I stared at her. This was the first I had ever heard about this. I was only familiar with the fights between my parents, the whispers from other family members when they thought I wasn’t listening.
Not this.
Not what she was telling me now.
“You asked for a divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go through with it?”
“I wanted to. But your father talked me out of it.”
“He did?”
She nodded.
“What did he say?”
“That it would hurt you and your brothers too much. That it would irreparably scar you forever. So… I listened to him.” She got an annoyed look on her face. “Stupidest thing I ever did.”
“Stupidest thing you ever
did?”
I raged. “What, sleeping with Mr. Hill wasn’t stupider?”
Her whole body sagged, and she looked off into the distance again, like she was remembering some staggering loss. “No,” she said quietly. “No, it wasn’t.”
My fury was white-hot at this point. “So, what, it wasn’t enough that you fucked dad’s business partner behind his back – ”
She shot me a warning look at that one, but I pressed on.
“ – and destroyed his company and all of our lives, but you think you would have been better off getting a divorce, too?”
She looked me dead in the eye. “Was it so much better that I stayed?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
Not one I wanted to say out loud, anyway.
She turned away and stared off into the distance again. “Your father and I stopped loving each other a long, long time ago. I don’t know when it happened, exactly… but it was long before the affair. I didn’t even realize we’d stopped until it was too late. I guess it was years and years of little things piling up… and maybe years and years of not paying attention to the big things. But one day I woke up and realized that the man in bed next to me was a stranger.
“I asked him if he would go to marriage counseling. He said no at first… but I kept asking and asking until he finally gave in. But he resented me for it. And he never really tried. Whenever we went to see the therapist, he just crossed his arms and didn’t say much. He quit after three sessions. He said we were fine, and he was tired of some stranger judging our marriage. He said nothing was wrong, that all married couples eventually ended up like us.
“A couple of years after the marriage counselor, Stephen… Mr. Hill… he confided in me that he and his wife were having problems. I remember he said that he thought your dad and I were a perfect couple, and that he wanted his marriage to be just like ours. I broke down crying. He was so sweet and kind. We talked a lot… for months… and then… it just happened. It happened, and it went on for awhile.
“Stephen and I talked about getting divorces. Never anything serious, just talk. But I was afraid. I was afraid of what might happen, so it never went beyond talk.
“Then your father found out. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid anymore, because I knew the worst had already happened. I remember going into his office and saying I wanted to leave. I only planned to stay long enough to tell him. Instead, he started talking… and I listened to him.” She shook her head. “What I should have done was walk out and go pack my bags.”
My whole body was trembling now. But not from anger.
“You… you wanted to leave us?” My lips quivered. “You wanted to leave
me?”
She looked at me. “
No.
No, I never would have done that. I wanted custody of you kids. If he wouldn’t give me that, then I would have shared custody. But I never,
ever
would have left you.”
Now that my panic was gone, the anger resurfaced.
“Is this the part where you say ‘I was only thinking of you’?” I sneered.
Her shoulders slumped, and her face became sad. “Try to understand, Kaitlyn. I was absolutely miserable. I was miserable then, I’m miserable now, and I’m so,
so
tired of being
miserable
.”
For the first time in my entire life, I looked at my mother like a woman and not my mom. The rage-tinted lenses dropped away from my eyes, and I finally saw something closer to the truth: a middle-aged woman, once beautiful, still vital, but worn down by life and years of a loveless marriage. Her eyes were mournful, and every wrinkle on her face spoke of a burden she had shouldered alone, without ever once asking for pity or understanding. The wine in her glass was the only thing she had to cope… because her daughter damn sure hadn’t offered any help.
Tears filled my eyes and silently spilled over onto my cheeks. I looked down at my lap. I couldn’t quite summon up forgiveness… but sadness and loss had finally overwhelmed my anger.
“…is that why you cheated on him? Because you were miserable?”
“Yes,” she said flatly.
My mind turned back to my freshman year… when
I
had cheated.
I don’t know if I would have described my relationship with Kevin as miserable –
No, that’s a lie. It
was
miserable. By the end of my freshman year, half the time it was okay – just ‘okay’ – and the other half it was hell.
Which led me to an inescapable conclusion.
“Do you… do you think people only cheat when they’re miserable?” I whispered.
Mom seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.
I felt her soft hand close over mine.
This time, I didn’t pull away.
“No, honey,” she said. “Sometimes he does it just because he’s an asshole, and he doesn’t know when he’s got the best woman in front of him he’ll ever meet in his life.”
All my pain suddenly poured over the dam. My shoulders shook, I sobbed, and I reached out for my mother.
She was there, her arms held wide. She surrounded me with her arms, rocking me back and forth, gently stroking my hair.
“There, there,” she whispered. “There, there. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be alright.”
I cried for a good five minutes. Finally I sat back and dried my eyes. Mom got up and brought me some Kleenex, then poured out some more wine for her – and a glass for me.
“Just for the record, Kaitie-bear, I think you traded up,” she said as she handed me my drink.
“Ryan?”
She nodded.
I half-sobbed, half-smiled. “Yeah… yeah, I guess I did.”
Mom stared into my eyes as though searching for something. I had to look into my drink, because I didn’t want her to find it.
“Sometimes,” she said gently, “after you’ve been on a rollercoaster ride, it can take awhile to fully appreciate a really, truly good man.”
I looked up at her, a bit annoyed. “I appreciate Ryan.”
“I know.”
“I love him,” I said… and remembered my phone conversation with my mother while I was still in South Dakota.
Your boyfriend? I’m so looking forward to meeting him! What’s his name?
I remembered which name I had started to say.
“I
love
Ryan,” I repeated, almost too insistently.
“Okay,” Mom said, and left it at that.
“Speaking of which, I had better go see how he’s doing.”
“Okay.”
“Do I look alright?”
“You look beautiful,” she said, with real affection.
I smiled. “I mean, do I look like a sobbing wreck?”
“Well, it’s a good thing you weren’t wearing mascara. But you look fine.”
“Okay,” I said, and stood. “Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“…thank you.”
She stood up with a smile and hugged me, and we stayed like that for a long time, our arms around each other.
“I love you, Kaitlyn.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
I meant it. But I also meant,
I forgive you.
And
Please forgive ME for not forgiving you sooner.
As I walked towards the stairs, I passed by my dad’s office and saw the light under the door. I was still emotionally raw from my talk with my mom – but it was like a thorn had been plucked out of an infected wound, and the sore had been cleansed and bandaged.
It felt like our relationship was healing.
Emboldened, I decided to take the plunge and do what I’d never done before: talk to my father openly and honestly.
I knocked hesitantly on the door.
“Come in,” came the muffled reply.
I opened up and peeked in. “Hi, Dad. Do you have a moment?”
He was sitting at his desk. At the sound of my voice, he turned around in his swivel chair and smiled. “For you, maybe even two. What’s up?”
I sat down in his worn-out leather recliner, the place where he relaxed after a hard day’s work with a drink from the bottle of scotch he kept hidden in his bottom file drawer – something he thought my brothers and I didn’t know about.
“I was just talking to Mom,” I said.
“That’s nice,” he said, sounding mildly bored. “What did you two talk about?”
My heart was beating rapidly.
“Um… a little bit about Ryan.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“What do you think of him?” I asked, if for no other reason than to buy time.
“He seems very nice,” was his noncommittal reply.
“…anything else?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t gotten to know him very well yet.”
And whose fault is that?
I thought.
Not Ryan’s. HE tried.
But I kept that one to myself.
“We talked about some other stuff, too,” I said nervously.
“Mm-hm?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed and dove in. “Like what happened 12 years ago.”
My father visibly tensed. He sat up the tiniest bit and got very quiet and still.
“She and I kind of cleared the air,” I explained. “And I just thought that maybe – ”
“I don’t want to discuss this with you, Kaitlyn,” he said in a cold, clipped voice.
I frowned. “I went through it, too, you know. I know it was worse for you – a lot worse – but it was pretty bad for me, too. I thought we could – ”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Dad
–
”
“There are some things a man doesn’t want to discuss with his daughter,” Dad said angrily.
“I think that’s kind of the problem. We don’t discuss things, and they just sit there and fester.”
“Then that’s the way it will have to be.”
With that, he turned in his swivel chair and gave me his back.
I stared for a moment in disbelief. “Dad, you can’t just run away from – ”
The chair whipped around so that he faced me again – but it wasn’t my father. At least, it wasn’t the man I had known all my life. It was a red-faced, angry stranger scowling at me now.
“I told you we’re not going to talk about it, so we are NOT going to talk about it!”
If it had been any other time in my life, I probably would have just walked out. Run out, actually. But after having gone through all my pent-up suffering just ten minutes before, all I could see now was my father in pain.
So I tried once again.
“Dad, Mom is really sorry for what she did. I think it’s time we forgive her,” I said quietly.
“Forgive her?” he snarled, the cords in his neck standing out like piano wires. “
Forgive
her? Forgive her for humiliating me? Forgive her for betraying me, for stabbing me in the back?”
“Dad – Mom wasn’t trying to hurt you – ”
“Really? That’s not the way
I
remember it.”
“She was just unhappy.”
“Oh, so it’s
my
fault she decided to whore around?”
I gasped. I had never heard my father use that kind of language before.
Especially
not about my mother.
“Dad – ”
“She can tell you whatever she wants, and she can fill your head with lies and you can believe them, but I’m through with it. Do you understand me? I am through with it. And I’m not going to discuss this anymore.”
He started to turn around in his chair again.
“Dad, you’re
not
through with it – anybody can see that – ”
“Do you feel the need to openly defy me? Or are you just stupid, or hard of hearing?”
I started to shake, both in anger and fear. My father and I had never been close, not since I was little – but he had
never
acted this way towards me before.
It reminded me unnervingly of the way Derek had treated me in our final few fights.
“I’m going,” I snapped as I stood.
“Shut the door behind you.”
I didn’t just shut it, I slammed it as hard as I could.
I was crying by the time I got to the top of the stairs. I could hear my brothers chattering excitedly with Ryan in Tim’s bedroom. I waited a few minutes and composed myself, then knocked on the door and walked in.
Ryan was seated on the edge of the bed, showing my brothers some sort of guitar technique.
“Hey Kaitlyn,” he said, and then saw immediately that something was wrong. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. But I need to talk to you. Guys, give us a minute, okay?”
“Aw, come on, Kaitlyn!” Rob complained. “He was showing us how he does the baseline on ‘Forgot You Were Gone’ – ”
“
Guys,
” I snapped. “I need a minute. Okay?”
Tim got it right away, and hauled Rob away by his elbow. “Come on, let’s go get some ice cream or something.”
“But it’s your freakin’ room!” Rob complained as I shut the door behind them.
Ryan looked up at me in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I just had a long talk with my mom.”
“About what?”
“About how she cheated on my dad when I was 12 years old.”
Ryan’s eyes bugged out. “Uhhh… okay…”
“I hated her for years, and now I don’t hate her anymore. I think I finally understand her now.”
“Oh… okay, well… that’s cool.” Ryan stood up and walked over to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes… no. I mean, I
was
, but then I talked to my dad.”
My shoulders begin to tremble as I started to cry.
“Kaitlyn…” Ryan whispered as he put his arms around me and held me.
“It’s just… I realized that after all these years, I’d been angry at her without giving her a chance… and that’s exactly what my dad did. He never gave her another chance, and I don’t think he ever intended to give her one.”