“No. I thought it was the only way to get you to come.
I denied with my head.
“You’re amazing.
I turned back to the door.
“Open it.
“Please. There’s something else.
I don’t care.
“You’ll mind.
Something in his voice stopped me.
I looked at him again.
Now I was looking at the ground.
“Your mother doesn’t know I asked you to come here.
That made everything even worse.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I wanted you to listen to my version before she told you hers.
I crossed my arms.
Your version of what?
He took a deep breath.
Our marriage has not worked for a long time.
I didn’t say anything.
We have been sleeping in separate rooms for months.
I remembered that one night I woke up late and saw him asleep on the couch in the living room.
Mom had told me she had fallen asleep watching TV.
Apparently, that had also been a lie.
“She wants me to leave the house,” he continued. He says he can’t trust me anymore.
Why?
He looked at me straight.
Because I had an affair.
I was paralyzed.
There are phrases that instantly change the way you see a person.
That was one of them.
How long?
— About six months.
I couldn’t talk.
I thought of my mother.
On his tired face.
On the nights when I said I couldn’t sleep.
In the mornings when I had swollen eyes and blamed allergies.
She knew it.
How long has Mom known?
“Three weeks.
“And you thought you should bring me here and tell me before she could?”
I knew what he was going to say about me.
I stared at it.
“I would tell the truth.
I’m telling you the truth, too.
“No. You’re trying to control how I hear about her.
He stood up.
I’m not asking you to forgive me.
“So what are you asking me?
It was hard to find an answer.
Finally he said:
I don’t want to lose you either.
That surprised me.
He’d helped raise me since he was ten.
He taught me how to drive.
He attended the schoolworks that my biological father never went to.
When I broke my wrist at seventeen, he sat next to me in the emergency room until dawn.
For twelve years, Dad had called him when no one else was around.
