I felt myself blink. “Oh my God. That’s awful.”
She nodded sadly. “I know. I’m telling you, it’s been nonstop drama here. I’m just hoping we can get this done without any more disasters.”
I took a step backward, leaning against a nearby table as she made her way around the opposite side of the model. So that was what had happened to Dave. All this time I’d thought he’d changed his mind about coming down, but in the end, it hadn’t even been up to him. “So ... he hasn’t been here at all?”
Deb glanced at me over her shoulder. “No, he has. But just in the last couple of days, and only for an hour here and there. They’re keeping him pretty close, I think.”
Poor Dave. After all that time spent toeing the line, doing the time. And now, all because of me, he was right back where he started. I felt sick.
“His parents can’t really take that trip away,” I said after a moment. “I mean, maybe they’ll reconsider, or—”
“I said that, too. But according to Riley, it’s unlikely.” She crouched down, sitting back on her heels, and pressed a loose house down, making it click. “They already decided to use some of the fund to pay off Heather’s car debt, so she can go. There was a meeting about it and everything.”
“A meeting,” I repeated.
“Here, while they were all working. It was serious multitasking.” She smiled proudly. “I felt honored to get to witness it.”
As she bent back down over the model, peering closely at a row of town houses, I just stood there. It was unbelievable to me that for the past week that I’d been in Colby piecing together what came next for me, all of Dave’s plans, which had always been so clear, were falling apart. I’d thought he let me down. But clearly, it was the other way around.
When I woke up later that morning at the Poseidon, I was alone. I sat up, looking around me: the notebook I’d written in was now closed, set aside on the bedside table, all the pictures and yearbooks stacked neatly on a nearby chair. The front door was slightly ajar, the wind whistling through the screen just beyond it. I got to my feet, rubbing my eyes, and walked over. There, outside on the steps, were my mom and dad, sitting together.
“I feel like the worst parent ever,” she was saying. “All this stuff, the different girls ... I had no idea.”
“At least you can claim you were at a distance. It was right in front of my face,” he replied.
My mom was quiet for a moment. “You did your best. That’s all you can do. That’s all any of us can do. You know?”
My dad nodded, looking up at the road. It had been so long since I’d seen them like this, just the two of them, that for a moment I just stood there, taking it in. He was rubbing a hand over his face, while she held a coffee cup with both hands, her head cocked to the side as she said something. From a distance, you couldn’t guess all the history and changes. You would have just thought they were friends.
My mom turned then, seeing me. “Honey,” she said. “You’re up.”
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
I watched as my dad got to his feet. “You left your mother’s house in the middle of the night, Mclean. Did you really think we wouldn’t be worrying?”
“I just needed some time,” I said quietly, as he came closer, pulling open the door. Once inside, he put his arms around me, squeezing tight, and kissed the top of my head.
“Don’t scare me like that ever again,” he said, before moving on so my mom could join us. “I mean it.”
I nodded, silent, as the door banged shut behind her. And then it was just us three, alone in the room. I sat down on the bed. My mom, taking another sip of her coffee, took the chair by the air-conditioner unit. My dad, by the window, stayed where he was.
“So,” he said after a moment. “I think we all need to talk.”
“You read my notebook,” I said.
“Yes.” My mom sighed, brushing her hair back from her face. “I know it was probably supposed to be private ... but we had a lot of questions. And you weren’t exactly up for answering them.”
I looked down at my hands, knotting my fingers together.
“I didn’t realize ...” My dad stopped, cleared this throat. Then he glanced at my mom before saying, “The different names. I thought they were just ... names.”
God, this was hard. I swallowed. “That’s how it started,” I said. “But then, it got bigger.”
“You couldn’t have been happy,” he said. “If you felt like you needed to do that.”
“It wasn’t about being happy or unhappy. I just didn’t want to be me anymore.”
Again, they exchanged a look. My mom said slowly, “I don’t think either of us really realized how hard the divorce was on you. We’re ...”
