The days are short at the end of November, so it was well after total darkness when Royce Palmer heard the doorbell ring.

Having someone at the door was not a common occurrence at the unpretentious suburban house. On the rare occasions it happened, it usually meant something that would be unpleasant at best, and there was no reason to imagine that this would be anything different.

It might be that the kids up the street were selling something for a school or club project, the average-height, dark-haired, clean-shaven man thought as he got up from his comfortable chair. They often did and he usually bought some of whatever they were selling, but not because he was interested in frozen pizzas or candy bars. The pizzas were never better than fourth-rate, even for frozen pizza; the candy bars were even worse but he liked to encourage kids who had the initiative to go out and try selling something at all.

He flipped on the porch light and glanced through the peephole to see his daughter Petra standing outside, looking cold and too lightly dressed for the chilly evening. While even the sight of her was welcome it seemed likely that this was indeed going to be unpleasant; it had been years since a meeting with her had been anything different. With a muffled sigh he opened the door and faced his fate, whatever it was. “Petra,” he said warmly – there was no point in sounding as grumpy as the sight of her made him feel – “Fancy meeting you here. What brings you to this part of town?”

“I need to see you for a minute, Dad,” the petite, slender, long-haired brunette replied uncertainly.

“Do you want to come in out of the cold?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” Her nervousness was evident as she went on, “I don’t have a lot of time, but I was nearby and I thought I’d better see you. I’m just home for Thanksgiving, and I’ve got a lot to do before I go back to college.”

Royce could tell that she had something on her mind, and that whatever it was it would be something he probably wouldn’t want to hear. Just to divert the inevitable for a moment he asked, “So how was your Thanksgiving?”

“Pretty good,” she replied, apparently glad of the diversion. “We had turkey and all the trimmings. It was just the three of us, but we had a good time. How about you?”

“About like always. I had turkey, too.” He let it go at that, not wanting to tell her that his Thanksgiving dinner had come out of a plastic tray and represented just about what he felt he was thankful for. He thought he might as well get this over with before he got even bitterer than he already was. “So what’s on your mind?”

She took a deep breath before saying, “Dad, I just wanted to stop by and tell you I’m getting married.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” he replied, thinking that this wouldn’t be as unpleasant as he thought it would be. “Anybody I know?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. His name is Barry Keller. I met him at college and he’s not from around here. The wedding isn’t until next June, after we’ve graduated. It’s going to be at St. Mark’s on June second, and Mom, well, she wants me to have a big wedding.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” he replied, trying to keep the cynicism out of his voice. “She was always a little sorry that she and I didn’t have a huge wedding with all the trimmings.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she sighed. “It ought to be fun, though. Can you come, Dad?”

“If you want me to. Am I supposed to be the one to walk you down the aisle?”

All of a sudden Petra seemed to have a big interest in something down around her shoes. “Uh, no,” she finally said. “Mom thinks that Milt ought to be the one to do it, since, uh, he’s done so much for me since, uh, since we’ve . . . I mean, uh . . .”

“I get the picture,” he said as he tried to cover up the disappointment rising in his throat. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“Uh, no,” she replied, still unable to look him in the eye.

“Well, have a good wedding then,” he said as he stepped back and closed the door.

“Uh, Dad . . .” she started to say, but realized that the door was already closed. It was too late for what she really wanted to say. In fact, it was much too late for it. Sadly, she turned away from the door and started back toward her car.

Inside, Royce locked the door, but couldn’t step away from it, hoping against hope that she would ring the bell again so she could say something like he hoped he would hear, even though he doubted there was much chance of it. He stood there staring at the blank wood of the door for several minutes, even after he heard his daughter start her car and back out of the driveway. There was no hope, none at all, not that he expected anything different.

Right at that moment he wanted a drink worse than he had wanted one in years. There was no alcohol in the house, and hadn’t been at any time he’d lived there. At one time he had enjoyed a drink or two in the right circumstances, but ever since what had happened a decade before he’d made it a strong point to stay away from drinking. He was dead sure that a drink to dull the pain would lead to another and another with no end in sight, so it was best not to start.

But now having a drink, even a beer, would be something to do. Any diversion that would deflect the anger than arose in him would have been welcome. The book he had been reading wasn’t even a remote possibility, since he was thinking too much and it would only be dead weight in his hands. For lack of anything else to do he went to the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator, knowing that as always there wasn’t much there. A jug of orange juice was the only thing that seemed remotely appealing, so he poured himself a glass and sat down at the kitchen table to drink it.

Except that he didn’t drink it. He could only sit there staring at the glass as thoughts churned in his mind. Most people who knew him thought Royce to be a cold man, rather distant, a man who showed little emotion, and for the most part they were right. That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to be, but for many years it was how he’d had to be. He had feelings, but he’d learned the hard way that he had to keep them to himself.

I let it go too far, he thought as he looked at the placid surface of the juice. I should have stomped on this back when it started, rather than letting it come to this. In spite of everything Maxine had done, Petra was still his daughter as much as she was hers, but he’d let things get away from him. There was probably no saving them now.

In spite of everything, he still loved his daughter, even though he hadn’t seen much love in return for a long, long time. That hurt him as much as anything Maxine had done to him. But Petra getting married would change things in a lot of ways. He could think of a number of things that he ought to have done over the years, but he’d shied away from them since he hadn’t wanted her to get caught in the mess that would result.

That would no longer be as big a factor. There was nothing to hold him back now.

Half an hour away from where her father’s thoughts were churning as he stared into a glass of orange juice, Petra pulled into the driveway of what she now thought of as home. At least, it was the house where her mother and Milt lived, and where she’d lived for years before going off to college. She hadn’t spent much time there in recent years, only a handful of weeks in the summer and the odd weekend and vacation. It was increasingly a place she wanted to leave behind her, not least because she was looking forward to making a life with Barry in a place of their own, wherever that would be.

With any kind of luck, that place wouldn’t be around here. There was a reason she’d tried to spend as much of her time at college and at the residential camp where she’d worked as a counselor in the summer for the past three years. That reason was because it seemed like her mother went out of her way to irritate her. She was overbearing and overprotective, and Petra yearned for the chance to get out from under her wing. Being married to Barry would relieve her of a lot of that tension, and it would be especially true if they were far away from here.

Since there was every expectation that they would be moving, there was no point in her looking for employment until Barry had worked out something. She knew that he had been going to job fairs and sending out applications, but nothing had firmed up yet. That wasn’t much of a surprise, but both of them expected that something would turn up in the next few months. As far as she was concerned, the sooner that was the better it would be. Once he had a job pinned down they could get down to some serious planning and preparation for their life together.

At least tomorrow she would be in her car on the road back to college for the last three weeks of the semester before winter break. She would have to spend at least part of the break here, but she also planned to spend part of it with Barry and his family – and, if they could manage it, some time in a place by themselves. It would take a little bit of fibbing, and a little double shuffling, but she thought it could be arranged, and it definitely would be worth it. A couple of days and nights in a hotel room with him ought to be more fun than hanging around home listening to her mother carry on about the big wedding that Petra didn’t care if she had or not. It was her mother’s idea after all – not hers.

Barry had a wild side to him – there was no doubt about that – but he had been a lot of fun in the year and a bit that she had been going with him. That meant there was little doubt in her mind that being married to him would be a lot of fun, too. It would be different than being in college, but she felt like everything ought to work out in the long run. After all, she was a girl who liked to have fun too, and Barry had been a good guy to have fun with.

It certainly would be more fun than the ongoing tension around here, she thought as she shut off the car and got out. Thank God the end is in sight.

Not surprisingly, her mother was waiting in the kitchen as soon as she got in the back door. “Did you get done what you wanted to do?” she asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Petra replied with resignation, “Not that I feel very happy about it.”

“What now?”

“I decided I’d better drive over and let Dad know that I was getting married,” the young woman replied.

“So what did he say?”

“Not much. He said he was happy, but you know how he is. He sure didn’t sound like he was happy. Then when I told him that Milt was going to walk me down the aisle, he closed the door in my face. I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that.”

“He probably wasn’t,” Maxine smiled. “But then, it’s not like you owe him anything. Milt has been more your father the last few years. I’m surprised that you’d even want Royce at the wedding. After all, what has he done for you?”

“He bought my car, Mom. He paid my tuition, and even helped me out with spending money. He ought to at least get some thanks for that, and inviting him to my wedding is the least I could do.”

“He was just trying to buy your love,” Maxine snorted. “He was just doing his duty to you, and I don’t think you owe him anything for that. After all, Milt has gone a long ways out of his way to fill in for what Royce wouldn’t do for you. Yes, Royce bought the car you’re driving now, but Milt bought your first one and it was a reach for him to do it.”

“And it fell apart even before I was out of high school,” Petra snorted. “I realize the car that Dad bought me is no Cadillac, sure, but it’s a lot better car.”

“So he ought to have the money to buy you a better car,” Maxine snapped back. “After all, he doesn’t have a family to support, no wife to support, none of those kinds of expenses. Sure, he paid most of your way through college, but we would have done it even though he cut off the child support payments when you turned eighteen.”

“Mom, you’re being unfair. He spent more money on my college expenses than you got from what he paid in child support.”

“He would have made up the difference somehow,” Maxine replied, her voice rising. “You know darn well your father doesn’t care for you. Otherwise, why would he have treated us the way he did? Like I said, Milt has been more your father than Royce has been, especially since we got thrown out of the house. That’s why he ought to be the one to give you away at your wedding.”

That was a wound that Petra didn’t feel like opening, mostly because she didn’t want to go through the same old argument for the umpteenth time. It was no secret that her father had rather forcefully invited her mother to leave the house after he’d caught her in bed with Milt back when Petra had been eleven. Petra had had a pretty good idea of what was going on, although at her age she didn’t understand all the dimensions, but even then she understood that her father had every right in the world to be upset with Milt and her mother.

Given a choice Petra would rather have stayed with her father, but the family court had seen it otherwise and that was that. Ever since then Maxine had been trying to sell her daughter on her point of view that she had done nothing wrong, and it got terribly wearing. At least marrying Barry would take her away from all of that.

“I know you feel that way, Mom. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Look, I know your father has given you money. He’s bought you things. But where has the love, the affection, the guidance, the family support come from? Not from your father, but from Milt. You’ve gotten a lot more of that from him than you’ve gotten from your father. When does he ever see you? When has he ever been nice to you? When has he ever given you the love that we’ve given you? Milt cares for you in ways that your father never could. After all, Milt is paying for the whole affair, and it’s not going to be cheap. That’s why he deserves to have the honor of being the one to give you away.”

“Yeah, I know,” Petra conceded reluctantly, mostly to end another pointless recapitulation of the same old things.

“Things like this happen in divorces, honey,” Maxine replied, ratcheting the emotion level down a little. “Even if people try to be fair with each other, someone usually winds up getting hurt, and usually it’s the kids who get hurt more than the parents. That’s what’s happened with you. You’re just going to have to accept it and go on from there. It’s mostly behind you now, and it will mean even less once you get married. The fact that Royce won’t be giving you away doesn’t mean anything. It’s just one little thing on what’s going to be a big day for you. ‘Her mother and I do’ is just five words that he won’t really mean anyway, and I certainly don’t want to be standing next to him when he says them. I told you that your father doesn’t care, and I’d be willing to bet that he won’t care enough to even go to the wedding in the first place.”

“I don’t know, Mom,” she sighed, realizing that she wasn’t making her point, not that she was likely to. “But you’re probably right that he won’t show up at the wedding. But, if he doesn’t, I doubt it will be for the reason you think it will be.”

“I thought it was foolish to even invite him to the wedding,” Maxine replied consolingly. “I mean, why would he care? It probably would have been kinder to him to just leave him out of it altogether, but I guess you’ve taken away that option and have just hurt him more.”

“I hope it’ll work out all right all right,” Petra shook her head and sighed. “Because if he takes it as bad as I think he’s going to take it, I’m really going to feel like crap about it.”

“Trust me, Petra, I’m right, and I know I’m right. Your father really doesn’t care or he would have made his objections known a long time ago. He hasn’t, and that ought to tell you all you need to know. Like I said, he’s just trying to buy your affection, and it’s not anything you need to concern yourself with.”

Although it was no mansion, Milt and Maxine Wilson’s house was comfortably large, a ranch house typical of subdivisions of its age. Unfortunately, Petra’s room was right across the hall from Milt and Maxine’s, and even with the doors closed the walls were thin. That had been a major inconvenience right after they’d first gotten together, since they often wanted to do things that a young girl ought not to be hearing. In time they’d learned to keep things quiet, but it had been something of a relief when Petra had been away at college or camp so they didn’t have to keep the noise down.

With Petra in the house, though, they had to revert to quiet mode. She had gone to her room right after the confrontation that had occurred when she returned from her father’s house, and had spent some time packing her things for her return to college in the morning. But rather than rejoin the family afterwards, she’d said she wanted to get started early, so she’d closed the door and went to bed.

Even with Petra most likely asleep, Milt and Maxine understood that this was one of those times when they had to keep their voices down as they lay in bed. “I’m very irritated with that girl,” Maxine whispered. “She had no call to try to ruin things by going to Royce.”

“Just relax, honey,” Milt counseled. “A few more months and it will all be over with. She’ll be gone with Barry somewhere, and that means she won’t be around to stir things up with him.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But I just wish we could have kept her away from him. It would have been so much better if we could have moved away from here when we got together.”

“There’s no point in second thoughts. We decided we had to stay. At that time it would have been difficult to sell the shops and be able to set up somewhere else.”

“I wish you had,” she sighed again. “You’re a smart man and an honorable one, Milt. You ought to be doing something more rewarding than running a string of sandwich shops.”

“The shops have given us a good living,” he pointed out. “I know it seemed like a risk at the time, and maybe it was, but it worked out.”

“I know, I know,” she sighed, “and I agreed even back then that keeping them was the logical thing to do. But God, I’ve gotten her so close to being grown up and on her own that I don’t want things to get loused up now.”

“Just relax,” he counseled again. “I know I worried for years about having Royce get mad and swat us with something just out of sheer meanness. But it’s gone on for so long now that I doubt if it’s going to happen.”

“I know. I was sure for years that he was going to pitch a fit about the visitation privileges. You can’t imagine how relieved I was for her to turn eighteen and go off to college. That took a huge load off of my mind right there.”

“True,” he said, reaching out to caress her in a place he knew she liked to be caressed. It had been awkward as hell the way they got together, but it had mostly turned out just fine. “A few more months, Maxine, just a few more months, and things are going to get a whole lot simpler. Are you up for a little fun tonight?”

“No, not really,” she sighed. “I’m still upset about this little stunt Petra pulled. Let’s get a good night’s sleep, get her back on the road for college in the morning, and then we can make up for it and not have to keep the noise down.”

“Sounds like a good idea. You’ll feel better after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

The glass of orange juice sat on the kitchen table untouched for hours as Royce considered his options. There were many of them; he’d thought about them for years, and had even done some planning from time to time. He’d never put any of them into motion because the time had never seemed quite right.

Now it was.

In fact, there would probably never be a better time. It would have been nice if he could have done what he needed to do back when it might have done some good, but it was too late for that. Now, all he could do was strike back and enjoy the results, since he knew that vengeance is a dish best served cold.

Royce was not normally a vengeful man. He could be a hard man if he needed to be, and this was one of those times. While what he was planning might not set things straight, it would at least be a badly needed strike back at those who had hurt him, and it might even make him feel better.

Long after everyone was asleep in the Wilson house partway across town, he got up from the table, tossed the juice in the sink, rinsed the glass, and went to bed. Knowing that it was finally going to be his turn, he slept as restfully as he had been able to in a long time. Even though tomorrow would be Sunday morning, he had things to do. He intended to do them.

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