Lastly, I read over my chosen ambassadors’ applications for maybe the twentieth time. I want to know them. I’ll be spending a week in their company, and it’s important that I know the young adults I’m taking with me to represent the school.
Martha picks her head up. She stares toward the door and then jumps to her feet, tail wagging like a flag. Mouth open and tongue lolling out, she waits excitedly for Seth.
Sure enough, the patio door slides open. Martha pounces toward him, and I hear her collar jingle as he pets her. I smile, though I don’t turn around.
I’m only half focused on the packet I’m reading about Mercy Warren when Seth approaches the table I’m sitting at. Seth is my oldest child at twenty-two. He recently graduatedfrom a university in Southern California, close to his mother and siblings. Upon graduating, he secured a remote job, which allows him to work anywhere in the world.
I’m relieved that he agreed to watch Martha. I also hope that his being here will give us a chance to talk a little. It gives me hope that maybe he’s ready for a relationship with me.
Seth stands over me for a minute before taking a seat in the chair opposite. He looks over the papers I have strewn out before meeting my eyes. “You deal a lot in paper for this technological era.”
“I predate the technological era,” I say. “This feels more comfortable.”
One side of his mouth climbs in amusement. It doesn’t necessarily reach his eyes, but I take it as a win, I suppose. Martha is still close to him, her head in his lap as he scratches behind her ear.
“I’m glad you two get along,” I say, nodding toward Martha.
“No offense, Dad, but she’s a dog. My odds of getting along with her were pretty high.”
“I suppose so.”
Silence settles around us. I’ve tried many times over the years to force conversations in hopes that my kids would talk to me. It doesn’t work. I won’t say I don’t try, but I have learned to allow the silences. If they want to break them, they will.
“This is a cool house,” Seth says.
I glance up at it.
“Not the same one we visited as kids.”
My three children have been out here a total of four times in their lives. The last visit was well over a decade ago.
“It’s not,” I agree. “The house you visited was temporary while this one was being updated. It belongs to the school, and I’ll live here until I retire as provost.”
Seth’s eyebrows rise. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding. “It’s not entirely uncommon, especially when campuses are very old. It was a different way of running businesses back then.”
“This isn’t meant to be judgmental or prying, but arguably, you’re the highest-paid person in the school. And you getfreehousing?”
I grin. “I’m not the highest paid person at RDU, though I won’t deny that I make a very nice salary with amazing benefits. However, I don’t live here for free. I pay utilities and something akin to an HOA. I have a housing allowance that’s worked into my pay, but that doesn’t fully cover the lease, and I make up the difference.”
“Huh. That still sounds a lot like you’re getting a great deal.”
“I am,” I say, shrugging. “I’m also not the only one who receives housing allowances. They’re circumstantial.”
“Ah.”
His eyes drop to Martha, and I take that as my cue to look back at my papers. “But thank you. I agree that the house is pretty cool. Their ability to keep the hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure sound with the elements of the time period while also bringing it into the twenty-first century is impressive.”
Seth nods. “It’s a big house for one person.”
I sigh. Is this a hint at one of Natalia’s favorite accusations—that I’m hiding a second family here? “It is,” I agree. “It’s meant for the provost and their family.”
“For the record, I don’t believe that you live a secret life here,” Seth says. I raise my eyes to his. “I think Mom’s just… angry.”
“I don’t understand how—” I cut my words off and shake my head. This is my child. He doesn’t need to, nor should he, be privy to the woes of his parents’ marriage. Or divorce.
“Understand what?”
