“He may as well stay,” Sammy murmurs with open spite, but it doesn’t seem directed at David. “He’s going to fucking find out, anyway.”
My dad doesn’t argue, but it’s when my mom doesn’t correct Sammy’s language that I realize how serious whatever this is, and I robotically take the empty chair between my mother and Sammy, putting my brother between David and me.
My dad opens his mouth to talk, but my mother places her hand gently over his, and takes over for him, translating words he hasn’t even said yet into her own more soothing, compassionate tongue. “Everything is okay, Bits. I don’t want you to worry—”
“Then rushing me to the city for an emergency family meeting in the middle of the week probably wasn’t the best plan,” I tentatively point out.
Another unsettling glance is exchanged between my parents, but this time, Sammy, too, is complicit, and I frown at him, so nervous for the answer that I nearly tremble as I ask, “Is Grandma Mimi okay?” My voice shakes.
My dad’s eyes go wide and my mom tilts her head to the side as they both answer in unison, “Of course!” and “Grandma Mimi is fine.”
Relief washes over me, but it only leaves room for more questions. “Then what—”
“I was going to tell you this weekend, Bits,” Sammy interrupts me. “That’s part of why I’m coming, but…” he trails off, meeting my father’s eyes—the mirror shade of his own—without explaining a damned thing.
“Everything is fine,” my father takes Sammy’s cue. “The family is fine. This is old news, and not something I ever thought I’d have to explain to my own children, but—”
Fortunately for us all, my mother takes over again. “Not long after your father and I first got married, we went through a rough patch…” My dad averts his gaze, but my mom continues. “And he had an affair with a woman at his firm. It went on for barely weeks before he broke it off and confessed everything to me, and we moved on…”
“When?” I ask.
My mom exhales a long-winded sigh. “It was over twenty years ago, Bits. Before you and Sammy were even born.”
But I don’t miss the strain in my brother’s jaw or the way he now refuses to meet my father’s gaze. “How long before?” I sound like a mouse.
“It was a few months before I got pregnant with Sammy,” my mom replies, the small chink of hurt in her armor in no way mitigating her strength.
It’s Sammy who’s most affected, even if most would probably miss it, and I silently thank God—not for the first time—that he has Rory in his life. My heart aches. It took Sammy and my dad so long to get anywhere close to having a father-son relationship again, and now, old family ghosts are resurfacing with a vengeance. And, between the two of us, Sammy does always seem to take the brunt of them—being conceived barely months after my father had been unfaithful, and then, not nearly enough years later, taking beatings I would only ever watch in horror.
And still, it’s my brother who comforts me. He reaches up and squeezes my shoulder, if just to remind me I’m not alone—that he’s always there. And he always is.
I catch David’s worried gaze for a brief moment, but I don’t hold it long enough to even reassure him that I’m okay, too scared of being suspected by Sammy. Our family has had enough scandal for one night already, and I fear we’re only just getting started.
And then, I wait for the rest. For the other shoe to drop. Because I know they didn’t summon me out here to tell me about an old affair.
“Anyway,” my dad says hurriedly, as if he can’t wait for this part of the conversation to be over, and I can’t blame him, “a reporter for the Herald has been sniffing around, and called my assistant for a comment the other day. I wanted to tell you myself, Bitsy girl, but—”
“Sammy thought it might be better coming from him,” my mom finishes for him.
I glance between all of them, even David, and I don’t understand their anxiety. “Better coming from him? That an affair Dad had two decades ago might come out in some local paper?”
My father swallows audibly and my mom slips on her most sympathetic smile—the one I’m sure she learned from Dr. Schall. “Well, that’s what we’d thought. But apparently your father’s celebrity clients have raised his profile somewhat and…”
“The dipshit ‘reporter’ sold the story to Page Six. It prints Friday,” Sammy blurts.
I gape at him. Page Six. As in, The New York fucking Post? I don’t even have to articulate the question.
“Yeah, Bits,” Sammy confirms, squeezing my shoulder again, but it isn’t his touch I want right now. In fact, he’s the one blocking me from the person whose touch I want most, in more ways than one, and, it turns out, he’s been doing it for years. And why? Because he didn’t trust David? Bullshit. He didn’t trust me. And maybe he was right—maybe I was too naïve back then…but I’m an adult now, and what’s changed? I’m still being babied by my family and denied the one guy I’ve always wanted by my brother. Because I may have dared David to talk to him about us this weekend, but there isn’t a part of me that thought he’d actually do it.
And now we’ve got this bullshit to deal with.
I turn my attention back to my parents. “Well, that’s just great. So the entire country will know about Dad’s affair.” Including everyone we know. I sigh deeply, waiting for the rest. Because I know there’s more. Not that this doesn’t suck enough already, and I know it will be mortifying when it comes out, but it can’t be the reason they dragged me to the city on a weeknight.
“Yes, baby girl, they will,” my mom admits. “And it will be embarrassing for a while, but we’ll get through it.”
I take her hand over the table, and nod. Of course we will. We always do.
The truth is I’m not even upset for myself. I’m upset for my mom. I’m upset for Sammy. I’m even upset for my dad. I’m upset that after all these years, and pain, and hard work, my family is going to suffer humiliation for a stupid mistake my father made before Sammy and I were even born.
