11
Cooper told me he loved me on Thanksgiving Day, three months after we met. It was a cold, dreary day, and his family had rescheduled their celebration so Cooper could meet my family. It was the first time I’d brought someone home since my prom date, and though I worried my mom would scare him away with her dedication to holiday tradition, he assured me he’d love me if I came from a family of circus performers or even Republicans—the latter of which was true. The problem was, I didn’t know if I would still love me, or at least the person I turned into around my mother. I didn’t want Cooper to meet that girl. I worked hard to keep her hidden, especially from him.
The night started off well enough. Mom greeted Cooper with a kiss on the cheek, a sweeping once-over and a smile. He fell into conversation about golf and business with Dad and Charlie. They sipped bourbon on the back porch. Within the hour, he was in.
As soon as the boys had slipped out the back door in their hysterically festive sweaters—the Michels boys’ tradition adopted to counter Mom’s Martha Stewart treatment—Mom threw an apron on me and stuck me in front of a bowl of potatoes with a hand mixer. One extra guest meant three more side dishes in addition to the seven she already felt necessary for our family of four.
Family of five. Thanksgiving had been Abby’s favorite holiday.
Mom had rattled off instructions for over an hour, pointing her ragged, chewed-to-the-quick fingernails at this dish, then that, before I made an excuse to escape to the laundry room, where Mom stored the overstocked pantry items she collected on sale. With the light still off, I wiped my hands on my apron and placed them on the washing machine to brace myself for the tears that would surely come. We all tried to make up for Abby’s absence in different ways, and Mom’s coping mechanism was pretending nothing had changed, that we were not broken. But I was not perfect. I couldn’t mash the perfect potatoes or whip the perfect cream, and no amount of beautiful food would tempt Abby down from her bedroom to dip her finger into a casserole dish or pick at the corners of the corn bread. I pulled myself together in the darkness, where no one could see whether or not the turkey was the precise shade of golden brown.
The door cracked open, letting in a sliver of light. It spotlighted my face and revealed Cooper’s in the space between.
“Do you have any sweet potatoes in there?” Cooper asked.
“Sweet potatoes?”
“I don’t think your mom made enough food.”
A grin slid across his face, and I let out a watery laugh.
“I hate you,” I told him.
He laughed and said, “I know. I love you, too.” He closed the door behind him, and there in the pitch-black, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. He pushed his body against mine until my breasts were crushed against his chest, and I tingled with his touch. With one wordless gesture, there in my mother’s laundry room, Cooper took over as the protector of my heart, the keeper of my hurts.
And I let him.
When I pull into the driveway at lunchtime the following Monday and see Cooper standing in the front yard talking to Reese, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to mid-forearm and the sun lighting up his golden hair, I know I can no longer count on anyone else to keep them for me. I have to deal with all these new ones on my own.
I take a deep breath and step out of the car. Spencer comes bounding over and, used to our usual greeting, jumps into my arms. I groan and pull him up to my chest, letting him lick the bottom of my chin. Neither Cooper nor Reese seems at all interested in my appearance. They continue talking.
“So it will stop to the left of the door?” Cooper asks.
“Yeah. The left looking at it from here. You’ll only need the one bridge.” Reese’s hair is freshly trimmed, and he wears a thick layer of mud around the soles of his shoes. He appears to have confined it to his boots so far today.
I approach, feeling like the third wheel.
“Good thinking,” Cooper says. “Don’t want to be tripping over a bridge every time we come in the front door.”
I don’t miss the we.
“Hey,” I say. The guys finally look over at me. They both smile, and my heart skips a beat. Everything about this picture is wrong. “What’s going on?”
“I just stopped to grab a few things.” Cooper sneaks a glance at Reese. “You know, the extra pair of shoes for the office.”
“Right,” I say. So he is still playing that game. Against my better judgment, I follow Cooper’s lead and don’t ask him in front of Reese why he’s checking on the landscaping while he’s here.
Cooper furrows his brow. “You’re getting your shirt dirty,” he says, and points at the dusty Spencer in my arms. His tone is more surprised than concerned. I look down at my chest, set Spencer back down and noncommittally brush myself off. Cooper looks at me expectantly, but I plaster on a fake smile.
“The shoes?” I ask him, barely hiding my sarcasm.
“Right,” he says. To Reese, “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Sure.” They clasp hands, then I follow Cooper into the house, Spencer trailing behind us. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Reese. His arms are crossed over his chest. He wears a grin, eyeing my shirt. I’ve gotten used to a little dirt, and he thinks he’s climbed Mount Everest or something. I roll my eyes and hear his chuckle as I close the door.
Inside, I follow Cooper to the bedroom but stop short of entering the walk-in closet with him.
“Do you mind if I borrow this suitcase?” he asks, like we’re picking up right where we left off.
I respond with the obvious question. “What the hell are you doing here, Cooper?”
“What?” Cooper asks, emerging from the closet with my carry-on luggage and a pair of tennis shoes.
“Don’t ‘what’ me,” I say. “You can’t just keep showing up here. You don’t live here anymore. It’s been weeks. Haven’t you found a place yet? A place you can take all your things to?”
The pain of discovering his discarded book has been bubbling up inside me, and after hearing him talk to Reese as if he didn’t break my heart, it’s boiling over.
He glances at the bed and stops. “Nice bedspread.”
“Oh.” My cheeks warm from being caught attempting to exorcise him from the house. “It’s just...”
His eyebrows dip low over his eyes, but he quickly erases the expression. He heaves the suitcase onto the bed and places his shoes in it, returning to the closet. My embarrassment recedes as I recall his conversation with Reese.
“What was with the ‘we’?” I ask him.
He comes out again with two more pairs in hand.
“What ‘we’?”
“When you were talking to Reese. You said you didn’t want us tripping over a bridge every time we came in the front door.”
“Oh. Well, you know.” He shrugs.
“No, I don’t know.” Actually, I’m sure I do, but I want to hear him say it. He’s ashamed of what he did, and he doesn’t want anyone to know. He’s taking the coward’s way out, and I want him to admit it.
Cooper busies himself arranging his shoes in the bag like a 3-D puzzle. “I don’t think it’s his business, okay? Besides, it’s probably not safe for him to know you’re here alone every night without a neighbor for half a mile in any direction.”
I think about Reese coming into the house last week. If only Cooper knew how far from being a stranger Reese actually is, I’m sure he’d have a lot more to say about the subject. But to use Cooper’s words, my friendship with Reese—and my safety for that matter—is not his business.
“What about your sister?” I ask. “Why didn’t Megan know when I saw her last?”
“I’ll tell them in my own time, okay?” he says gruffly. “Besides, Megan’s been too busy to see me. That’s not exactly something you tell someone over the phone.”
“Wait. Do you mean your parents still don’t know either?”
“Oh, c’mon, Dylan. Don’t act like I’m the only one who has secrets.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He stops packing and looks at me. I purse my lips and stare him down.
“When did you see Megan?” he asks, throwing the accusing glare back at me.
“I...” My mouth goes dry as I search for an excuse.
“Look, whatever, Dylan. I’m having a shitty day, okay?” He resumes packing, throwing the shoes in haphazardly. “I had to send one of my kids to the hospital, and the only pair of shoes I took with me are giving me blisters. Will you lay off?”
I drop my hands from my hips, startled. I’ve never seen this side of Cooper. No matter how angry he would get at me during our relationship, he hardly ever raised his voice. He seems to realize this, too. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe I should feel sympathetic, but along with everything else, Cooper gave up the right to take his shitty days out on me.
“If you didn’t want to hear it, you shouldn’t have come here,” I say.
“Goddamn it, Dylan. Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?” He throws the last pair of shoes into the bag with so much force, one of them jumps back out and lands with a thud on the floor.
“I’m selfish? I’m selfish?” I hiss through my teeth.
He picks up the shoe and puts it in the bag. “Never mind. Forget I said it.”
I cross my arms. “No. You clearly have something to say. Say it.”
“Just drop it, Dylan. For once, let it go.”
“No.”
The muscles in his jaw ripple, biting back his anger. I want to see him angry. I want him to be honest for once, instead of speaking in code and passive-aggressive acts.
“You want to go there?” he asks, daring me.
“Yes! Tell me what made me such a bad girlfriend that I drove you into the arms of another woman.”
“This, for one,” he yells back at me. “You turn everything into a fight. You are so ready to disappoint me. You’ve been doing it since the night we met. You can’t stand the idea that you might not be perfect, so you keep me at arm’s length, so I won’t see your flaws. Well, guess what? We were together for nine fucking years, and I saw them all. And I still love you.”
My chest heaves and my heart pounds. I want to scream at him, and his response only makes me madder.
Love? Present tense?
“You wanted to know why I did it,” he goes on, before I can say anything, both of us very clear on what it he’s talking about. “Here it is. I felt like I was living with a stranger.”
I snap my mouth shut. Cooper’s eyes are wide like I’ve never seen them before, and I know he’s trying to hurt me with this...but I can also see the truth in it.
“You were never here,” he goes on. “And when you were, you were asleep, or in another room, or taking phone calls from the hospital, or reading. Anything but spending time with me. And don’t think I don’t know you have secrets of your own. I didn’t push because I knew you would tell me if it was something important, and I didn’t think it would affect our relationship. Clearly I was wrong on both counts.”
He raises his eyebrows, daring me to argue. I can’t.
“And when we had sex... Damn it.” He lowers his voice. “When we made love, I didn’t know where you were anymore.”
His eyes are locked with mine, judging my reaction to his words.
“Was she there?” I bite out. “Did you connect with her?”
“See,” he says and throws his hands up. “I can’t get anywhere with you.”
He zips up his bag and stares at it for a long moment, neither of us able to speak. We’ve already said too much. I realize maybe I have pushed things too far. Maybe I didn’t want to hear his side, because it would bring me to this moment: facing the ugly truth. I’ve always known I was keeping Cooper at a distance, but I hoped he didn’t notice. I hoped we could somehow work around it.
But it’s getting harder and harder to place the demise of our relationship solely on his shoulders. It’s getting harder and harder to justify my defenses.
This isn’t what Abby would have wanted for me.
“You left your book,” I tell Cooper. I break free from the tension holding us in our places. I pass Cooper, and without a single movement, I can feel him wanting to reach out to touch me. I don’t slow my pace for fear that he’ll go through with it. I’m too confused already. I grab the book from the kitchen counter, but as I turn back, Cooper emerges from the bedroom, his head down.
“Keep it,” he says, not looking at me. He crosses the living room in a few quick strides, then slams the front door behind him.
* * *
Later that week, I come home after work to catch Reese coming up the path from the creek. He comes straight up to me with a curious smile that immediately sets my nerves on edge. His green eyes are alight, apparently not holding a grudge against me for confronting him about our missed plans or for having to rescue my dinner. I, on the other hand, have not forgotten, and my cheeks burn in embarrassment, having fallen apart in front of him and because of him. He only committed to bringing a little beauty back into my busy life. He didn’t commit to being my friend.
“If I asked you to do something, could you trust me and go along with it?” he asks. Spencer circles us, snapping at air. He’s been happier spending the mornings outside with space to roam.
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Do I have a choice?” I ask.
He purses his lips together to suppress a grin. The wind rustles his hair, styled in such a way that it never falls from its perfectly messy tousle, no matter how hot it is or how hard he works.
“I’m serious, Dylan.”
“Maybe,” I say. “You have to tell me what it is first.”
“Can you stay away from the creek for a while? Stay up here?”
“But that’s my favorite spot.”
“You’re going to have to trust me.”
Trust is a lot to ask of someone you hardly know, is my first thought. Then I wonder if that’s true anymore. Working side by side with someone on a shared mission has a way of connecting people, whether they realize it or not.
“Okay,” I say.
Reese puts his hands on my arms below my sleeves so he’s touching my skin, and while instinct tells me to step away, he has me in his grip.
“Thank you,” he says. I never noticed how infrequently people look directly at the person they’re talking to until I met Reese. It seems to be the only way he communicates—straightforward, no filters.
When he lets me go, he leaves traces of soil on my arms. I don’t brush it off.
“So are you going to help me line the flower beds?” he asks. He motions toward them, and my stomach clenches at the reminder of my foolish anger. I’m surprised to hear he plans to keep working today. He should have been gone an hour ago.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. The line between our professional and personal relationship is blurry enough. It’s probably inappropriate, but that’s a hard factor to determine out here, with no one else to gauge it against.
“Really?” he asks.
“I’m really not good at this kind of thing,” I admit. “It’s better for both of us if I just stay out of your way.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know. People.” What I’m thinking but don’t say: Relationships are a minefield. And I’m not agile enough to navigate them.
He shakes his head. “Dylan, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you don’t have anything to worry about with me. We’re good,” he says. I turn my face away from him. He bends down to look at me. “Do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”
I shake my head. I’ve made a habit of not talking to him about Cooper. It feels safer that way—a clear boundary.
He smirks. “Okay. How about you tell me anyway?”
I sigh. It’s not only my fight with Cooper that’s on my mind.
“I’m supposed to be working on my grant application,” I say. “But I have no idea what I’m doing. I thought I knew what my boss wanted from me, but I’ve been wrong before.”
He frowns. “I know it’s important to you. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I scoff. “I hate it when people act confident in things they have no control over.”
There are doctors at the hospital like that, who expect everything to go smoothly in the delivery room each time. I don’t take probability for granted, and I don’t take hopes to the bank.
“Don’t you believe in the Universe?” Reese asks.
“What? You mean like God?”
“I mean cause and effect. Karma. Reaping what you sow. What goes around, comes around. You’ve done a lot of good things in your life, Dylan. Right?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to think so.” With the exception of one very big mistake.
“I know your intentions are good. I know you want this for more than yourself. You’ll get the grant,” he says. “You’ve put it out there, and the Universe is going to give it back to you. It’s just waiting on you.”
“Waiting for what?” I ask. I genuinely want to know. I’m tired of putting everything on the line for a dream that keeps eluding me.
“You tell me,” he says. I wait for him to continue with today’s words of wisdom, but he doesn’t. When I don’t respond, he asks, “Is that why you and Dr. Caldwell broke up?”
There it is. I knew it would come up eventually.
I shrug. “We were both so busy we didn’t have time for each other. Anyone would grow apart under those circumstances.” It feels like too big an admission to tell him the whole truth. I don’t want to know what he thinks it means in the grand scheme of things. I don’t want him to ask me what role I might have played in Cooper’s infidelity.
He gives me a break from the inquisition, and I pace quietly for a few minutes, but the tension is too much to take. He’s playing my card—silence.
“I don’t know why we broke up, Reese. I don’t have everything figured out. I never said I did.”
“I know.” He stands there, unfazed by my irritation with him, as he is with everything. I hate the way he seems to have so few cares in the world. It’s so easy for him to judge me. “Come here,” he finally says and reaches a hand out to me. I stare at it for a moment before I finally take it. I fight against the messages my fingertips are telling me as he leads me over to an open patch of grass and encourages me to sit down. He sits next to me, shoulder to shoulder, and we look up at the trees, our knees bent. Spencer jumps into Reese’s lap and nips at his chin, but with a few simple caresses, Reese calms him.
He finally says, “Let’s refocus here. I think we both know it isn’t really about Dr. Caldwell.” The assumption jars me, but I don’t have time to correct him before he barrels on. “Tell me why you love your job. And I’m not talking about why you started doing it or what you think you need to accomplish. On a day-to-day basis, what keeps you going back to the hospital?”
I’ve been so focused on my grant and Cooper lately, I have to dig deep to remember. But it is there.
“I love helping people,” I say. “I love giving women a sense of strength during the most challenging hours of their lives. Reassuring them in all the uncertain moments leading up to it. It’s a beautiful process to bring another living being into the world.”
“What’s your least favorite part of the job?”
“Letting people down.”
“Who are you letting down?”
I sigh against the weight of the question. “My family, my boss, Cooper. And I always worry I’m not doing enough for my patients.”
“Or maybe...maybe it’s yourself you’re letting down? We’re always hardest on ourselves, Dylan. I don’t think anyone expects you to give up your own happiness for theirs.”
I pick at the grass, ignoring the possibility that he might be right. But where’s the balance? How do I let go of anything without everything crumbling around me?
“Maybe,” I concede.
“So how do you adjust your expectations?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
He smiles and leans closer to rub his shoulder against mine. “You will.”
* * *
I finally get back into my regular schedule at work, not because I don’t want Vanessa to be upset with me, but because she’s right. And because Reese is right.
I pull out my grant application again. I’ve gotten so distracted with my personal life that I’ve let my commitment to my career and my goals slide. So on the days Reese is at the house, I leave Spencer with him and spend my lunch breaks in my office, staring at my computer screen, waiting for the right words to come to me. When Vanessa looked at it the first time, she said she thought my goals were too lofty. As I watch the blinking cursor hour after hour, day after day, I realize maybe it is time to adjust my expectations.
During one of these staring bouts, I remember my parents’ wedding anniversary is coming up soon—their thirty-fourth together. Dad hasn’t called since I visited him at his office, no doubt giving me time to think about Cooper without feeling pressured. I haven’t called him for fear of disappointing him with the news that I haven’t changed my mind, though I don’t know if it would have mattered if I had. Cooper has been keeping his distance, and I have a feeling it isn’t just because I asked him to.
As my parents’ anniversary date grows closer, though, I wait for Dad’s phone call to remind me of our usual plans. It’s always been our tradition to celebrate as a family. I think it started because when I was little, my parents couldn’t afford a babysitter—the reason they gave us was that the three of us kids were the ones who made their marriage special. By the time Dad received his inheritance, we wouldn’t hear of being left with a stranger while they went out to do something boring like eating tiny portions at a fancy restaurant and watching a movie only one of them actually wanted to see. Together we played board games, ate popcorn and drank half a flute of champagne each. When Charlie and I reached adulthood, it became more about the champagne, but it’s a tradition so strong, even Mom joins us.
When I haven’t heard from Dad by the morning of their anniversary, I try calling him several times and get no answer. I try the house phone and my brother’s cell phone, but no one picks up. No one calls me back.
After work, I drive over to my parents’ house. Charlie’s car isn’t in the driveway and Dad’s isn’t in the garage, so I’m already anxious by the time I walk inside and see boxes stacked along the wall in the foyer.
“Mom?” I call out as I run my fingers over the cardboard so fresh I can still smell the trees it came from. In black permanent marker, the simple label: Books. I lift the one corner of the tiered flaps to see John Grisham’s name staring back at me. Dad’s books. I pull my hand away, as if stung. “Mom?” I call again.
“In here.” Her faint voice carries from farther inside the house. I follow it through the living room and the kitchen to find her sitting at the head of the dining room table, alone. The energy around her is so stagnant, she could be a statue—not a living, breathing being at all. She’s dressed in an all-white pantsuit, her hair twisted up at the nape of her neck, looking just as she would for every other anniversary dinner. But instead of us circled around her, urging her to move the game piece shaped like a gingerbread man forward two red squares, her hands are in her lap, and an open bottle of champagne sits on the table. No glass, no coaster.
“What’s going on?” I ask, breaking the silence. “Are Dad and Charlie late?”
Mom shakes her head. I take another step into the room, and the tension between us tightens like a wound-up toy. Another step, another turn of the knob.
“Why are Dad’s books in the foyer?”
She watches the condensation on the champagne bottle scoot down the side of the glass and pool around the bottom of it, then she lifts it out of its own mess and takes a drink.
“Mom,” I push. “What’s going on?”
She sets the bottle back down, never tearing her gaze from it, and says, more to the alcohol than to me, “Your dad is moving out.” She looks up for my reaction. “We were going to tell you and Charlie together.”
I open and close my mouth several times. When I find my voice, I say, “You think your anniversary celebration was a good time to do it?”
“Dylan—”
“No.” I step back, releasing some of the pressure. This can’t be true. Dad wouldn’t leave. He loves Mom. In spite of everything, he loves her. “I don’t believe you.”
She shrugs. “It’s true. He wasn’t brave enough to tell you himself.”
I shake my head.
“Go look in his room if you need proof.” Now that she’s said it, I don’t need to look. She wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.
“This is your fault,” I say, unthinking. Mom doesn’t even flinch. She probably expected that reaction, but I take this to mean she agrees with me. “You’ve been closed off all these years. You’ve been closed off to all of us. You didn’t even try. What did you expect? He’d just keep waiting for you?”
My words are harsh, even to my own ears, but they’ve swirled around in my head for so long, I can’t keep them in anymore.
“How could you let this happen?” I go on from the doorway, quieter. “We already lost Abby. What will be left of our family now?”
Mom’s mouth thins at the mention of Abby, but she still makes no move to defend herself, which makes it worse. I want her to say something, anything I can latch on to. I want her to show emotion for once. I want her to fight—fight me, fight for her life, fight for our family. She says nothing.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask her, but I’m already pulling my phone out of my pocket. I find his name in my speed dial and tap it.
“He won’t answer,” she says as I put my phone to my ear. The first ring trills loudly, feeding my agitation. “He won’t,” she says again.
I cross one arm over myself—a defense mechanism—as I wait for Dad to pick up.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not ready to talk to you,” she says. She smudges the condensation on the table with her thumb. “He’s too ashamed.”
The phone rings again. “Why should he be ashamed? He did everything he could to try to make you happy.”
Ring.
Another ring.
Mom stares at the champagne bottle. “Because he slept with another woman.”
My immediate reaction is to scoff. That’s a hell of a lie to come up with to justify letting a marriage fall apart. Then anger burns through me. A lie like that could ruin my father’s reputation. After everything he’s done for our family and this community, I won’t allow her to erase it all with those six words. Then the phone rings one last time and clicks over to voice mail as a sinking feeling settles into my stomach. If it’s a lie, Mom seems to fully believe it. The expression on her face is all too familiar.
I’ve seen it in the mirror.
“You’ve reached Greg Michels. I’m sorry I can’t take your call...”
The phone slides from my ear, and I hit the End button. Dad always takes my calls. Always.
“I don’t believe you,” I say again, because I don’t want to believe her. Any of it. It’s too much. Dad has been so patient with her over the years as he tried to understand her grief, help her through it. He’s the most loving man I’ve ever known. One of them anyway.
My dad...and Cooper.
Mom sits back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “I knew you wouldn’t. That’s why I’ve never told you. You idolize your dad. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”
“How generous,” I say, before I realize that if she really is telling the truth, it’s not her I should be angry at.
Still, her distance...her coldness. Mom’s the one who pulled away. She’s the one who stopped loving us. She’s the one who treated us like it was our fault Abby died. Who wouldn’t go looking for warmth elsewhere? That’s how it started for me as a teenager—my desperate search for something to prove I was still worthy of love and, at the same time, that what happened to Abby would never happen to me. I could be with a boy without falling for him, without letting him talk me into something that would ruin my life—something that might end my life.
“What do you mean ‘never’?” I ask.
“Dylan, it happened fifteen years ago.”
I shake my head. “But that would mean it happened right after...” I trail off.
Could that mean she pulled away for more reasons than Abby’s death?
Mom purses her lips, gives the faintest nod.
“That means you’ve both been lying to me all this time.”
She sits up and puts her elbows on the table, leaning her body toward me. “You were still a kid, honey. You didn’t need to know what was going on in your parents’ personal life. You weren’t ready to handle that kind of information. Especially not when you were still grieving for Abby. I’m telling you now because I thought maybe you’d understand?” Her voice goes up at the end like she’s unsure, but her narrowed eyes prove she already knows.
“Dad told you about Cooper.”
“I wish you would have.”
A bitter laugh escapes my lips.
“Really, Mom?” I say. “Would you have made me tea and given me relationship advice?”
She recoils at my words.
“If it’s true, why are you separating now? It’s been fifteen years,” I say, as evidence that she couldn’t possibly be right. Sure, they sleep in separate rooms and have separate hobbies—her with her garden and cooking and self-medication, him with his business and a boat and a membership to the country club. But they’ve stayed. You don’t get cheated on and stay.
“I know it sounds simple,” she says. “We’re married. We took vows. But relationships aren’t simple. Sometimes you hope things will get better, and sometimes they do. But sometimes they don’t. Seeing you go through the same thing, and how hurt you are...how sure you are that you can’t get past it... I think we both realized that we haven’t gotten past it either, and that it’s time to stop pretending.”
I swallow back my emotions as I try to process what she’s saying—try to stitch together the two pictures of my childhood and my family. They don’t line up.
“Why are you telling me all this? Do you want me to be mad at Dad?” I ask. “Because I’m not.” The lie tastes metallic on my tongue. I remember my last conversation with him, and how he wanted me to forgive Cooper. And that’s how I’m sure it’s true. My dad cheated. He didn’t just want me to forgive Cooper. He wanted me to forgive him. The floor falls out from beneath me all over again.
“I could have just said your dad was moving out because we fell out of love over the years, but I thought you had the right to know the truth.”
“No,” I say. “You wanted to make yourself look better. You thought you could use what Cooper did to me to get me on your side, but I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you.”
Even as I say the words, I fear the evidence to the contrary is stacking against me.
“Dylan, I—”
“No.” I put my hand up to stop her.
“I need you to try to understand.”
“I needed you to understand, too. I needed you to understand that you aren’t the only one who lost Abby. I needed you to understand how important my career is to me. I needed you to understand how much I need you in my life. All I’ve gotten is disappointment.”
Before she can say another word, I walk out.