would probably ensue.
“Your addition?” he asks when he catches me looking.
“Oh, yes. Definitely. I have so much extra money to toss around that I decided to spend it on a thousand dollars’ worth of canisters.” Yes, I looked them up. And yes, they really do cost more than a hundred dollars each.
He shakes his head. “My aunt always did have her problems.”
“Maybe so, but being a drug addict wasn’t one of them, Dad.”
He harrumphs his disagreement. Or maybe it’s his disapproval. Since I announced my divorce from Karl, it’s gotten harder and harder to tell the difference between the two.
The coffeepot starts brewing. “Do you want a cup?”
He looks around the kitchen. “Do you have something stronger?”
“Stronger?” I lift a brow in mock surprise. “At three o’clock in the afternoon, Dad?”
He shrugs but doesn’t say anything else.
I don’t have any hard liquor, and I haven’t found Aunt Maggie’s stash yet—if she had one—so I grab one of the open wine bottles from last night and pour him a glass.
“Thank you.” He grabs the glass like it’s a lifeline and takes a deep sip. Then he sighs and looks around the room. “I hadn’t realized things had gotten this bad.”
“What things?” If my mom told him about Sasha being pregnant, I really don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it—not now. Not until I absolutely have to.
“With Aunt Maggie.” He gets a pinched look around his eyes, and the muscle in his jaw twitches. “The house is a disaster.”
I have no clue what to say to that. If he thinks this is a disaster, I can only imagine what he would have thought if he saw the place a couple of days ago—or the upstairs right now.
“I saw all the bags down at the curb,” he continues. “My parents used to talk about Maggie’s tendency to ‘collect’ things, but it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood what that meant. She did so well for so long, I hadn’t realized she’d fallen back into her old habits.”
He turns his face away from me, his lips pursed together, and if it hadn’t been broad daylight, I never would have believed for a second that the man’s cheek was wet before I watch him wipe the single tear away.
“I should have checked on her more,” he admits.
I plop down into the chair next to Dad’s, my knees no longer willing to hold me up with the sudden and totally out-of-character reveal.
“She was always something. I mean, I didn’t understand her. Ever. She was flighty and wild and more than a little bit of everything a Martin shouldn’t be, but I couldn’t help but be amazed by her. She never did what was expected.” He drains the rest of the wineglass in one gulp. “The last thing I would have expected was for her to leave you the house. I guess that’s why I should have expected she’d do it. She always did love cheering on the underdog.”
Wow. Okay, that hurts even if it’s true.
But where Dad saw a flighty woman who didn’t meet expectations, I saw a woman who bowed to no one. Ever.
Dad twirls the glass around on the table. I figure he’s thinking about Aunt Maggie some more, and I stand up to get more coffee and give him a little bit of time to collect his thoughts.
But then he totally surprises me by asking, “Why didn’t you tell me you hired some law firm to represent you in the divorce?”
“How do you know that? I haven’t told anyone.” I whirl around, shocked, until it dawns on me. “You talked to Karl.”
“He is my son-in-law, you know.”
“Your soon-to-be-ex-son-in-law,” I shoot back, wondering how coffee would taste with a wine chaser.
“My soon-to-be-ex-son-in-law,” he repeats, sounding defeated. “I just can’t figure out why you wouldn’t ask my firm to represent you once you decided you really wanted to go through with the divorce.”
“Dad, I decided I wanted to go through with the divorce the moment I found out Karl was cheating on me. I can’t live like that.”
“Maybe so.” Somehow, he looks even more pained. “But I wish you’d come to me, to my firm.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to represent me.”
More, I don’t want him to represent me. One, because I don’t want to mix my family up in this any more than they already are. And two—and this is the kicker—after everything he and my mom said about Karl and me, I don’t