Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Hallie, of course I’m driving you,” he interrupted, his tone stern. Then he leaned down to kiss Richelle’s cheek. “I’m sorry to cut this short. I’ll see you soon.”
“Of course, go, go.” She stood to hug him and then rounded the table to embrace me. “I hope you work things out with your family.”
My smile was pained. “Thank you for this weekend. I’ve had such a good time. I’m sorry to rush out on you like this.”
“Don’t be silly. Family comes first. It was so good to meet you, and I can’t wait to see you again.” She gave me a broad smile. “Let me wrap up these sandwiches while you grab your things.”
Ten minutes later we were in Chris’s car, wrapped sandwiches on my lap, as we drove out of Richelle’s driveway.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized again.
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Chris replied softly. “It’s not your fault.”
My resentment grew as we drove down the tree-lined highway, heading out of East Hampton. It had been so refreshing to get away from the city, to be by the sea, but more so to spend time in the company of two people I clicked with. For the first time in a long time, I felt like myself, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
The reminder that my parents were a mess and didn’t seem to care about dragging me into their chaos made me so mad, I wanted to leap out of the car and just run back to the beach.
“I can feel you stewing from here,” Chris said. “You can talk to me, you know. If it’ll help.”
Embarrassed by the whole situation, it took me a while to answer. “My parents’ divorce has been the extra-messy kind, and I find myself stuck in the middle a lot.” I looked over at him.
He scowled. “I’m sorry to hear that. Can I ask what caused the divorce? You don’t have to tell me if it’s too personal.”
Where to even start?
“My parents are complicated together,” I sighed heavily, remembering the thousands of fights. “I didn’t realize it then, but looking back as an adult, I can see that I grew up in a very tense, unstable home. My parents veered between being the best of friends, mortifying me with public make-outs one weekend and then with public arguments the next. They fought a lot. My dad is—was—a sweet guy, but I think he was always insecure about my mom. Like he thought she could do better. So he was jealous of a lot of other men, and my mom found that hard to deal with. On the flip side, Mom is kind of materialistic, and they argued about money a lot too. Mom always seemed to want more, and Dad was very practical about finances and didn’t think we should spend it on luxury items like a big house or a pool. They also argued about how much my dad worked. Mom was a real estate agent before she opened up her own real estate company, but she always was there for me. Every school event, every parents’ evening, every birthday. Dad couldn’t seem to manage that. While I knew he loved us, he prioritized his work a lot. So they fought about that too.
“I spent a lot of my childhood trying to defuse their arguments because I was so scared they’d get a divorce. I’d seen what that had done to friends’ families, and I didn’t want that.”
God, how I’d worried about that as a kid, how I worried if I saw a man smiling at Mom too long, or if I had a school thing Dad couldn’t make, and how those things might lead to an argument. A kid shouldn’t have to worry about that stuff.
“I kind of thought by the time I graduated from college that parents just didn’t divorce after a certain age.” I laughed humorlessly. “So naive of me. About two years ago, something happened with my mom that I still don’t quite understand because she won’t talk about it. I suspect it was some kind of depression, but Mom isn’t one for talking about feelings. So she just did things we didn’t understand, and the biggest was asking Dad to move out.” Emotion thickened my throat. “He was so devastated, Chris. Even with all the arguing, my dad adored my mom. He would tell me all the time that he thought there was no one as beautiful or as funny as my mom. And she just seemed to throw him away. I know it can’t have been that simple, and he knew that too, but goddammit, she won’t talk about it. It went on for about a year, and Dad decided he needed closure, so he asked for a divorce. It rattled my mom. She broke down in front of me, and I’d never seen her like that. She told me how much she loved him, how much she hated herself for what she’d put him through. But then afterward she pretended it never happened, and she was too proud to tell my dad she’d made a mistake and wanted him back.