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“Because you’re the best there is, darling,” D2 said right on cue, his eyes warm with love.
For that moment I didn’t care if Ronnie Flynn was paying for his meals. She was looking after the second most important man in my life. I owed her.
Secondmost important?
So, I’d made a choice after all. Simon had shifted to the top of my list. When I didn’t think too hard about it, when I spoke from the heart, I knew where he stood among the people I loved. For the first time I knew he—we as a couple—ranked above the family I grew up with. That was the natural order of things. I’d left the nest years ago but continued to put Mom and D2 before everyone else I knew. Sometime in the past six months, Simon had edged ahead of them for my loyalty and affection.
“Uh oh.” D2 said.
“What?”
“You’ve got some deep thoughts going on. I can hear the cogs turning.”
“I was just thinking how happy I am to see you doing so well.”
“And I’ve been thinking that I need to get on my feet fast. Who else is going to walk you down the aisle?”
“You’re going to give me a way like a piece of property? What will Mom say?”
“Okay, wise one, tell me exactly which part of this marriage is going to make her happy?”
I twisted the hem of my dress into a tight roll, watched it spring loose, and smoothed it down again. “Can’t think of one.”
“So you may as well stop trying to please her and just do what’s right for you.”
“How will I explain that to Simon? My grandfather giving me away while my so-called father is still alive.”
D2 looked at me sharply. “Sadie?” His voice was thick with censure.
I walked to the door and peered down the hallway to see if Simon could hear me.
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of led him to believe that Jacques Sauvetree was my father.”
“What? Why?”
“When we first met, I wanted Simon to know that my family had its own small scandal, but it was too difficult to go into it in depth. It was easier just to say that Jacques was my father and that Mom refused to marry him. I thought that would be all he needed to know. I didn’t think things would get this serious.”
D2 sighed. “So, my sins of many years ago still haunt me. Haunt us.” He rubbed his forehead with his good hand. “Simon’s a worldly man, my girl. I’m sure if you explain that I was your father and that your real mother, bless her heart, was a young lass, the same age as Cynthia, Simon will understand. He knows the loneliness of being a widower. I didn’t do anything illegal. Francine just didn’t want to marry me.”
I sensed D2 wanted to tell this story again, as he did on rare occasions, so I let him talk. I’d first learned that my grandfather was actually my father when I was twelve years old, but I told no one. It wasn’t anyone else’s business. But Simon deserved to know now. I just had to figure out the where and when I’d tell him. It occurred to me I’d better tell him before our marriage became a news item, regardless of how hard that was going to be.
D2 closed his eyes as if reliving his long-ago tryst with a beautiful, young Franco-Canadian woman.
I whispered. “Shh. Here he comes now.”
From where I stood, I saw Simon punching off his phone call about twenty feet down the hall.
“But you kind of let him believe that Jacques was your father?”
“Okay, maybe outright I told him.” In my early days with Simon, I had tried to explain how strongly feminist my mother was, how she often quoted Gloria Steinem’s sayinga woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.Jacques wanted to marry her and had proposed several times. Even though she’d stuck with her refusal, Jacques remained a constant presence in my early childhood. Apparently, I was a toddler when I started calling him Daddy and I don’t remember anyone ever correcting me. The truth of the situation was much more complicated than a young girl could ever have understood. When Jacques finally met a woman who did want him and his children, he disappeared from our lives forever. Ever since then, I’d used him to fill the gap of who my father was.
That was the story I’d given Simon in our early days. I never expected to have to undo the lie because I didn’t expect him to be a long-term presence in my life.
D2 covered his eyes with a hand dotted in brown spots. “Oh girl. What have you done?”
“I’ll fix it before you come out for the wedding, D2.” I leaned over and kissed him. “I promise. I’m so happy you’re going to be there.”
Simon and I visited with D2 until another therapist arrived. This one was hired privately by Simon to provide D2 remedial massages whenever D2 wanted them. She was a young woman, with rainbow-colored hair and lively brown eyes. D2 would enjoy his time with her.
