"Hello, Mary." Michael said, as he laid his hand on the back of the chair. He was looking down at the brunette woman, in her white dress, as she sat at the small table on the lawn, along with a mid-fifties looking man, wearing an impeccable brown suit.
Mary looked up and over her shoulder at the sound of her name. It took her only half a second, but she recognized the face she used to spend so much time with. He'd aged, of course. It had been eleven years. His eyes were still that steely grey, and he had a touch of a different grey on his temples. His hairline had moved back a little. He cut a nice figure in his black suit.
"Hello Michael." Mary said, her voice almost devoid of emotion. She started to push her white folding chair back from the table, so she could stand, but Michael put his hand gently on her shoulder, letting her know there was no need. Mary looked back to him, and could tell Michael had anticipated her standing and giving him a hug. He wasn't interested.
They stayed like that, looking each other in the eyes for about five seconds. Mary then turned and looked across the reception, trying to locate her daughter, in her amazing white dress. She wasn't in sight.
"I don't believe we've met." Michael said, stepping around Mary, and extending his hand to Mary's companion to shake. "I'm Mike Nesmith, father of the bride."
The man stood, and took the proffered hand, and gave it three firm pumps.
"I know, I saw you give away the bride. You throw a hell of a wedding!" the man said. "I'm Kurt Hesselbeck. I see you know my wife?"
"Yes, I know your wife." Michael said, glancing back at Mary. His tone was flat.
"Thank you for inviting us,..." said Kurt. "The buffet is excellent, the ceremony was beautiful. I'd like to get the name and number of your planner, for when our daughter gets married." Kurt said, smiling.
"You have a daughter?" Michael asked, his eyes shifting back to Kurt. "Where is she?"
"She couldn't come, the invite was for Mary and plus one." Kurt explained. "Besides, while she's really well behaved, little Mary would have been very bored here. I know we'd have had to take her phone from her!" Kurt was smiling while telling Michael of his pride and joy.
"How old is she?" Michael asked, curious.
"She'll be eleven, in two months." Kurt said. "I'm going to have to come up with something amazing for her birthday. We gave her a helluva party for ten!"
"Another girl, huh Mary?" Michael asked, not looking at the woman he was asking.
"Another?" Kurt asked, not understanding.
"What do you do, Kurt?" Michael asked, as he moved to the other side of the table, and pulled out a chair. At that signal, both men sat down, and Mary's heart became like lead in her chest.
"I'm purchase manager for the Q-Mec corporation. I keep the rare-earth metals coming for phone production." Kurt explained, happy to talk business. "I've been in the position for about six years? Yes, six years. It takes me overseas a fair amount, but the pay and benefits are great."
"That's amazing Kurt." Michael said. "You got a card?" Michael was digging into the breast pocket of his suit, and then pulled out his wallet.
Kurt withdrew his own wallet from his hip pocket, pulled out a business card, and held it out to Michael, across the table. Michael exchanged it with his own business card.
"East Alliance Shipping, huh?" Kurt said, after scanning Michaels card. "I've used you guys. You do great dockside pickup of hazardous materials, and ship fast. What do you do there?"
"I'm head of comptrol." Michael said.
"Whew, you're that guy? How big is your fleet?" Kurt asked.
"Over three thousand trucks now." Michael said. "We just added another two-hundred of the security armored haulers. I'm working on disbursement now."
"I can't imagine the daily logistics of your job. I just deal with extraction and shipping from overseas. That's mostly block-tonnage." Kurt said. "You must plan things like the allies did the D-Day invasion."
"Yeah, we have our moments." Michael admitted. "We just got our security clearance upgraded, we're going to be getting some interesting government contracts soon, I hope."
"Government contracts?" Kurt asked. "Nice. Lots of money to be made there!"
Michael nodded in agreement.
"Do you have any of the pie?" Kurt asked.
"I get four percent." Michael said.
"Four percent? Of what?"
"Of East Alliance Shipping." Michael said. "When I took over logistics and planning, I got a big bump and a half a percent of everything every year, capping in two years. Same deal as the board officers get."
Kurt whistled in appreciation.
"No wonder you could do this..." Kurt said, gesturing around him at the four hundred people wedding reception, held on an island in the middle of a lake. "... Pretty impressive!"
Michael nodded politely in acknowledgement.
"I think I just footed the bill." Michael admitted, while looking around at the event from where he sat. "Kim and her husbands mother did most of the planning. My job was to throw money until it happened. I admit, I kind of balked at the releasing of the butterflys, that was fifteen grand just for that."
"I'd never seen anything like that." Kurt said. "Everyone at the wedding got one of those Chinese food containers, with a live butterfly in it. Rather than throw rice, there was this beautiful rising shower of color and life. It was beautiful."
"It was." Michael agreed. "I just didn't know how expensive it would all be. Apparently, there's a profession called "butterfly wrangler," and this is all they do. Having them for a week, having them hatch and take care of butterflys is apparently a labor-intensive job."
"It was amazing." Kurt said. "How many were released?"
"I don't know exactly,..." Michael confessed. "The wrangler set up for five hundred guests. I think Kim invited her entire graduating class. I spoiled her a bit, her life has had some..." Michael glanced at Mary. "... amazing difficulties dropped into it."
"Oh? What did she get a degree in?" Kurt asked.
"She's working on being a pediatric surgeon." Michael told the man. "She's got a ways to go, but she's determined. If I'm lucky, her sister, little Mary, will shoot high too."
"You have a daughter named Mary too?" Kurt gushed. "Wow, what are the odds? Here's Mary, my wife, and we have a daughter named Mary, after her!"
"Yes, my little Mary was named after her mother too." Michael had a strange tone in his voice, Kurt thought. "She's seventeen now. She's going to graduate top of her High School class."
"That's amazing!" Kurt beamed a smile at Michael. "You must be so proud! Has she picked a school?"
"I ~am~ proud." Michael said with a slight smile, the first one he'd let show since he approached the table. "Mary went through a really bad period, eleven years ago. She came close to ruining her life a couple of times, until about age twelve. She was pretty depressed."
"Is she okay?" Kurt asked. Mary was looking at Michael, an unreadable expression on her face. Her breath quietly hitched in her chest.
"I think she's okay now." Michael said with a nod. "She got a lot of counseling. It took a while, and we had one very, very bad incident, but she managed to put some things behind her finally. When she did that, she blossomed. She's still blossoming."
Michael sat back and took a deep breath. He looked around at everything, except Mary.
"Mary has a good selection of colleges making her offers, we have a few months yet to pick. She wants to do something in engineering." Michael said.
"A woman engineer?" Kurt marveled. "It used to be, you'd never see women in the physical sciences! Do you think she'll have a hard time, because of the gender bias?"
"If she does, she'll smash anything that gets in her way." Michael said, proudly. "She still has some rage in her, but she aims it well now. Anything she can't handle, I'll be there."
"That's excellent!" Kurt smiled broadly. He was very much admiring and liking Michael. "It sounds like you have a wonderful family!"
"I almost didn't..." Michael confessed. "... but you know, I really do."
"We talked about having another child,..." Kurt said, smiling at Mary, who sat there silently, her eyes focused on the small plate of half-eaten food in front of her. "... but our little Mary was a difficult birth, and my wife got a little hurt."
Michael gave a polite smile.
"Daddy, here you are!" said a young womans voice. From out of a small crowd, came Michaels daughter, the bride, in her flowing wedding dress. "I've been looking for you. Why aren't you at the head table?"
Michael turned in his seat to look at his oldest daughter. He'd been hoping to get this matter settled before Kim and Mary saw things.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Hello, I'm..." Kims voice trailed off as she saw who her father was talking to, seated at the table. It only took her a couple of seconds to recognize the face.
Mary looked at the bride, a mix of emotions running across her face. She started to take sharp, shallow breaths, and moisture began to gather at the bottom of her eyes.
Michael stood quickly, and placed himself between Kim and Mary, blocking Kims view. Kim shifted where she stood, looking at the older woman as best she could around her father.
"Kim, no." Michael half-whispered to his daughter. "No. Not now. Not here."
Kim locked her eyes on Michaels, her steel grey eyes looking into his, trying to understand what was boiling up inside her.
