It turns out clichés are clichés for a reason—they are true. And this one is most definitely true: You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Jack and I are in my dad’s den, which is half office, half man cave, and it smells like before in here. We are looking for papers. A life insurance policy, information about our mortgage (though I don’t even really know what a mortgage is), bank account passwords. All important stuff Jack claims will likely be found in a single file. My mother, who has clearly reverted back to stage one, denial, or maybe pre–stage one, bacon, has taken to her bed, stuffed with an array of pig products. She’s left us alone to this masochists’ exercise.
Too many memories in here. On my dad’s desk, there’s a photo of me at the age of eight proudly holding up a rainbow lollipop the size of my head at Disney World. One of my dad and me all dressed up at my elementary school’s father-daughter dance, which I turned around as soon as we walked in so I didn’t have to look at it. Another of just him and my mom, on their honeymoon, looking ridiculously young and in love, my mom’s arms, still elaborately hennaed from the wedding, thrown around my dad’s shoulders on top of a mountain. And last, my favorite picture of my family taken at my mother’s fortieth-birthday party, which is now face down: My dad is holding me on his hip, even though I’m ten and way too big to be carried, and we’re all laughing at a joke he just cracked about my mom getting too old for him. We look happier than anyone deserves to be.
Jack and I shouldn’t be in here violating this sacred space, but my mom needs our help. When I was little, I used to beg to play in this office, right here on the beige carpet by my dad’s feet. I’d promise—cross my fingers, hope to die—not to make any noise and to let my father do whatever mysterious things he came in here to do. Of course, I never kept my mouth shut. I’d ask inane questions—did he know that octopus blood is blue? that male sea horses carry their babies?—just because I wanted to hear my dad’s voice, I guess.
I loved the sound of his voice: deep and gravelly. The sound of home.
“Sea horses can carry up to two thousand babies at a time, though it’s usually closer to fifteen hundred. And octopus blood is blue because it has a special protein to make them able to live in extreme temperatures. Now out, Kitty Cat. This is a no-kids zone,” my dad would say, ushering me through the door.
I tell myself that it’s okay to be in here. That I’m not a kid. Not anymore.
And my father’s blood, it turns out, was neither blue nor red. It was a coppery brown. The color of dirty pennies.
Jack and I work in silence. We have three bags: keep, donate, trash. Occasionally one of us will pick something up, like the random silver rabbit my dad used as a paperweight, and ask the other with a wordless shrug where it should go. Keep, I point, more times than I should. It’s not lost on me that I have no problem staying quiet in here now. The room seems to demand it.
I tear up when I find a file marked Kit. Inside, there are ten years’ worth of my report cards kept chronologically, pictures of my mom and me, the certificate declaring me a National Merit semifinalist, the project I did for Culture Day in kindergarten, where I drew my family holding hands and colored my dad in with a peach crayon, my mother with a brown one, and me half and half, divided straight down the middle. On my forehead, I drew a Christmas tree bindi. The picture became a running joke that my left side is Indian and Sikh and my right is American and Episcopalian.
“Get your left side ready,” my dad would joke. “Mom is taking you to temple tomorrow morning.”
This file is proof of that which I already knew: Our lives were good. Maybe even perfect.
And then, in a simple folder, I see a five-page, single-spaced legal document. I read it. There must be some mistake. This cannot be what I think it is. Jack sees my face and comes to read over my shoulder.
“Oh crap,” he says. “You shouldn’t. I mean, I didn’t know he even…Kitty Cat, don’t read that—”
“My name is not Kitty Cat!” I yell, though this is not Jack’s fault. It’s my dad’s.
On the top of the page are written the words Petition for Divorce from the Bonds of Marriage. I may not officially be a grown-up, may not be able to accurately define the word mortgage, but I am not stupid. I know what it means. And I know what this word means too, found under a section entitled “Grounds” in underline and bold: adultery.
I run up the stairs two at a time and bang on my mother’s door.
“Mom!” I scream, and run into her room before she even says to come in. The tears are flowing down my face, and I hate myself for it. I’ve kept it together for five weeks, have not let a single person see me cry, and it’s this that finally makes me break. Half of my friends have been here. Annie’s parents got divorced. Jack is divorced from Katie.
Marriages fall apart all the time, but I never thought it would happen to my parents. They seemed above that somehow.
And then it hits me that ironically there are no real consequences. My dad is dead. I don’t have to deal with two homes and complicated weekend arrangements and awkward Thanksgiving negotiations. This changes nothing about my future.
Still, it changes everything I believed about my past. How I feel about the person I’ve lost.
“What the hell? Dad cheated on you and you were getting a divorce? How could I not have known? How could you guys have kept this from me?” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. I need to stop crying, but I can’t seem to stop the flow of water or the heaving of my shoulders. I shove the papers at her, but she refuses to take them.
“Kit, it’s not what you think. We weren’t getting a divorce. We were still talking about things. Your dad and I were going to see someone. A couples therapist,” she says, and pats the bed next to her as if she thinks I could sit at a time like this. She is neither surprised nor crying. In fact, she looks almost serene.
“When? When did you guys go to a therapist?”
“On Tuesday nights. We didn’t really take up bridge.” I used to tease my parents about their weekly card game. Told them that they should have chosen to play something cool, like poker. And they had humored me. Smiled, kissed me on my forehead, said, “Don’t stay up too late,” on their way out the door. They were actually going to talk to a doctor about my dad sleeping with another woman. Get an expert opinion on whether they could save their marriage.
So many lies.
Last week I suggested that my mother start playing bridge again. I thought it would be good for her to see her friends. She shook her head mournfully and said, “I just couldn’t without your father.”
Bullshit. All bullshit.
“I didn’t know he kept the papers,” my mother says. “I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t…” My mom trails off and I want to scream it out loud—Died, if he hadn’t died, Mom—but I don’t.
“But he cheated on you. How could he…?” My voice breaks and I start over. “How could he do that to us?”
“Wait, Kit. He didn’t. Dad didn’t cheat on me.”
“I’m not stupid, Mom. It says so right here.” I point again to the sheet of paper, which now lies on the floor. I should have listened to the rules and not gone into my dad’s den: a no-kids zone. With the snot and the tears and my childish temper tantrum, it’s clear to me that I did not—do not—belong in there. Even now. Even after everything.
“He didn’t cheat on me,” she repeats.
“But, Mom!”
She sighs.
“I cheated on him.” Her tone reminds me of David’s. Flat. Neutral. Matter-of-fact. Like she’s Siri telling me tomorrow’s weather. She’s not crying, and I think back over the past month, to all her tears and wails and the million used tissues she left littered in messy balls around the house. Was that all a show for my benefit?
“I like to think I was going to tell you. At some point. When you were older, maybe,” she says, and shakes her head. “Or not. Some mistakes are better kept secret.”
“What? You cheated? When? With who?” I ask, and despite myself, I hear her correction in my head: With whom. This is, of course, not what I really want to know. What I want to know is Why? and How could you? and What do I do now? That last one in particular.
She doesn’t answer. Uncle Jack comes up the stairs, two at a time, and stands in the doorway behind me.
“Kit,” he says, using the same lion-tamer voice he used on my mother just a few nights ago. I see why she stormed out. It’s infuriating.
“This is none of your business, Uncle Jack,” I say, and turn back to my mother. I wonder how long I need to wait till she tells me the truth. I will probably have to stand here forever. But it turns out my mom’s not even looking at me. She’s looking right over my shoulder at Jack, who shakes his head at her, just once, so fast I almost miss it.
Oh no, I think. No, no, no.
Because now I understand everything. My mom doesn’t have to say a single word out loud.
Just when I assume things can’t get any worse, they do. They always do.
It was Jack.
My mother had an affair with Uncle Jack.