Page 68 of Newly Tied

“When did your mother tell you the whole story?”

“Once me and Talia were older, when we were both teenagers, she figured we could understand what really happened.”

“Which was?” I prodded him because he wasn’t talking fast enough for me.

“That it wasn’t a wife and kids that were the problem, because he already had another daughter when he left us…it was what my mother expected of him.”

“And what was that?”

“Security.”

“As in?”

“As in she needed him to have a steady job with a dependable paycheck. She wanted to build a life and that meant day-to-day work that he simply couldn’t comply with.”

“Not how he was wired.”

“That’s right. He had to go on the road, that’s what musicians do and that’s no place to raise a family, moving from place to place.”

“It’s not,” I said with a shrug. “And your mother is far too practical to ever even consider somethin’ like that.”

“Correct.”

“Which makes sense and all but––” It had taken me a second to parse what he said but I finally figured out what tripped me up. “Wait. Did you say he had a daughter when he left?”

“I did.”

“So he couldn’t be a father to you and Talia, but he could be a father to another child of his?”

“Yes, because his girlfriend—now his wife—took her daughter with him on the road.”

“You’re implyin’ that if your mother had simply followed after him, then they would still be together?”

“Well, there is the whole cheating piece to consider, and the child he had when he was still married to my mom.”

“Right.”

“But despite all that, look at the turnout. Everyone still likes him.”

“Probably because your mother, who does not like to share her private business, never made him the villain.”

He grunted. “Very true.”

“Accordin’ to Talia, your mother told everyone the split was amicable because she didn’t want people talkin’ about her not bein’ able to keep her husband. Your mother’s a very proud woman.”

“She is.”

“But because of all that, she let it be okay that your father visits here after all this time and brings his second family around.”

“Yep,” he said, sounding tired suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” I soothed him.

“It is what it is,” he said with a shrug.

I squinted at him.

“Yeah, fine, that was as lame as your it’s-interesting-he’s-a-musician comment.”