“I wish your mother could see him,” Dad said, and at that my eyes welled up with tears.
“Me too.”
“You still think you did the right thing?” he asked.
“About what?”
“About hiding the divorce from your mother?”
I took a sip of water, giving myself a moment to digest his question. I had almost called off that Virgin Islands trip with Greg because we had just found out Mom had cancer. But sheinsisted. “Darling,” she had said, “there’s nothing you can do by sitting at doctors’ appointments. It’s only a few days.”
I’d often regretted listening to her. Of course, we didn’t know then how bad it was; we didn’t know that she would be dead a few months later. It had only been a few days. But a four-day vacay seems like an eternity when you only had a few dozen days left. I remembered walking in her door the night I flew in from the islands and her immediately asking, “What’s the matter?”
What was the matter was that my husband had told me he was leaving me and we had had to fight about it for three days after that, that he was still living in my house and working in my office. I had debated telling her, but I wanted her to die happy—whenever that might be—knowing that both of her girls were okay. So I didn’t tell her that her older daughter was getting divorced and her younger one was marrying a religious fanatic who was better suited to an insane asylum than a pulpit. I still thought it was right to let her die in peace.
I smiled at Dad. “Yeah. I really do. Sometimes I wish I’d had her advice on the whole thing while she was still here, but it really was for the better. I didn’t want her to worry.”
Dad took a bite of his shrimp and smiled. “Can you imagine how hot she was when she got up there and realized what was going on?”
We both laughed. Mom didn’t like to be kept out of the loop. I shrugged. “Yeah. She’ll probably have an earful waiting for me.”
Dad raised his eyebrow. “Or Greg. Let’s hope he gets there first.”
I smiled, and Wagner called from outside, “Pop, are you watching? Do you see me?”
Dad gave him his best thumbs-up. “So, what else? Are you doing okay besides the company and the fighting and all that?”
I shrugged. “Worse things have happened.” I pointed out into the yard. “He’s okay, I’m okay.”
He nodded. “Are you dating anyone? After all thatForbesmagazine business, you have to be careful. There are plenty of men out there looking to take advantage of a pretty, rich woman.”
I smiled tightly. The “Forbesmagazine business” was a nod in a “Companies to Watch” listicle. I had been thrilled that my name and my company had so much as graced the website, but it had panicked my dad. I guessed worrying about me was his right as a father. Even still, it took everything I had not to ask him how stupid he thought I was. But I didn’t. Instead, I asked, “Areyoudating anyone?”
He smiled sadly. “No. Never. Your mother was the love of my life.” He shrugged.
I smiled, my heart warming again. I knew my father should be loved again too, but it was so very hard to think about someone replacing your parent in your other parent’s life. I could only imagine how Wagner felt about it deep down. As he shouted, “Hey, Mom, watch this!” I said, “You know, Dad, you have to be careful. You might not be looking for love, but sometimes it sneaks up on you.”
I was proud of how lunch with my dad had gone. It had started off rocky, but it ended well. I wanted that closeness with him. I wanted to be a united front. Mom was gone. Quinn was as good as gone. We needed each other now.
As I was putting the last of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher that night, Marcy walked through the unlocked back door.
“It’s about damn time,” I said. I was about to put my wineglass in the dishwasher, but I thought better of it, filling it up again and pouring a glass for Marcy too.
“What?” she asked innocently.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter as she leaned over the island. “Don’t play coy with me. Why were you at Greg’s office?” I held her glass of wine to my chest and said, “You don’t get this until you tell me the truth.”
She laughed. “Okay, okay. You guys have been fighting about this long enough. I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
I handed her the glass. “And?”
“And so I did.”
I sighed. “Marcy, I know you love these long dramatic monologues, but could you cut to the chase?”
She smiled. “The bottom line is that after an hour or so of fancy therapizing, I finally got Greg to admit that, as you so wisely suspected, he doesn’t even want your company. What he wants is to be out of your shadow and to do his own thing, but he’s afraid of falling on his face and making a fool of himself.”
“What do you mean, ‘do his own thing’?”
