Only One (Reed Brothers)(20)

Dad leans his forehead on her arched knee and breathes heavily. I can barely hear his voice, and he’s stuffy like he’s been crying. “I have to tell her,” he says. “I’m going to do it when she gets back. Right away. I should have told her a long time ago.”

Mom has dark circles under her eyes and she’s sniffling, too. I don’t know what happened when I was gone, but I do want to know. I just don’t want to know this.

“I don’t think you should,” Mom says.

Dad soaps the washcloth and picks up her arm, washing her tenderly and slowly. Intimately. Like lovers. Like husband and wife. He drags the cloth across her mastectomy scars in slow, sweet, tender sweeps. “I wish I’d been with you through this,” he says.

“I wasn’t even with me when I first found out, John.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it any better.”

“It won’t get better.” She grabs his hand again and holds it tight against her heart. “I have a month, if that long. Can you stay?”

Dad breaks. A sob shakes his shoulders.

“Come here,” Mom says, and she opens her arms, sitting up a little. She holds him to her and he runs his hands up and down her naked body.

“So much wasted time,” he says. “I don’t want to waste anymore.”

I can almost see Mom visibly relax. She sits back a little and looks into his face. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly.

“I love you, Pattycakes. I’ve always loved you. Let me have this last month, will you?”

“Okay,” she says quietly. Then she kisses him. And he kisses her back. It’s soft and sweet at first, and then it becomes more. More than I am comfortable seeing. I leave the roses on the dresser and back out of the room. Then I leave them a note and go to find Amber and Rose, and I pretend like I didn’t just see what I saw. Mainly because I don’t know what to do with it.

***

At eight o’clock, I leave Amber and Rose, despite their protests. I go home, but only because I know Nick is going to be there. He’s going to come and find me, and hopefully take me away from whatever is going on between Mom and Dad.

I let myself in the back door and find Mom standing in the kitchen. She looks up, and her cheeks redden. Does she know that I know? Dad is standing beside her chopping vegetables. She’s drinking a glass of wine, and I can’t help but remember that this is how it used to be before she messed it all up. We were happy. We were like this.

“Carrie,” Mom says. “I’m glad you’re back. Just in time for dinner.”

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Much better. I’m sorry I scared you last night.”

I nod and steal a piece of the zucchini Dad’s chopping. He swats my hand with a roll of aluminum foil.

“You look much better than you did last night,” I say to her.

“They gave me some blood. Plasma. Something. It feels better just having stopped the chemo, honestly.”

Dad passes her the knife. “Feel good enough to chop?” he asks.

“John,” she warns. “Don’t.”

I look from him to her. “Don’t what?”

She shakes her head and starts to chop.

“Let’s take a walk,” Dad says. He jerks his head toward the sliding glass door that leads to the beach.

Mom bites her lips together like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She just chops.

Dad and I step out onto the sand and he’s quiet as we walk down to the water. “What did you want to talk about?” I ask as we turn toward the lighthouse.

He doesn’t say anything. He just looks toward the horizon and gnaws the inside of his cheek. I wait him out. Finally he looks at me.

“It takes two people to make a marriage,” he says.

I wait, because I don’t think he’s done.

“And two people to break a marriage,” he goes on to say.

“O-kay,” I say slowly, dragging out the word as a prompt.

“Your mom and I had settled into a rhythm. One I’d got used to. So had she. But she was struggling more than I realized.”

We walk in silence.

“I should have known,” he says. “I should have paid more attention, but I was busy with work, and we were both busy with you.”

Walk. Silence.

“Your mom was really depressed, and I didn’t realize it. She came to me and told me how unhappy she was, and I blew it off because we had the perfect life. We had a wonderful daughter and great jobs and a big old house. We had the American dream. But her dream was a nightmare and I didn’t realize it.”

More walk. More silence.

“I thought she would come around. But she didn’t. Then one day, she left. I know now that it was her way of isolating herself, fueled by her depression. But at the time, I blamed it on a man that didn’t even exist. Your mom never cheated. She did leave. But she did it because she felt alone even in a house full of people. Even in a crowded room, she felt like no one was there with her.”

“There was no man?”

He shakes his head. “I swore there had to be, because what other reason would she have to leave, you know?” He throws up his hands. “I believed with all my heart that there was someone else.”