Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [83]
“Why did it happen?” I ask when I’ve finally swallowed. “I mean, why did you decide to let it go?”
“I don’t know if there’s any specific reason,” he says. “It’s just, well, you know that marriage is complicated.” He bites the outside of his lip. “After a while, I realized that she was the one who left, but maybe I didn’t do enough to make her stay.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I say. A piece of spittle flies all the way to the window and lands with a silent splat. “You were a wonderful husband to her.”
“I was,” he concedes. “At times. Other times, I don’t know,” he says, his shoulders offering a limp gesture.
“That’s just ridiculous,” I repeat. “She’s the one who left. She’s the one who made the choices that ruined us.”
My dad’s face quivers like I slapped him. “She didn’t ruin us,” he says softly. “And I’m sorry that you feel that way. I tried to preserve as much of your happiness as I could.”
I pause and reconsider my words, whether or not I still believed the mantra that I’d fed on for so many years, now that I’d abandoned my own child and now that I understood the loneliness that can eat up your whole life.
“I’m sorry; that came out wrong,” I say. “You’re right, she didn’t ruin us. I don’t even know why I said that.”
“You said that,” my dad says, “because you spent so many years believing it. Unwilling to see that even though she left us, she didn’t leave us in total wreckage. Some wreckage, but not total.” He manages a laugh. “Besides, I think I did a pretty okay job.”
“You did.” I smile. “You really did.” I lean over to kiss his unshaven cheek. “So let me ask you something: If you’ve forgiven Mom, why haven’t you ever asked Linda to marry you?”
“Ha! Are you kidding me?” My dad grins. “I’ve asked her at least half a dozen times. She’s just never said yes. Says I’m too old and too much of a slob.”
“Oh, I . . .” I’m breathless with the way that my understanding of everything has been turned on its head. “I guess I thought you never wanted to remarry. That’s always what I assumed.” I push out the clump of air in my chest and try to get a grip on my pulse.
“Nope,” he said, standing and running his hands over my hair. “I’d marry Linda in a heartbeat.” He pauses. “Jilly, don’t get so tangled up that you think that everyone will walk out on you like your mom did. And even though she did what she did, I suppose she had her reasons.” He kisses me on the top of my head. “It’s never easy, you know, marriage and all of that. You’ll find out soon enough.”
It’s true, I think, running my finger through the syrup on my plate and mulling over my upcoming nuptials to Jack. Everyone says it’s hard, but it’s hard in ways you don’t grasp until you’re in it. How hard can it be? you say. I mean, so he’ll leave his socks on the floor and he might be a little cheap about money and occasionally, he’ll fart at the dinner table, which will really, really annoy me, but come on, how hard can it be?
I hear the noise from the shower above recede, then my brother’s heavy footsteps reverberate on the ceiling. Linda bursts through the door with shouts of “Merry Christmas” and hot eggnog lattes for us all.
I watch my dad and Linda disappear into the den, him sliding his hand on the small of her back. I turn back again to the desolate, sleeping landscape out my childhood kitchen window and wonder how I could have gotten so much wrong for so long. And what’s more surprising than any of these revelations is who I now want to share them with most: Henry, the very man who set me off running, just like my mother did two decades earlier.
AFTER YEARS OF living without my mother, my father has finally mastered the art of cooking. I’ve tried to help all afternoon, but he just shushes me out of the kitchen, shooing me off with a “what do you know about fine cuisine?”
You don’t know the half of it, I want to say, remembering the Gourmets, Bon Appétits,