“Dad,” I said. “Will you stop speaking in code? If you want to tell me something, tell me.”
“Your mother was having an affair,” he said.
I felt my mouth close tight.
“With that guy she’s seeing now. And I wasn’t entirely in denial, the way you think I was.”
He opened the lid on a thermos, and the smell of his burnt coffee filled the car.
“It’s easy to imagine that since I was so checked out, but the truth is I was in mourning. There’s a difference. I knew my marriage was dead, and I couldn’t help grieving for it. It swallowed up everything else, and I walked around in a fog. For years I guess.”
“But you were trying out all those jobs...”
“A distraction,” he said. “A way to get away from home.”
“God, I can’t believe her,” I said.
He took a sip of coffee.
“It wasn’t just her, Tess. You don’t need to make heryour super villain. I wasn’t the world’s greatest husband.”
I looked in the rearview mirror and watched the road disappear behind us.
“She didn’t even come to get me,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“In Sicily. I thought maybe she’d show up to bring me home.”
My dad was quiet a moment.
“That was never going to happen,” he said.
“Why not?”
He took another loud sip of coffee.
“Because I never told her you were there.”
“Oh,” I said. I paused to let that sink in.
“How do you think it makes me look?” he said. “The one time you’re with me in the last two years and you flee the country. I knew there was some tension between us, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“It was for a funeral,” I mumbled.
“I know,” he said. “That makes it even worse! Funerals are what I do!”
“Dad...” I said.
“I don’t want to hear anything else now. I just want to let you know I’ve made a decision. And I’m afraid it’s a final one.”
“What decision?”
“I don’t think we should work together anymore,” he said.
He said it low and quiet, like it was hard to get out.
“It was an irresponsible idea to begin with, and it has now run its course.”
