ON MONDAY MORNING, my father perches on the edge of the desk I share with his secretary and leans close so only I can hear. “Eden, I have some very important business for you. A top-secret mission,” he says.
He hands me a white, card-size envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Ah, well, it wouldn’t be secret if I told you, now, would it?”
It’s only nine a.m. and there’s not enough coffee in my bloodstream to handle my father’s sense of humor this early.
“So what am I doing with it?”
“I need you to deliver it to a top-secret address.”
“Is the address too top-secret for me to know what it is?”
“It’s on the front of the envelope,” he tells me with a wink before disappearing into his office.
I turn the envelope over before answering the ringing phone beside me and roll my eyes when I see it’s addressed to Dr. Maura Paulsen.
Official business, my ass.
It would be just like my parents to write raunchy letters to each other and then to have their child deliver them.
After I finish on the phone, I stop in at my dad’s office to give him a piece of my mind, but he’s already elbows-deep in somebody’s mouth in the exam room. I stand watching him for a moment, not to be a total creep, but because of how happy he sounds, chatting to his dental assistant as he works. The only person happier at work than my mom is my dad. He jokes that life after the TIA is like living in California, waiting for the Big One, the hypothetical earthquake to end all earthquakes. You know there’s a good chance it’s coming; you just don’t know when. I know the possibility of another stroke, a bigger one with permanent damage, terrifies him because he could end up losing the fine motor skills he needs as a dentist. What would he do if he can’t fix people’s teeth? Who would he be?
I return to the reception area and explain to Bethany, Dad’s perpetually pregnant secretary, that I’m heading out on an errand for him.
“Oh, you get to go out into the sunshine?” she muses. “No fair.”
“I know,” I say. “Nepotism at its finest.”
She laughs. “Grab me a Diet Coke on your way back?”
“Okay,” I tell her, then head out of the office.
My parents’ offices are across town from each other, a setup probably designed to prevent them from passing love notes to each other throughout the day, but one that they seem to pay little mind to.
I pull up in front of the professional building my mom works in. It is gray, dusty-looking in the way many old buildings are. Mom rarely sees patients these days; most of her time is spent writing, working on her latest book or whatever presentation she’s giving next.
I don’t come here very often, so I never remember the code I need to get inside the building. I pull out my phone and call Mom. It rings and rings, then goes to voice mail.
I’m typing out a text to her when I see it.
When I see her.
Far across the parking lot, at the side of the building, which is reserved for emergency exits, Mom is holding the glass door open while Sergiy backs out.
Sergiy.
My sister’s coach.
My mind is already searching for an explanation. He’s there to talk about Sam’s routine or maybe Mom forgot to pay him or maybe he needs an advance on his next check or maybe he’s going back to Ukraine? What if he’s going back to Ukraine and Sam and Ty won’t have a coach and he wanted to break it to my mother gently?
But he does not seem to be breaking any bad news to her, and she does not seem to be pushing him away when he wraps his arm around her lower back and pulls her in close.
No.
Sergiy takes over holding the door open with one hand while the other arm encases my mother. They obviously don’t want the door to close, or Mom will be locked out and have to go around the front, the way she gets in in the morning. The way I get in. The way my dad gets in when he comes to visit her.
No no no.
No.
She’s resting her head against his chest, and then after what feels like years he kisses her on the forehead, saying something, which causes her to nod. And then he’s reluctantly backing away from her and walking toward his car somewhere in this parking lot, and Mom goes inside and finally lets the door close, with her on the right side of it.
And this is how I watch everything I’ve ever known collapse.
Against the backdrop of a building that is gray and dusty in the way old buildings often are.
I stay frozen as Sergiy enters his car on the other side of the parking lot and drives off.
Then I lean my head against the steering wheel and try to remember how to breathe. Tears feel like acid stinging the backs of my eyes, and no matter how hard I blink them away, they carve a trail down my cheeks.
I stay there for ten minutes, struggling for air, struggling to figure out what to do next.
I reach into my bag and pull out the envelope that Dad sent me here with.
There’s no way I’m going in after her, no way I’m giving this to her now.
Before I can stop myself, I rip open the envelope.
All that’s inside is a printed piece of paper—a flight itinerary for September 14, the weekend my mom is supposed to be presenting at a conference in Montana. It’s ages away, but my mom hates flying and he wants her to know that she doesn’t have to go alone. He’s planning to go with her.
He’s planning to go with her, and for all I know there’s no conference. It’s just some elaborate ploy for her to meet with Sergiy and continue to screw Dad over.
I crumple the piece of paper in my hand and toss it into the back seat.
I want to scream at her.
I want to march inside my mother’s office and shout until my voice is hoarse. I want to tell her what I saw, make her explain herself to me.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe there’s some kind of explanation for what I saw.
Except that there isn’t.
There’s nothing she can say that will make the way Sergiy was looking at her, the way he touched her—the way she touched him back—okay.
My phone vibrates then.
A text from Dad.
Is it handled? he says, still keeping up his covert-business spy persona, and my heart breaks a little more because this is Dad. Dad, who has loved my mother since they were nineteen, who would do anything for her.
Two months ago, he could have been dead.
My throat feels tight, like all my breath is trapped inside.
I stare at my phone, fingers poised to type, but I can’t make them move.
I can’t tell him what I saw.
How am I supposed to go back to work and face him after this?
I could call Mia, but I can’t imagine myself saying the words. Mom is cheating on Dad.
Mom is cheating on Dad with Sergiy.
There’s only one person I can imagine telling.
I send a text to Lace.
Call me ASAP.
I WAIT HALF an hour in my car in front of Mom’s office building, but Lacey still hasn’t responded.
My phone vibrates with another text from Dad.
Everything OK?
Before he tries to call me, I text him back. I don’t trust my voice right now. Don’t trust the words that would come out of my mouth.
Yep. On my way back, I write.
Even as I send those words, a sick feeling swirls in my stomach. I can’t imagine anything being okay ever again.
I drive back to Dad’s office and pull into the parking lot, but I can’t bring myself to leave the car yet. I kill time trying to fix my tearstained face, trying to wipe the tracks of mascara from underneath my eyes.
When there’s nothing left to do, I take a deep brea
th and climb out of the car.
“Oh, there you are! I thought we’d lost you to the sunshine,” Beth says when I enter the office.
“Sorry. It took longer than I expected,” I mumble, willing myself to look her in the eye, to act normal.
“Did you get my drink?” she asks, rubbing her swollen belly.
“Oh, shit,” I say. “I mean, shoot,” I amend as a frown etches itself into her forehead. “I’m so sorry. I can go back and get it.”
“No, that’s okay,” she says, waving her hand.
“Are you sure? I can go back. It won’t take long.”
“No, no,” she says. “What I need more than anything right now is for you to man the phones while I go pee for the hundredth time today.”
“Sure,” I say, and watch her disappear down the hallway to the bathroom.
Right on cue, the phone starts ringing. I reach for it as I pull up the booking page on my computer.
The woman on the line wants to see Dad to get her broken tooth looked at. She launches into a story about how she was eating popcorn and then heard a crunch and I try to follow what she’s saying but I feel disoriented, like I’ve been spun in a circle several times.
I hang up with her and am busy booking another patient when Dad comes out of his office. He is grinning, pleased with himself, as he approaches me.
“Did you get it done?”
Shit.
“Um, yeah,” I lie.
“What did she say?”
“She didn’t read it yet,” I say. It’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Dad frowns and I stare hard at the computer screen.
I hope to God he doesn’t text or call her and find out I never delivered it.
“Well, thanks for doing that,” he says.
I nod, feeling panicked in the silence that follows. I’m afraid if he looks too long, he’ll see the truth scribbled on my face. Thankfully, Bethany chooses that moment to reappear and then she and Dad are chatting about some paperwork. Once he goes in to see his next patient, I feel the tension leave my body.
“Did you just book in Mallory Hemsworth?” Beth asks me.
“Yeah,” I say.
“You have her in for three a.m. next Wednesday.”
“Oh God. Sorry.”
“Here, I’ll fix it. And Tom Bailey? You have him in for September fifteenth, but your dad is away that day.”
September 15. The weekend Dad booked off so he could go to the conference with my mother.
The thing I just don’t get is why.
Why would she do something like this, when they are the happiest people I know? What is worth ruining our entire family, destroying my father, over?
“Maybe you could do some photocopying,” Bethany suggests gently.
I spend the rest of the afternoon photocopying hundreds of new-patient forms, until I somehow manage to jam the printer. After several minutes of trying to fix it myself, followed by more failed attempts by Bethany, I am demoted to organizing and filing patient folders.
At the end of the day, I breathe a massive sigh of relief and am packing up my stuff when Dad sticks his head into the break room.
“Can’t wait to get out of here, huh?” he asks.
“It’s just—I have to meet Lacey. We’re hanging out,” I lie.
“Ah,” he says. Then, after a moment, “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve seemed distracted all day.”
“I’m good,” I say, unable to meet his eyes. “I have to go. I’m running late.”
“Okay,” he says. “See you at home.”
I nod. He gives me a kiss on the forehead and then I slip past him and out of the clinic.
In my car, a tidal wave of emotion threatens to overtake me, but I do everything I can to push it down.
I pull out my cell phone.
Still nothing from Lacey.
It’s just after five.
Mom will be home by now.
I feel sick at the thought of facing her. Watching her pretend, lie to our faces.
I could beat my dad home and confront her. Make her explain everything, when it started, how, where, why.
Why.
How long has she been lying to us? To my dad?
What if it’s worse than I can imagine?
What if she’s in love with Serg?
I’m too afraid to hear what she’ll say.
I can’t go home.
Right now, it feels like I can never go home again.
I drive to the only place I can think of.
I KNOCK ONCE on Lacey’s front door and wait.
Knock again and there’s no answer, no movement on the other side of the door.
Suddenly everything I’ve been suppressing is rising up in my chest and tears are streaming down my face.
I pound on the door, not even caring whether my mascara is ruined or if Mrs. Murdoch is home and thinks I’m a lunatic. But there’s no answer.
I suddenly feel too heavy to move, like I’ve dunked myself in a swimming pool fully clothed. I lean back against the side of the house, defeated.
There’s no one home.
Lace, I need you. I text it, then send it out again telepathically, with a bat signal or anything that will reach her.
Put out there what I want, like my fucking hypocrite of a mother would say, but nothing happens. Lacey doesn’t write back.
Pushing myself up from the wall, I start slowly down the porch steps. I’m almost at my car when the front door creaks open behind me. I whirl around, but it’s Oliver, not Lacey.
He’s quickly slipping a dark blue polo over his head. It has the words MORE FOR LESS in big, bold letters.
“Hey, Ed—” He stops short when he catches a glimpse of my face, bloated and puffy-eyed, and then he steps out the door, barefoot, toward me. “Shit. Are you okay?”
I take some quick swipes at my face, then fold my arms across my chest. Embarrassment makes me defensive. “I was looking for Lacey,” I say.
Oliver doesn’t take any more steps toward me, but he watches me carefully. “She’s not home yet, but she finished at five, so I’m guessing she’ll be here soon,” he says.
“Do you think I could wait?” I ask. “Till she gets here?”
“Yeah, sure,” Oliver says, pushing his hand through his hair. He throws a quick look over his shoulder and into the house.
I follow him back inside, and the reason for his hesitation immediately becomes clear.
A tall girl with blond ringlets of hair framing her face is standing in the living room.
“Eden, this is Beckah,” Oliver says, shutting the front door and coming to join us in the living room. “Beckah, Eden.”
She gives me a little wave and smiles at me. There’s a tiny gap between her two front teeth, but somehow it only adds to the brilliance of her smile. She’s gorgeous.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, suddenly feeling like a total idiot for coming here looking the way I do. Sure, I couldn’t have sprouted an extra twelve inches between Dad’s work and Lacey’s house, but I wish I’d at least taken the time to fix my smudged makeup before pounding on the door like a freaking moron. Or I could have just waited in my car. My voice still has that after-an-ugly-cry nasal quality.
“Beckah runs for Dale Heights,” Oliver says, then turns to her. “Or I guess ran, right?” He rubs the back of his neck.
She laughs, a throaty, warm laugh. “I’m not going back. I don’t know about you,” she teases. I can’t tell whether she’s the same girl from the last-day-of-school bonfire. Probably not.
I force out a laugh, hoping it sounds authentic. It’s doubtful that I manage this, judging by the way Oliver is looking at me.
Before things get even more awkward, I decide to excuse myself. “I’m going to go upstairs and wait
for Lacey,” I tell Oliver, and he nods, a concerned look on his face.
“Nice meeting you,” Beckah says as I turn to go.
I hurry upstairs to Lacey’s room. The inside is typically messy, clothes strewn everywhere, books and magazines spilling from her shelves onto the floor. There’s nowhere to sit on her bed and I don’t think she’s seen the surface of her desk in years. I pull open her window and climb onto the roof.
Once I’m there, I let out a long breath and close my eyes.
Lacey still hasn’t texted me back. She’s probably driving home from work.
I spend the next few minutes looking down at the street, trying to wash the image of Sergiy and Mom from my mind. I feel like I need to sterilize my brain to get the sight of his hand on her waist out, to get the look she gave him, intimate and knowing, off my mind.
I’m looking down at the ground below when I see Beckah striding across the street to a light blue Volvo. From this far away, the only thing I can see is that she is about seventy-five percent legs. No wonder she caught Oliver’s attention.
“Mind if I join you?” Oliver asks, and I jump at the sound of his voice. “Sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I say. He flops down next to me, leaning back on his palms.
“Beckah seems nice,” I say, because it’s something to say.
“Yeah, she is.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You okay?” he asks, looking over at me.
I play with a loose string on the bottom of my shirt. “I’m fine.”
Oliver nods, but there’s a flicker of something in his face, something that looks a little like hurt. There was a time when there was no difference between Oliver and Lacey for me, when they were both the people I knew best in the world. But time changes everything, and it’s been years since Oliver and I have hung out, since we’ve talked about anything that matters.
“Can I do anything?” he asks. “I know I’m not Lacey, but…maybe I could help.”
The kindness in his voice makes me feel like crying all over again.
I consider doing it, just coming out and spewing the words, but I can’t string any sentences together. I can’t imagine hearing those words out in the open without Lace’s calmness, her ability to take charge and fix things, coaxing them out.
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