Page 227 of Mad Girl

Later, long after Bree and the Harrises had left, I was still sitting in my room, reeling from shock. I sifted through memories of my childhood, trying to disprove the whole thing, but the more I remembered, the more it all made sense.

Take the summer I’d turned ten, for example, when I’d woken in the middle of the night with a high fever and stumbled over to the parents’ wing, needing my dad—only to find his bedroom empty, the bed fully made, not a wrinkle in sight. The fever had undoubtedly muddled my reasoning skills, because I assumed he’d been called away in the night and would be back the next day. So I’d knocked on the Harrises’ bedroom door—needing someone to help me feel better, too sick to care who it was at that point—and John had answered. He’d led me back to my dad’s room, located a thermometer in the en-suite bathroom, and checked my fever. Then my dad had appeared, strolling into the room and taking over…in his pajamas.

There were all the weekend trips my dad had taken with the Harrises—from the Berkshires to Portland to Newport to Vermont. Trips I’d always lamented because, for me, it meant a weekend stuck with Eleanor and Gabe. The only plus side to these trips was how much happier Nic would be when he returned.

There were all the times—since you’d moved in, actually—where Nic had disappeared to the Harrises’ for an hour or two, at different times of the day or night, and I know for a fact Bree hadn’t been home on many of those occasions.

There was the time I’d dragged you over to the Harrises’ to snoop in John’s study, and they’d appeared. John—and my dad. There at the house together. In the middle of the day. Had they been…hanging out upstairs before we’d arrived?

There were the nightcaps following all the wine consumed at dinner, where the three of them melted into the sofa, bodies wedged tight, hands roaming freely—which more than one outsider had flagged as suspicious over the years, including that girlfriend of Bree’s, Amber.

“They’re drunk,” I’d told her.

It wasn’t weird for my dad to put his arm around Libby, or for her to laugh into his chest, or for Nic to place his hand in her hair. It wasn’t odd for John to rest his hand on my dad’s thigh, or for my dad to mumble things close to John’s ear, or for the two men to often fix each others’ ties or pat the other on the cheek or sit super close on the sofa when there was plenty of room to sit farther apart. They did that stuff all the time. They’d done it my whole life. They were best friends.

And, okay, so maybe they were never quite that affectionate in public, but that’s only because it would surely raise eyebrows if they were, and the Harrises had a certain kind of image to uphold.

At dinner that night, I studied my dad. This man, who looked so familiar to me—but aside from being my dad, who else was he?

A person who hid secret sons and lied to the police. Who stalked someone’s birth mother and threatened strange women on the sidewalk. Who not only withheld key details about my mother—like that we looked almost exactly the same—but had lied to my face about the last time he’d spoken to her. A person who’d once told me, “I don’t date because your needs are my main concern right now, and I don’t want anyone else getting in the way of that.” But if he’d been dating the Harrises this whole time, then that was a lie, too.

Another lie of omission.

Like the lie he’d fed the Harrises about you.

While you and Nic laughed over some anecdote your professor had shared in class the Friday before, I kept picturing the intimate moment between my dad and John in his study, along with the one of Libby coming out of my dad’s room.

Nic’s gaze slid over to me, and he reared back, disturbed by whatever he saw on my face, the smile melting off his. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I dropped my gaze to the table and mumbled, “Like what?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Elliot, look at me.”

I refused to look at him. “Can I be excused?”

“No,” he said. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

“I want to be excused,” I said, clutching my dinner napkin.

“And I want to know what the hell’s going on,” Nic said.

I shoved my chair back. “Me, too, Dad. Me, too!”

You both stared back at me, confused.

“What?” Nic asked.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it, Nic.”

He drew back, startled a second time. “What did you just call me?”

Apparently, Nic considered this—me calling him Nic—a huge sign of disrespect. Good, I thought. Nice to know.

“I’m going upstairs.”