with someone my dad had named “Robert” in his phone. That was his MO. Give the woman he was talking to a male name to eradicate any suspicion should a notification pop up within eyesight of someone who wasn’t supposed to see—like my mom. Or me.
That pit in my belly turned to an ache as I scrolled through the messages briefly, but long enough to confirm my suspicions, dodging his efforts to take the phone back.
“It’s just a former client,” he said, grasping the phone from one end, unsuccessfully trying to pull it from my hands.
“A former client you exchange selfies with? A client who sends you kissy face emojis? Who tells you they love you and can’t wait to see you again?” I dropped his phone on his desk, wishing I’d thrown it at him instead. “Are you going to tell Mom, or do I have to? Again.”
My dad looked at me with shame and for the briefest of moments, I felt bad for him. Despite my close relationship with my mom, my bond with my dad was always stronger. Or, at least it had been, before I’d seen him kissing another woman a couple years ago in his den, in our last house.
“It was a mistake,” he began, collapsing onto the chair behind his desk, looking like someone had just dropped a one-hundred-pound box onto his lap. “I’m going to end it.”
“No shit,” I said. Rage built up in me. It was a terrible thing, to witness your own hero’s faults, to watch their fall from grace. “Because you’re married. If you don’t want to be married—that’s on you—but don’t drag Mom through this again.” My lower lip quivered. For two decades, I’d believed my parents to be this insanely perfect couple. They’d had their fights—of course. But they were the epitome of married bliss. Holding hands while they watched television, my dad pulling my mom into random slow dances while she cooked, my mom always bringing him coffee in bed when he woke up, him always bringing flowers home for her, and her always going all out for his birthdays and Father’s Days. When that illusion was shattered by witnessing that one kiss with another woman, a lot of my trust in my parents was broken. Though it wasn’t my mom’s fault that my dad stepped out on her, my view of her had shifted from that moment on. My dad’s transgressions irreparably tainted everything I knew about commitment.
I bit my lip to still its quiver. “God, you suck.” It was the only thing I could say, and it didn’t touch the tip of the iceberg of shit I felt.
“Tori,” he said, leading me away from the doors I was about to go back out of. “It was a mistake,” he said again, but his words landed hollowly within me. Like he’d taken my heart and wrung it out until it was just an empty void.
I didn’t want to look at him, and it hurt so terribly. My gaze landed on the well-worn leather sofa—the sofa I’d sat on a decade earlier and shakily revealed my greatest shame to him—a shame I hadn’t admitted to anyone else, not even my mom. A shame that shouldn’t have been mine to have, because I was taken advantage of by someone else.
But I couldn’t look at that couch now without seeing the tinge of shame—mine and my dad’s. Had “Robert” been in this house? Had “Robert” been in this office the same way the other woman had been in his last office, at our old house? Had “Robert” sat on the sofa that I’d spilled tears on at sixteen-years-old?
I could throw up if I thought about it too long.
“I trusted you,” I said to my dad, barely a whisper, and realized belatedly that he’d broken his trust with my mom—not with me. “You broke my heart. And you’re going to break hers all over again.” My eyes warmed and pain stung me where I couldn’t reach. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t let my mom see me like this again, right before I left.
Why couldn’t my mom be enough for him? She was perfect. What did she lack that my dad sought from another woman’s arms?
I blinked hot tears away.
“Tori…”
I left his office, slamming the door on my way out.
I hated him. I loved him. He was my dad, the man who had conquered my demons and taught me to be strong enough to face them by myself one day. But