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Dad leans against the counter, facing me. “How was rehearsal?” he asks, a big smile on his face.
“I ended up leaving early. I just couldn’t focus.”
“Jade stuff got you down?”
He knows all about the argument last week. My dad has always been the person I talk to after breakups.
I pick at a hangnail on my thumb while I wait for my dinner to heat up. “Part of me isn’t ready to accept that it’s over, and another part of me, a much bigger part, is just, like, really bummed about it.”
The microwave beeps, and my dad brings my plate over with a fork and a napkin. The plate is full of mashed potatoes and pot roast, with some roasted carrots and peas. I dig in right away, not realizing how hungry I was, but the smell of my mom’s home-cooked meal hits me hard.
My dad sits, leaning an elbow on the table, encouraging me to continue.
“And then earlier tonight, I ran into my friend, Mac—Jade’s best friend’s boyfriend—and he told me not to give up hope. Like, told me she wasn’t doing too hot, in, like, a way that maybe makes him think she might come around. But I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know?” I say all this between bites, wolfing down the meal like I haven’t eaten in weeks.
There’s nothing like your first home-cooked meal on a break from school. It’s one of those things that makes me think maybe that tech director job wouldn’t be so bad.
“I do know. I know a lot about losing someone you love and giving up hope or holding on,” my dad says with an empathetic smile.
“I know you do. You and Mom have the best story.”
He chuckles. “It didn’t feel like the best story at the time.”
“Why not? You guys dated for a year, which is like . . . half the time you were separated.”
This time Dad laughs—a full-on belly laugh.
“Yes, but you’re missing the part where your mother and I went almost completely no-contact for six months. And for at least part of the time we dated, she dated other men.”
My jaw goes slack, and I nearly drop my fork.
“I don’t remember that,” I say. “How did you do that with kids?”
“We had a friend, a really good friend, who helped us coordinate your transitions between my house and your mom’s when we were no-contact.”
I think back to that time when I was living with my dad in a one-bedroom apartment, sleeping on a pull-out sofa bed and spending every other weekend with my mom. I remember I’d be dropped off at school one Friday by my dad, picked up by my mom, and she would drop me back off at school Monday, and I’d get picked up by my dad at the end of the day. I never thought about what was happening behind the scenes. I had no idea they didn’t speak for so long. It’s a crack in the stone wall of a story I’ve carried with me for much of my life.
“And then, after six months . . . what?” I ask. “You reached out and asked if you could date her?”
“Not quite. We met, just the two of us, in that park that used to be by your high school. We talked for a long time, and your mother expressed an interest in seeing other people.”
“Not divorce?”
“Divorce was brought up. But I told her I wasn’t ready for a divorce. I said if she needed to see other people, that would be okay, but that I wanted a chance too.”
These are details my dad definitely left out before. Which makes sense. Why would you talk to your teenage son about the almost-divorce you didn’t get or the fact that his mother wanted to see other people? I understand it, but it also stings of betrayal. It feels a little like realizing the mansion down the street you admired your whole childhood is actually a regular-size home and it just looked big because you were so small.
But he’s telling me now, when I need to hear it, and that makes even more sense.
“Were you scared she’d find someone else?” I ask.
“Hell yeah I was. And I trusted what we had. I trusted our love, and I trusted that she would find her way back to me. I took to heart every word she said about why she wasn’t happy, and I got my shit together—excuse my French.”
“And then you dated?”
“Actually, after that park conversation, I waited another three months before I asked your mom on a date. I went to therapy every week?—”
“I remember that,” I say.
