He turned from the window. Silence stretched as he considered his next step. “We should talk with Dad when he gets home. Maybe together we can convince him to drop his petition.”
Ethel shook her head as Darius spoke. “That won’t work. I’m done with talking. I tried talking to him. Simon won’t listen. I told him that if he even campaigned for mayor, I’d divorce him. He still chose to start this petition.”
Darius tensed. He’d known for a long time—decades—that his parents’ marriage wasn’t a happy one. If the town had a yearbook, their marriage would be voted “Least Likely to Succeed.” But he still couldn’t imagine them divorced. “You would divorce him? Where would you go?”
Simon’s voice interrupted them from the room’s entrance. “Yes, Ethel. Tell us what you would do without me.”
Ethel rose from the sofa and turned her glare on her husband of more than thirty years. “You don’t believe that I would divorce you?” She looked at Darius. “You both think that I’m bluffing? Try me, then.”
Ethel dashed across the room, shoving Simon out of the way before racing up the stairs. Darius’s heart broke at the sound of her sobs.
“This has gone too far, Dad.” Darius gestured after his mother. “You can see Mom’s miserable.”
Simon stepped farther into the room. “Your mother’s always threatening to divorce me.”
“Your campaign for public office isn’t a decision you can make on your own.” Darius’s muscles were screaming for him to shake Simon until his father’s teeth rattled. “We need to make that decision as a family. It affects all of us. Mom and I don’t want you to run. We want you to drop your petition.”
Simon crossed his arms. “We’ve talked about this before. My answer’s still no.”
Darius rubbed the back of his neck, where the muscles were still knotted. “
Are you going to let this decision destroy your marriage?”
“Your mother’s not going to leave me.”
“What if she does? Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
Simon frowned. “I’ve provided for my family. Now I’ve decided to do something for myself.”
“You’re being selfish.” The urge to shake his father grew stronger and stronger.
“No, you are. This is what I want. You should support me, instead of trying to talk me out of it—which you won’t be able to do.”
“The interview you gave the Monitor is bullshit.” Darius massaged the back of his neck again. “The town knows those initiatives you claimed to have proposed to the council came from Doreen.”
“I would have proposed them if she hadn’t.”
Darius stared at his father, seeing a stranger. “Can you hear yourself? Drop the petition, Dad. You’ve done enough damage to your reputation and to the family. Don’t tear the town apart as well.”
“Stop asking me to drop my petition. I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
Simon’s thin cheeks flushed. “Because it’s what I want.”
Darius considered the evasive expression in Simon’s dark eyes, the flush on his thin cheeks and the hesitation in his voice. Realization dawned on Darius. “Who talked you into doing this?”
Simon’s eyes widened. “No one. This was my idea.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Simon shrugged. “Believe what you want.”
It was so obvious. Darius should have realized it sooner. Someone else was behind Simon’s decision to run for public office. Who was it, and what were they after?
“How can you read the Sunday paper on your laptop?” Audra’s question broke Jack’s concentration.
He half sat, half lay on his dark plaid sofa with his computer balanced on his lap. Jack looked up from the screen and the online version of the Monitor’s Sunday paper. His lips twitched with humor. “That’s the third time you’ve asked that question.”