Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Um.
No.
“Are you saying my mother wasn’t paying attention?”
“I’m saying I was.”
I closed my mouth.
“He did the wrong thing. We did the wrong thing. He didn’t choose me over your mother. He loves her still. Even though they’ve both moved on to other people.”
I continued my silence.
Susie spoke.
“I…as you can tell, I’m stunned you came here to say what you just said. But as I mentioned, he loves her still. He loves you and your brother and sister more than his own life. Can you imagine me sitting down to Thanksgiving with Matt?”
Matt would burn the dining room table to cinders before he’d sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with Susan Shepherd.
Uncharacteristically of me, I hadn’t thought of that.
I scrunched my nose.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Even if Tom wanted to take it there, he’s a good man, a man I could love, I wouldn’t take it there. I wouldn’t, and take note, because this is the first selfless thing I’ve done in my entire life…I wouldn’t because Tom would tie himself into knots to make me happy, that’s the man he is, but he wouldn’t have happiness for himself. Not unless you all welcomed me, and that includes Imogen. And I wouldn’t do that to him. He deserves better. When he moves on, he must find someone that isn’t tainted. Someone you kids will accept. Someone Imogen will accept. And someone that makes him completely happy. That will never be me.”
She lifted her hand and waved it my way before she continued talking.
“I’m not saying you all wouldn’t be polite. But your father deserves more than that, surely.”
He did.
Surely.
Zut.
Now what was I going to do about Dad?
And Paloma?
I downed the rest of the espresso.
It was excellent, but I should have asked for cream.
“How…disturbed are you about this woman?”
At her question, I got out of my head and came back into the room.
“I love Bowie,” I told her.
“Bowie?” she asked.
“Duncan. People close to him call him Bowie. But I mean Duncan. Duncan Holloway. Mom’s man.”
She nodded. She knew Duncan. Probably knew him before because he was semi-famous. But with Mom being Mom, now everyone knew him because they were together.
I explained what I meant.
“I know my parents are never going to get back together, and I’m okay with that.”
“All right.”
“Dad can do his own thing,” I began.
Something changed in her face when I said that, but the way it did, I knew I couldn’t ask after it, because whatever was behind that was about Dad. And she wouldn’t tell me.
Therefore, I continued, “But he’s better in a relationship. That said, he’s not better with Paloma.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“He’s going through the motions. I don’t know. You’re right. Some of his life is off-limits to me. I’m not his best bud. He doesn’t confide everything to me. Maybe it’s because Mom’s moved on and he feels like he needs a partner to even things out. To try to communicate to me and Matt and Sasha that he’s okay. Maybe I should stop worrying, it’s good he has company. Or maybe he’s settling for whatever came his way, because he feels guilty, and he doesn’t think he deserves someone who will truly make him happy.”
I took a deep breath.
And then I finished, “Or maybe it’s something darker. Like, he feels so guilty, he’s punishing himself by finding someone who doesn’t make him happy.”
Her shoulders straightened, which I read as concern.
I took heart in that and kept going.
“I’m not being catty or bratty when I say she’s not smart. She’s flown around the world time and again. She’s met some of the world’s most interesting people. And she has no conversation. She’s very pretty. She dresses very well. She listens like she’s hearing you, and yet you know by that vacancy behind her eyes she’s wondering what face mask she should apply before bed. She laughs at the right times and stops laughing exactly when she should. She’s like a robot.”
Susie’s face was paling.
First, something inside me shifted, seeing how genuinely she cared about my dad.
But also, this misery-loves-company thing fortified me.
So I continued.
“Dad’s a world-renowned tennis player. When he retired, he earned his doctorate in medicine and set up a practice on top of his contract with the network doing commentary on the big tournaments. He reads. He travels. He sees movies. He cooks and goes to restaurants. He still plays tennis, and he plays golf, and he has his tennis camp, and he volunteers for Trail Blazer. Outside of being perfectly turned out and standing at his side when he needs her to do that, the only thing I’ve ever seen Paloma do is sit out in the sun with her phone, scrolling Instagram, or leafing through the latest copy of Vogue, or worse, setting up a ‘Hanging by Tom’s pool’ selfie.”
Susie stood, wan and motionless, staring at me.