Page 31 of The Trouble with Flings

“They do. They don’t have a typical one-household relationship, but getting along was never their issue. They still live in separate houses most of the time, but they’ve always been in love and best friends. I don’t think that’ll ever change.”

“Really? I guess to each their own. And you enjoy working with them?”

“Yeah. I mean, working together has its moments, but we’ve always had a solid relationship. My mother doesn’t work at the resort full time. She’s involved in some of the higher-level decisions, and she’s a big part of it when it comes to community events and such, and my father is easing toward retirement. The resort’s in his blood, though, so I doubt he’ll ever fully retire.”

His family sounds so different from mine, curiosity gets the best of me. “Can I ask how old you were when they split up?”

He lifts his head off his arms and rests his chin on them. “I was almost eight.”

“I can’t imagine my parents splitting up. That must’ve been awful.”

“It was. They were fighting a lot before my father moved out, but afterward, there was this quiet, crushing sadness. I didn’t have words for that as a kid, but looking back, it was like they were both drowning but too proud to reach for each other.”

It hurts to imagine him as a little boy whose world was falling apart. I brush my fingers over his. “What did they tell you and your brothers and sisters?”

“You’d have to talk to my brothers and sisters to know exactly what he said to them, but my father sat me down before he moved out and told me how much he loved us and that everything was going to be okay. I remember believing him. He’s never been one of those part-time parents who ignore their kids, and after he moved out, that didn’t change. Weekends were spent with family and friends, having barbecues and bonfires or going fishing. I learned more about balance from watching my father navigate the ups and downs of his professional life and our family life than anyone could have taught me through words.”

His voice is laden with love and gratitude. His father must be an extraordinary human being. “And your mom?”

“She was always with us, too.”

“Are you close?”

“Yeah, in a different way than with my father. After he moved out, I’d hear her puttering around in the kitchen at the crack of dawn. I’d wander down, and she’d act like she was fine, just getting an early start, but I knew she wasn’t. How could she be? I didn’t want her to be alone, so I’d ask her to make French toast. And she always did. Banana and cinnamon.”

He smiles with what sounds like a special memory and says, “We’d sit together and eat. We didn’t talk much, but there was comfort in that quiet time together. That became our thing. Even when I came home from college, while everyone else was asleep, we’d be at that kitchen table eating French toast in the middle of the night.”

“That might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“My mom is pretty special. She worried about the big things, like holidays. We continued celebrating all of them together, as a family, but Easter was always my favorite.”

“Why?”

“Because she’d line up all the Easter baskets on the hearth, so we’d see them when we first came downstairs. But after my dad moved out, she’d have mine waiting for me in the kitchen, and I’d open it in those predawn hours with her, all by myself.”

“You two had your own little tradition.” I want to hug his mother for giving him that.

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Did you have anything special like that with your dad?”

“Yeah. We had our own thing. We’re very much alike. When I was young, I’d bring my homework into his den and sit across the desk from him doing it while he worked.”

“I love that.”

“This will tell you how much of a nerd I was. My favorite place to do homework was sitting at my father’s desk in his office at the resort.”

I laugh. “Did you do that a lot? And did you wear a little suit?”

“I did it about once a week, which made it that much more special, and I plead the Fifth about the suit.”

“You must’ve been adorable.”

“I was the cutest little nerd around,” he admits.

“No wonder you believed him about things being okay.”

His expression turns solemn. “My father has his flaws, but lying isn’t one of them. I think he really believed things would be okay. But they weren’t. We were all kind of a mess. Grant was furious with him for moving out. That’s why he joined the military at eighteen and stayed away until after he lost his leg in a mission a few years ago and came back to the island. He only recently told me that he thought our father didn’t love us.”