The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(46)

THE DIVORCE came when I was twenty-five. My mom discovered that my dad had been cheating on her for several months with a woman from his office.

Exactly how she found out, I don't know. I never asked. It was a detail I wasn't sure I could handle. Funny, you would think that after the burden I'd been carrying around for all those years, one tiny little additional piece of information would be an easy enough thing for me to digest. But it was exactly the other way around. If I had to internalize one more element of my parents' failing relationship, I would certainly lose it. That whole camel back–breaking straw phenomenon.

But whatever the reason, however the method, she found out about this one. And she left him.

To say I was relieved would be like saying, "I'm thirsty" in the middle of a desert. It's an understatement beyond all understatements. And it doesn't even begin to do justice to my true feelings.

"Jennifer," my mom had said tearfully after sitting me down in the tiny, one-bedroom apartment I was renting at the time. "I need to talk to you about something."

I took a seat next to her and gave her my full attention. "Yeah, Mom?" It was rare for her to come over to my apartment by herself, let alone with the introduction of "I need to talk to you about something." So I was immediately concerned.

"Your father and I have decided that our marriage just isn't working the way that it used to, and we think it's best if we split up and get a divorce."

The reaction was easy to fake. The tears were genuine. But according to my mom, they were the painful, heartbreaking tears of a child who had just lost the only family she's ever known. But in all actuality, they were tears of joy, relief, and most of all, liberation from the dysfunctional household that had imprisoned me for far too long.

I felt like someone had opened a door that I had been leaning and pressing and pushing against for years. A door that had kept me trapped inside a dark room full of secrets, and I was afraid of the dark. But it was all over now. Everything would be fine. I could come clean. I could tell her what I'd been keeping locked up all this time. Because it would no longer matter. She had seen the light and she was moving on. The past would be in the past and I could finally release the demons that had been haunting me throughout most of my life.

"Why?" I asked, my tone filled with curiosity but my head filled with expectation. Because I already knew the answer.

She sniffled slightly and reached out to touch my face. I saw the struggle in her eyes. Her fight to stay strong for a daughter who couldn't possibly understand the complications of an adulterous marriage. "Honestly, honey. Your dad was not faithful to me." She swallowed hard and attempted to regain her courage and composure. "And when I confronted him about it, he admitted that he hadn't been faithful for a while."

I swallowed hard before managing to ask, "How long a while?" Even though I was pretty sure I already knew. But I needed to know what she knew. I needed to know just how much honesty he had given her.

"More than ten years," she said softly, bowing her head.

More tears fell. My mom reached out and held me close to her. She stroked my hair like I was a child. And, ironically, I felt just like one. It was exactly the kind of comfort I needed... thirteen years too late.

I knew this was it. This was the time to say it. All it would take was a simple "I know" and my whole world would change. My life could start over. I could even attempt to find some of the childhood that I had lost to sleepless nights and merciless anxiety. I opened my mouth to speak the words that promised to heal me.

But instead I heard my mother say, "I just wish I would've known earlier."

"What?" I asked, panic filling my eyes. I couldn't even begin to fathom the logic behind her statement. At age twelve the only thing that had made sense was protecting her from the truth. What you don't know can't hurt you. "Some things are better left unsaid," as my dad had so poignantly put it. And that rationale had followed me into my adult life. I'd never even allowed myself to reassess it.

She smiled tenderly at me and took my hand in hers. "You know, so I could have moved on with my life. So I wouldn't have wasted all those years, being married to a man who wasn't loyal."

And those were the magic words.

Not only because they made perfect sense, but because they were the exact opposite of the words that had led me so far down this stray path. And the fact that they made perfect sense was the reason I had to shut the door again. I couldn't let my mom know that I had been responsible for her lost happiness. My immature, naive choices had taken years off her life... literally.

And the whole time I thought I was protecting her, I was actually protecting him. The very person I had grown to loathe and look down upon had actually benefited from my silence.





11

A Heart Flush


I RECOGNIZED Parker from his picture right away. As I scanned the tables at the Bellagio Poker Room I assumed the other early-thirty-something guys scattered around the room were friends of his, judging by the way they were all dressed: ready to hit the clubs once poker was deemed no longer entertaining.

I gave my name to the poker room manager standing at the front podium, along with one of the several hundred-dollar bills I had stuffed into my small white leather Versace clutch.

"Table number 13, please," I said quietly, motioning ever so slightly toward the table where my subject was seated.