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The silver Lamborghini entered DeKalb, Illinois, just past midnight. Veronica was the driver, her husband dozing in the passenger seat. Her blue eyes shifted focus to the GPS display and then back to the road.

DeKalb was nearly a ghost town at this hour. A light, powdery snow fell and gave the town a picturesque look which she would have appreciated under other circumstances. Right now all she could think about was the dreaded purpose of the trip. She felt the way she did whenever the subject of flying came up. Anxiety and fear, all shapeless and irrational but debilitating. She wanted, as some mothers threatened their children with, to turn the car around and head home.

At a red light, she looked at her husband's handsome, sleeping face. She knew he would have forgiven her if that had been her decision, to just bug out and pretend the call had never come. Part of it - most of it, she believed - was unquestioning love. Some sliver of his deference would have come from his quiet acknowledgment that he had been so evil in his life, including against the woman he would eventually marry, that she owed him a few sharp turns.

But she kept going forward, the Lambo's tires whispering over the thin snow, flakes hitting the windshield and melting almost instantaneously. The idea hit her that taking the Lambo all the way here may have been some mistake - her husband's fault if she wanted to pin blame. The SUV would have made more sense. She knew what time of year it was so the snow was no surprise. Trying to get a supercar through a snowdrift was not a challenge she felt up to.

Since, you know, you won't want to stay. You'll see him, see he's still alive, then leave. Right? Let's rationalize it down to that, Mrs. Veronica Ryan, mommy depending on who is asked. Let's just turn around and go home now - because what if it does decide to snow six feet? This is Illinois, it happens. That lake effect snow coming in and hemming you, your husband and your father in like it's The Shining, and then what?

Veronica grimaced. She huffed and put a small, quickly fading patch of fog on the windshield.

"After six hundred feet, turn left," the GPS soothingly intoned.

Veronica stopped at the intersection, so small that it had no stoplights, and made her turn. She saw the sprite of the pin on the GPS map - Your Destination, as the gentle female voice knew to call it.

Last chance! Pull a quick U-turn in a driveway here, head back. Bet Alex would love to see you. Seg probably has her up right now, watching scary movies and painting each other's claws. Better go home to see, better...

"You have reached Your Destination," said the GPS.

The kangaroo looked at the modest two-story home. Lights on in the living room, a snow-dusted Cadillac in the driveway. She was privately thankful that he had moved to a different house since her childhood. The combination of seeing her father in the flesh and the den of inequity that was her childhood home would have been too much.

She stopped beside the Caddy and killed the lights, the heat, and the engine. For a few seconds she waited, feeling rooted to the seat. Sore from driving too long but reluctant to get up. Here were the last traces of home: the familiar interior of the Lamborghini and her husband's low, droning snore. He had a cute snore, she thought, and had no idea how lucky she was that he didn't have a deep and sucking snore due to a deviated septum.

She palmed his knee, shook him gently. "Kahnso, wake up, baby. We're here."

He yawned - and so did she then - and opened his eyelids, sticky with sleep. "How long was I out?" he asked, and leaned over, surprising her with a smooch.

Veronica kissed him back gratefully. Having him awake and affectionate leveled off her nerves somewhat. She squeezed his thigh before letting it go. "Maybe an hour, hour and a half. You were pretty tired when I took over."

"Still am," he sighed. Unspoken was the belief that he would stay tired for a while yet; the worst was yet to come. He looked at her in the dim cabin of the car, ruby red eyes meeting cool blue. Gently, "Want to go home, you big baby?"

"Yeah," she admitted, and put on a humorless grin. "I love you. Know that?"

He smiled slyly. "I had my suspicions."

She pecked him on the lips. "All right. Okay. Let's do this."

Veronica walked to the front door, Kahnso dutifully following two steps behind. She rapped on the door and then leaned back into him, waiting, hoping as she had hoped a dozen times already for something to come up and force her to just head home unfulfilled. But the lock clicked, and there came the distinctive rattle of a chain being undone. The door swung in and let out a rush of warm air.

The resemblance was clear to Kahnso who looked at Veronica every day; the kangaroo in the doorway was unmistakably related by blood. It was Jeffery Ryan. He was older, grayer, chubby around the middle and with eyes obscured behind silver frames, but the relation was obvious.

"Veronica," said the older kangaroo, softly. "Come inside. Please."

Veronica silently followed him inside, Kahnso just behind her.

The living room was an idyllic painting of a cozy winter home. An armchair faced a small but busy fireplace at an oblique angle. No television in sight, but he had a bookshelf lined with paperbacks and hardcover tomes of varying age and wear. A quartet of framed portraits on the fireplace mantle showed the Ryan family in better times: a young Veronica grinning gap-toothed; her brother Aaron shyly regarding the viewer; and two candid portraits in which Veronica and Aaron could have been no older than toddlers, being wrangled for a family photo shoot by a happy-looking mother and father pair of kangaroos.

Veronica took in the portraits with a feeling of bitter nostalgia. Jeff spoke timidly, breaking the reverie.

"It's nice to finally see you." Her blue eyes fixed then on his, which also were beautifully blue. He smiled, started to reach for her, big arms parting for a hug, then stopped and folded his hands over his paunchy stomach. "I'm sorry. Hard to know where to begin. It's been so long."

"It has," Veronica agreed. She leaned into Kahnso once more. Playing the role of her rock, her anchor, he slid a capable arm around her middle in a protective and somewhat possessive gesture.

Jeff's smile didn't falter. His eyes now shifted to Kahnso's unreadable face, and he said quietly, "You picked quite a man to marry. I have a celebrity for a son-in-law."

"I suppose you do," she replied. Her eyes drifted to the fireplace. Embers popped, whizzing from the old, cracked logs to be caught by the chain mail curtain covering the flaming maw like a veil. "I don't know how to begin, either."

"I suppose we could sit down," Jeff suggested. "Or-, it's late. Maybe you'd like to rest? And we can start to figure things out over breakfast. Hey, I could make us some French toast, just like I used to."

Veronica avoided his eyes but sunk further into Kahnso's embrace. Jeff, previously inclining with a bit of excitement, rocked back on his large feet. "Maybe we should rest, yeah. Kahnso, you're tired, aren't you?"

"Whatever you wanna do, babe," he accommodatingly answered. "This is your night."

In that moment, Veronica wished Kahnso would show his backbone. Take the reigns away from her, because she had no idea how to lead the situation.

She forced herself to meet Jeff's eyes. "All right. All right, yeah," she said, and sounded as if she had been badgered into an answer; exhaustion tugged at her, exacerbated by the soothing fireplace.

Jeff's smile seemed to brighten. He looked painfully like daddy again. Veronica wanted to run over, to hug him and smooch him. She clung to Kahnso's arm and he squeezed her tighter in response.

"Let me show you the guest bedroom. It might be a bit musty, I haven't had company since," he paused, "well, ever. But the room is yours." He turned and headed up the stairs.

Before he let Veronica go, Kahnso whispered, "Hon, you want me to go? Get a hotel room or something, leave you two?"

Veronica replied suddenly with a tone bordering on panic, "Don't leave."

"Okay. All right." There was no judgment in Kahnso's voice but Veronica believed he had to find her pitiful. And why shouldn't he? She sounded the way Alex did when something frightened her, when she wanted mommy and daddy to come home because as much as she loved her grandma, she felt naked and alone without her parents.

So what's it gonna be now? Regress to the tender age of seven or eight because daddy is here? Christ, remember when you rearranged Kahnso's face for humiliating you at your best friend's wedding? And now you're panicking over him leaving you all alone with your father. Strong independent woman you are not, Mrs. Ryan.

Veronica huffed. She shrugged off Kahnso's embrace and followed after her father on the stairs. Kahnso followed a few seconds after at a slower pace.

Both expected Jeff to linger in the bedroom, to attempt a hug with his estranged daughter, but he kept a distance from her which seemed almost fearful. Kahnso remained in the background of this scene, first bringing in the suitcases, then removing his coat as Jeff showed Veronica where the restroom was and let her know that she could call if she needed anything - anything at all - and he would be right there.

Towards the end of his one-sided conversation, Jeff leaned in the doorway as Veronica and Kahnso stood uncertainly in the quaint bedroom. He said to his daughter, "I missed you. I love you, Veronica. I always did love you so much."

A thousand awful questions filled her mind like poison. Love me more than your dope? Love your son? Love me because I have a rich husband? It left her with an acrid taste in her mind, the mental equivalent of vomiting in her mouth. She forced the thoughts down, crushed them away into the small black place in her brain where she banished insecurities and terrors, where Alex's grossly premature birth and Kahnso's brushes with relapse were left in the darkness like ancient, immortal convicts.

"I love you too, dad," she said quietly, diffidently. "I hope we can work things out."

Jeff seemed to float with exultation. His smile lit up. In his body language, Veronica saw a hug coming, even a kiss. And she would have welcomed it. Nothing ever came. He lingered in the doorway like a passive ghost, and then he said, "Goodnight, Veronica. And you too, Kahnso."

"Yeah. Goodnight," Veronica answered. Kahnso said nothing, only gave a small nod. And Jeff left, his heavy kangaroo steps thudding down the stairs. The door remained ajar at Jeff's suggestion; the furnace would warm the room, but the heat from the fireplace would do the job too and he preferred that because the wood was already paid for, the natural gas was not.

Veronica was not troubled by the open door. She did not expect her father to eavesdrop or watch her sleep, and intimacy - as comforting as her husband's touch might have been - was the furthest thing from her mind. She slipped into more casual clothing (old sweat pants and a faded, threadbare t-shirt with dates on the back for one of Kahnso's past tours) and her husband did the same, slipping into comfy old track pants and a white tee stained with sweat.

They joined in the bed. Kahnso's feet dangled off its edge so he pulled his knees up. He chuckled and nuzzled with her in the dark. "Feels like when I lay in Alex's bed."

"Your fault for being such a goon," Veronica said, trying to sound witty, only coming off as tired. "Shit, Kahnso. What are we doing?"

"Dunno," Kahnso replied. He pulled her close, held her against his burly chest. Gently he nibbled her neck, often the precursor to sex, but not tonight. "I'm not a part of this, as much as you might want to think I am. This is your story. I'm just the comic relief."

Veronica closed her eyes and smelled her husband's ears. His scent was familiar and it comforted her greatly, helped to take away anxiety and homesickness. Then she thought of Alex, of nuzzling with her child, imprinting upon the gentle musk of her ears and head, brushing the raven hair Kahnso had given her. Kisses and giggles. She said with a sudden sigh, "I miss my girl."

"I miss her too," Kahnso quietly concurred. "But she's safe. I promise. I pity anybody who tries to hurt Alex when Seg is around. Eight feet of pissed-off mama wolf would make anyone think twice."

The kangaroo huffed. "Just don't leave me. Stay here, no matter what happens. Please."

He kissed her on the lips. The kiss was shallow but the intent behind it was not. "I won't go. Pinky swear, yeah?"

"Pinky swear," Veronica agreed, and chuckled without humor. She nosed into Kahnso's neck, buried her face against him. Hot tears spilled into his fur and he began to shush her, petting down her back, sluicing soft blonde hair through his fingers. Comforting her the same way he comforted Alex when any one of the gremlins which plagued only children cornered her.

Veronica fell asleep against her husband within only a few minutes. Kahnso murmured to her, and when he got no reply, he pulled the quilt over their huddled bodies. Then he slept, too.