Chapter 11
He said it would be “healthier.”
That was before I knew he planned to introduce Kayla almost immediately.
I called Emma that night.
She answered on FaceTime.
“Mom?”
I must have looked terrible because her smile disappeared.
“What happened?”
“Your dad and I are getting divorced.”
She stared.
“What?”
I told her the simplest truth.
“He has been seeing someone else.”
Emma went very still.
“How long?”
Again.
That question.
I had begun to hate it.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Who?”
“Someone from work.”
“Kayla?”
My stomach dropped.
“You know her?”
Emma’s expression told me everything.
“Dad brought her to lunch once.”
“When?”
“Last semester.”
I felt sick.
“Were you alone?”
“No. Noah was there.”
The boy again.
“What did Dad say?”
“That she was going through a difficult divorce and he was helping her.”
Of course.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Was he already with her?”
“I think so.”
Emma covered her mouth.
Then anger replaced shock.
“He introduced me to her?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Emma.”
“He brought me to lunch with his girlfriend and her kid?”
Her voice rose.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
She cried.
I cried.
That was the part Jason had not calculated.
Affairs are often described as betrayals between spouses.
They rarely stay that contained.
Emma loved her father.
She still does.
But something in her understanding of him changed that night.
And unlike marriages, children do not choose their parents.
That made me angrier than anything he had done to me.
Jason drove to Tallahassee the next morning.
Emma refused to see him.
He called me from a gas station outside Gainesville.
“What did you tell her?”
The question was almost insulting.
“The truth.”
“Which truth?”
I went silent.
He realized what he had said.
“Michelle.”
“No, Jason. Explain that question.”
“I mean how much.”
“All she needed.”
“You should have waited for me.”
“Why?”
“She’s my daughter too.”
“Exactly.”
He exhaled.
“I’m trying to handle this carefully.”
“You introduced her to Kayla months ago.”
Silence.
“How do you know?”
“Emma told me.”
He said nothing.
“She thought Kayla was a coworker going through a divorce.”
“Technically she was.”
I laughed.
“You need to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Using technically true sentences to cover dishonest realities.”
He went quiet.
Then said, “Kayla and I are done.”
I closed my eyes.
Less than twenty-four hours.
The love of his life.
The woman he loved “so much.”