summer before I went home, I would write them a letter telling them everything I was too chicken to say in person. When Ray and I divorced, I came here for a while, to get my bearings.” She glances at my mom. “And I wrote him a few letters too.” She laughs and then pops the last bite of ice cream cone into her mouth. “What about you?” She turns her gaze on me. “Getting any writing done while you’re here?”
“A little. Nothing earth-shattering. But a little.”
Addy says, “The writing can save you.”
My mom winks at me and I say, “So I hear.”
I don’t want to talk about my writing, so I tell them I’m going inside to get a drink. In the kitchen, Dandelion threads through my legs, and I stoop down to pet him. In a minute I hear the screen door slam.
“So how are you really doing?” Addy stands above me, hands on hips.
“Oh, you know.”
“I know.” She squats down beside me and rubs Dandelion under the chin. “I’m sorry about your parents, sweetheart. Your mom is one of the greatest women on this planet and my very best friend. She’s more my sister than my own sisters. Something like this—I don’t know. I can’t imagine it, even though I’ve been through it. But she loves that man. I’ll never understand it.”
And it’s hard to know what she doesn’t understand—why my mom loves my dad, or why this separation is happening at all. But in that moment it feels like a curtain is lifting and I’m seeing my mom behind it, completely exposed, and all I want to do is look away but I can’t because now I’ve seen it.
I say, “She’s always got it together, at least on the outside. I think the work helps. It’s good that she’s busy.”
“As long as she’s not hiding. She can do that, you know. That’s why I came here. To make sure she’s not hiding too much. I want her to know she’s got me, always. And of course she has you. I need you to keep an eye on her for me until I can come back, especially now that people know.”
“People know?”
“About the separation, about the fact that your mom is on an island off Georgia indefinitely, about the girlfriend.” She mutters this last thing so that I almost don’t hear it. Only I do hear it. The girlfriend.
And in that moment the floor disappears again. I look down, searching for it, and even though it’s technically there, I know it’s gone. I don’t have to ask, What girlfriend? because I know. It goes beyond Saz’s parents seeing my dad in a bar with a woman. The way my stomach has just turned over tells me. The cold, cold chill in my bones tells me. The too-fast beating of my heart tells me.
I don’t want you to think there’s anyone else. It’s important that you know that.
But there is someone else. Which means not only did he drop the floor out from under me, but he also lied about it.
“The fact that she works with him is such a fucking cliché.”
“I know.” Because it’s easier than saying, I didn’t know. I didn’t really know any of this. I didn’t even know she existed till just now. I don’t want to hear this. Whatever this is. I want to forget I’ve heard any of it. I want to reach inside my ears and grab the words and fling them at her.
“Your mom is being a real trouper, but it’s hard for her. And I know it’s hard for you, too.”
I somehow say, “It is.”
If it’s true that my mom knew about this, that she kept it secret and chose not to tell me, then she lied too. And because it’s her, this is so much worse than my dad.
Addy puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes me. I can smell her perfume and her shampoo. I can see the mole on the side of her neck, just behind her ear. I think of how long I’ve known her, all my life, and that I’ve known her perfume and her shampoo and the mole behind her ear just as long. But right now they seem like things that add up to nothing.
What I hear is, Everyone knew but you. We all think you’re so stupid for not being able to see that this was happening with your own father.
What she really says is, “You let me