That thought had quietly haunted Miranda for years, but
for