a desperate need, but I didn’t want to do anything to clue Simon in.
I knew my own weakness well, and if I broke down in tears in front of him, he’d ask questions, and that could lead to problems. It destroyed me to wait even a fraction of a second. Maybe my father wanted to chat—right now, online—and this was our only moment. Maybe the police were closing in on him (for reasons unknown) and this was it, our last chance to communicate before he vanished again for good.
I held my breath, tried to block out the images of my dad sitting in a car, or at a park, or somewhere, clutching his phone, eyes glued to the screen, sirens blaring in the background, and him going, “Come on, Maggie. Where are you? Where are you? I have to say good-bye. I have to tell you one last time how much I love you and how sorry I am for everything.”
“It’s fine,” I blurted out, my legs bouncing like I had ants crawling on my skin. “Talk to Mom about it, okay? I don’t know. I … I have to go.” I gathered up my papers and books as fast as I could.
“I just want us to be friends,” Simon said.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and off I ran, out of the library and into the hallway, bringing my phone to my face.
I opened the Talkie app and tapped on Dad’s message, reading while walking.
Sweetheart it’s me. Have your phone available Monday at noon. I’ll have a few minutes to chat online with you. I’ll tell you what I can, but I can’t tell you everything.
CHAPTER 26
It’s never going to end with Maggie and Simon, Nina thought glumly as she arrived at Dr. Wilcox’s office for her afternoon therapy session. The big family meeting from the night before had produced a tense truce, but little more. Simon had told Nina in a brief phone conversation earlier in the day that he’d spoken with Maggie at school and tried apologizing again. He thought he’d made some progress, but said she was acting oddly, really distracted, visibly upset by something. He didn’t get the sense it was related to him.
“I’m really worried about her,” Simon said, and suggested to Nina that she and Maggie have a heart-to-heart conversation.
That was probably sage advice, thought Nina. Despite Rona’s assurance about a gentle ramp-up period, the work had been piling up at a steady rate. Perhaps Simon was right to think Maggie didn’t like the competition for her mother’s attention.
As much as Nina wanted to get home to help sort it out, she had a more pressing need that required Dr. Wilcox’s expertise.
Hours ago, Nina had wrapped up her first home visit since resuming her career—a trip to Wendy Cooper’s house to conduct a formal assessment for the custody hearing. While it was an extremely productive session, it had also dredged up feelings she desperately needed to discuss.
“So what was it about the home visit that has you so on edge?” Dr. Wilcox asked, parroting Nina’s words back to her.
Nina mulled this over a moment. “Wendy was lovely and the kids were great,” she said. “There were no red flags. I didn’t sense anything amiss.”
“But—” Dr. Wilcox correctly guessed there was more.
“But even though I was there as an impartial professional, I couldn’t help but reflect on my marriage. I wondered if my story was somehow similar to Wendy’s. I mean, her big complaint was that her soon-to-be-ex, Michael, was a workaholic, which was Glen’s MO as well.”
“It’s natural for anyone to make comparisons and look for parallels to their life experience. Did you pick up on other similarities between you and Wendy?”
Nina nodded. “For sure. The kids came to Wendy for everything—a glass of water, help finding the TV clicker, help with homework. We were probably interrupted five or six times for this or for that. But I didn’t think anything of it until after I left, because that was my life, too. I was the go-to person in the family for everything and Glen would breeze in and out when his work commitments allowed. I know it’s a common story, but it definitely caused tension in my marriage, Wendy’s, too, but what’s strange for me, and I guess what I wanted to talk about today, is that it actually made me think of Simon. I kind of have the reverse problem with him. It’s like I’m the workaholic, even though I’m not anything like