“It wasn’t your first date with her last night?”
There was a pause before he answered. And he lowered his stare and shook his head before he spoke. “No, it wasn’t.”
Elle sat forward. “How long has this been… wait, you’re seeing her? Like, girlfriend seeing her?”
“I didn’t know how to handle it all.” He stared across the table. “There’s no handbook for divorce, no blueprint for how to do all of this. And I just didn’t know what was for the best.”
“I’m pretty sure lying to your kids is not on that list.”
He nodded. “That’s fair, and I don’t blame you for being mad. But I’m trying to be sensitive to…”
“To Mom? Is that who you’re really worried about?”
“Look, I know that she’s having a hard time. I know that you go over there and it’s hard. I know you worry about her. I worry about her, too.”
Elle frowned. “So Megan is your girlfriend.”
Her father took a deep breath. “Yes, she is.”
As the words sank in, all she could do was sit there and blink. And then she looked at those running shoes by the snow boots and the avocados in with the apples. Suddenly, their little four-top in their new “family” house had a smug ghost sitting in the empty chair.
“Holy shit, Dad, since when has this been going on.” And then she did the math. “Are you even kidding me. All those business meetings? Those overnight conferences when Auntie Bette came over and stayed with us? They were all because you were seeing ‘Megan’—”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m really sorry.”
“So you’ve been lying since for how long?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “How long?”
When he didn’t reply, a cold wash of dread went through Elle. “Is she the reason you got a divorce? Oh, my God, did you cheat on Mom?”
“No, of course not.”
They were the right words. But his eyes had dropped to the table again.
“If you’re lying to me now,” Elle said in a low voice, “and I find out, I am moving in with Mom and taking Terrie with me. I don’t care if that apartment is a mess.”
“Elle…” He cursed softly. In French. “It was very complicated. Things between your mother and I, especially at the end, were… it was all just complicated.”
Elle shoved her chair back, and as she stood up, her parka fell off her lap and onto the floor. “That’s a Facebook status. It’s not an acceptable reason for killing a family.”
For all of her life, her father had been the steady and calm one, the one she could look to for guidance. Now, he seemed as lost as a child.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“Your mom and I had been drifting apart for a while.”
“Because you were cheating on her!”
“No, that came later.” This was said almost absently, as if he’d meant to keep that to himself. And then he seemed to snap back to attention. “People grow apart, Elle. It’s a sad, terrible truth. We started with the best of intentions, but then… things changed. Especially after her parents died in that car accident. She just disappeared into herself, and I don’t blame her for that.”
Hazy memories of the two-for-one funeral surfaced and then were promptly dismissed. She couldn’t go there right now.
As Elle collapsed back into her chair, her father cursed and rubbed his face with the towel. “Ultimately, it was my fault. I will be honest about that. It was… I was working too much, and she was grieving… and we… people drift apart.”
“But you were married.” Elle felt younger than her sister by ten years as she spoke in a fragile way. “You were in love. Once.”
“Things happen, Elle.” Her father’s eyes teared up. “People get older and events shape your life in ways you’d never predict. But the one thing she and I have always agreed on, and will always agree on, is that you and your sister are the best things we’ve ever done. That will never change. Ever.”
She thought of her mother’s dark apartment, and wasn’t sure how true that was.