This is where the pedal hits the metal, and I know I have to be honest.
“Mom, I’m dating Chase. You know, Chase Wheaton whom you used to be married to. He’s the one who got me pregnant, and he’s also the one funding your lifestyle.”
“My ex-husband Chase, you mean,” Brenda says in an even tone.
“Yes,” I acknowledge, now a bright tomato red. “I know it’s wrong. I know that he left you because you got fat, and that it wasn’t even your fault that you did. It was the medication, and you’re still on medication, and I can help you, Mom. We can help you. Chase can pay for specialists?—”
“Is that what he said?” Brenda asks slowly. “That he left me because I gained weight?”
I pause.
“No, not exactly, but he didn’t deny it either.”
“What did he say then?”
I pause.
“He said that you can never understand someone else’s marriage, and that I shouldn’t rush to conclusions. But Iknow, Mom. You were on drugs and you put on weight, and it’s not your fault?—”
My mom makes a chopping motion with her hand and interrupts me gently.
“Sweetheart, Chase is right. You never know what’s going on in someone else’s marriage, and he was very wise to tell you that.”
I pause.
“So you’re not angry that we’re dating?” I ask in a small voice. “That your ex-husband is also going to be your son-in-law?”
Brenda shoots me the shadow of a smile.
“It is a little bit of a weird situation, but I’m going to tell you something that speaks well of your babydaddy. Chase moved out because ofyou, sweetheart. Sure, my weight gain wasn’t great, but he’s not a shallow guy. He understands what our marriage vows meant.”
“What are you saying?” I ask in a confused voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t know because you were in high school and caught up in cheerleading, the school play, and navigating different cliques. But you were very beautiful, Haley, and coming into your own as a woman. Chase saw, and he couldn’t help but be attracted to you.”
I gasp.
“But I must have been sixteen or seventeen!”
“You were,” Brenda acknowledges in a slow voice. “He didn’t say anything at first, but I could feel him looking at you. It’s a miracle that you didn’t sense his gaze because Chase was a hungry alpha male despite his best efforts to keep his attraction under wraps.”
“What?” I gasp. “I had no idea!”
“I know,” says Brenda quietly, sitting as still as a stone on the couch. “But I was his wife, and I knew. I could feel his existential torture, and when he told me he was moving out and wanted a divorce, I wasn’t surprised. Besides, I’d moved on too.”
“What?” I gasp. “What do you mean?”
“Our marriage had been dead for a while by the time the divorce rolled along,” my mom explains. “We were civil to each other, but we were really roommates more than a couple. So while he was busy trying to resist his attraction to you, I fell in love with someone else.”
“Who?” I gasp, my cheeks going pink. “Oh my god, this is crazy!”
“No, it’s not,” my mom says in a low voice. “I needed to feel seen again, and a handsome physical therapist at the hospital did that for me. His name was Jared, and he was twenty-five and athletic. He was kind too, and soon we were engaged in an affair.”
“You were cheating on your husband with a twenty-five year old physical therapist?” I almost scream in a hoarse tone. “Are you joking?”
“Sadly, no,” my mom says, her mouth pressed in a firm line. “But I was desperate for romance in my life, and I fell for a young man who was nothing more than a swindler. He swindled me out of my divorce settlement and my life savings. Your stepfather actually settled quite a large amount on me as part of our separation, but it was gone within a year because of my actions,” she says in a rueful tone. “I was a fool for love.”
I can’t compute.
