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It’s the exact answer my father would give. He loves talking about the importance of family, an irony that is not lost on me.
I launch into a description of the walking program before Murphy can ask what my actual experience is, and slowly, his aggression turns into curiosity. Sweat is trickling down my back the entire time I’m talking, but my smile holds, and when the conversation finally veers back to Caleb, it’s almost civil.
I pick at my lunch while they talk and am spared answering more questions until we’re leaving the restaurant. “So what else do you have planned for TSG?” Murphy asks as we step outside.
“I have several expensive ideas, but you’ve got to let me break the news to my boss here first.” I glance at Caleb with a smile that saysI covered for you and you owe me for thisand Caleb, oh so reluctantly, smiles back. That dimple makes an appearance, along with the tiniest laugh lines around his eyes, and my heartbeat changes its rhythm in a way it should not. In the way it used to when I’d watch him from my window.
Taken, I remind myself, as he holds the car door open for me. And he wouldn’t be my prince anyway. We don’t want the same things from life.
Caleb waits until we’re both in the car before he turns, raising a brow. “Well, that was interesting. Given how terrible you are at using a smart board, I would not have expected you to handle that so well.”
I laugh. “I spent all those summers with my aunt listening to her conference calls and interviews. Sadly, she didn’t have a smart board. I could have used the practice.”
His smile fades. “I hate that that happened. I hate that it’s still happening—your father should be helping you. Why are you putting up with it?”
“Caleb, it’s not like I’ve turned down his generous offer of assistance out of pride. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. He didn’t even let me attend my aunt’s funeral.”
He glances over. “You could go public with it, then. Show the world he isn’t thesuperdadhe wants everyone to believe he is.”
I stare out the window. I’ve considered all these things before, but I’ll never act on them. “My own father knows exactly who I am and still wants nothing to do with me. It’s a story I’d rather keep to myself.”
“Lucie—” Hecroonsmy name as if it’s his favorite song. “The fact that he’s denying you exist has nothing to do with who you are. And, at the very least, force his hand. Tell him he needs to make it worth your while to stay quiet.”
I shake my head. My father wants to believe I’m some trashy mistake he made with a stripper. He wants to think he’s better than us, thanme. The moral high ground is really all I’ve got left. “This is how I tell myself that I can be the product of something ugly without being ugly myself. By being a better person than either of them.”
“You don’t need to prove it. But anyway...consider yourself a permanent part of TSG. We clearly need you.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
He shakes his head. “I never say or do anything I don’t mean. You should know that better than anyone by now.”
I guess I do. He says what he means, and as much as I resented that when I started at TSG, I’m starting to appreciate it. He’s not the fairy-tale prince I’d have designed as a six-year-old, but he’s awfully close to the one I’d design now.
“You’re not all bad, Caleb. Aside from believing children are monsters.”
“We’ll see what you think in twenty years when I’ve got a private plane and you’re paying for Sophie’s ninth year as a gender studies major.”
I laugh. “I’d still choose them, cheapskate.”
He’s silent for so long that I’ve assumed the conversation is over by the time he speaks again. “The kid thing? It’s less aboutthe money than it is the responsibility. And the fear. It would be terrifying to care about someone that much.”
My eyes fall closed, picturing Henry. Is he happy today? Is he ever going to find a friend? “Yeah,” I tell him. “It can be.”
JEREMY ARRIVESSunday to take the kids to lunch, still tan from the ‘work’ trip he took to Hawaii with Whitney.
Though he’s spent the last week calling me every name under the sun and hacking into my bank account, he smiles when I open the door. He’s always done that, though—he’ll smile at the wrong moment, in the middle of saying or doing something awful, as if he’s mistimed the appearance of an emotion he never felt in the first place. I once watched a documentary about serial killers and what struck me most was how much they reminded me of my own husband.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asks.
I don’t want him in my home. I don’ttrusthim in my home, this man I was sharing a bed with two weeks ago. The fear, the revulsion…it was always there. Sometimes, though, you can’t allow yourself to feel the full force of a thing until you’ve escaped it. Now I wonder how I lasted so long.
I continue to block the entrance. “They’re almost ready.”
His smile holds but his eye twitches, a tiny flash of annoyance he somehow masters.
“You look good, Lucie.” It’s a significant change from what he said a mere twenty-four hours ago, which was that my looks were ‘already fading’ and that my ass would be as big as my mom’s any day now.
“Sophie! Henry!” I shout up the stairs. “Daddy’s waiting!”
