“I heard him talking to her on the phone. Tonight. He told her that … he told her he loved her. Before he hung up.”
“It’s not true.” Andie struggled to breathe past the lump in her throat. “You’re making it up.”
“I heard him, too,” Pete whispered brokenly. “He said … he said that after tonight—”
“They could be together,” Daniel finished, his anger and defiance fading. “He had to take care of us first.”
“No. It’s not true.” Andie backed out of her brothers’ bedroom, shaking her head, refusing to believe them. There was an explanation for what her brothers had overheard. Her dad wouldn’t do that. He wasn’t one of those kind of men.
She snapped their door shut, wishing she had left bad enough alone. Wishing she hadn’t goaded Daniel into telling what he supposedly knew about their father. Her dad wouldn’t do that, she told herself again. He wouldn’t.
As if her thoughts had conjured him, she heard her father’s voice. She swung toward her parents’ closed bedroom door, hope surging through her. He’d changed his mind. He’d come back. He wasn’t going to leave them after all.
She raced down the hall. Pete and Daniel were wrong about what they’d heard; it was a lie. She grabbed the doorknob, ready to burst in without knocking. She stopped short at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“—take everything you want now, because I swear to God you’re not setting foot back inside this house without a court order.”
“Fine, I’ll do that.”
Andie heard the click of latches being opened. She brought a hand to her mouth. He wasn’t staying, she realized. He was packing.
“I’m really sorry, Marge. I never meant for this to happen.”
“Spare me the big apology,” her mother answered, her voice thick with tears. “I’ve given you the last twenty years of my life, and you give me ‘I’m really sorry’? No thanks.”
“What’s with the wounded surprise? This has been coming for months. Years, really. It’s been over for a long time.”
“You have children,” she said. “How can it be over? You made a vow to me, Dan.” Andie pressed her ear to the door and heard rustling noises, like clothes being dug out of drawers. “A vow,” she repeated. “Don’t you remember?”
“I know,” he said heavily, sounding tired, more tired than Andie had ever heard him. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she repeated angrily. “Sorry? If you were sorry you wouldn’t do this! There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
“Marge, don’t—”
“Someone you love more than me. More than us.”
“Stop it, Marge. For God’s sake, the children will—”
“That’s right, the children. Your children. What do you care about them? If you cared, you wouldn’t do this.”
“I care plenty, and you know it.”
“Right. You care. Who’s always here for them, chauffeuring them to this class and that field trip? Who gave up a career to raise our kids? Our kids, Dan. Not just mine.”
Andie squeezed her eyes shut, feeling as though she might vomit, not wanting to hear her mother’s words but unable to tear herself away.
“Always playing the martyr, aren’t you? You’ve been throwing your ridiculous little career up in my face for twenty years. You worked at the newspaper as a cut-and-paste girl.”
“I was a commercial artist!” her mom cried. “I loved it, and I was good, too!”
“Well, here’s your chance to get back to it,” he said, slamming what sounded like a bureau drawer.
“I know there’s someone else. I’ve known for months.”
“For God’s sake—”
“Tell me it’s not true, then. Tell me you haven’t been having an affair. Tell me you haven’t been screwing around behind my back.”
Andie pressed a fist to her mouth, holding back a cry, praying for him to deny it was true.
He didn’t deny it. His silence spoke volumes.
“I bet,” her mother continued, “whoever she is, she doesn’t have any children. She’s unencumbered. No runny noses to wipe, no childish disagreements to break up. Plenty of time to make herself look pretty and feel sexy—”
“I don’t love you anymore. I don’t love us anymore! That’s what this is about, it’s not about Leeza.”
“Your secretary?” Her mother’s voice rose. “My God, she’s twenty years younger than you are!”
Leeza Martin. Her father’s secretary. Andie squeezed her eyes shut, picturing her, young and pretty, wearing short skirts and a bright smile. Andie used to look at her and think she was so cute, she used to look at her and long to be as cute herself.
Pretty Leeza had stolen her daddy.
Andie’s stomach turned, the taste of hatred bitter on her tongue. All the time Leeza had been smiling and being so nice to her, she’d been … been … sleeping with her father. Breaking her mother’s heart.
Her mother was sobbing, begging him to stay, pleading with him to think of the kids. He made a sound of disgust. “How could you want me to stay if I don’t want to be here? How could you want me to stay only for the children? That’s not a marriage. It’s a prison.”
Andie sprang away from the door as if it were on fire. The tears, the pain welled inside her until she thought she would burst. She longed to throw herself at him and beg him not to go. To cry and plead. Just as her mom was doing.
It wouldn’t do any good. There was someone he loved more than his family, someplace he would rather be than here with them.
He had promised he would always be here for her. Always. He’d told her that nothing in the world was more important than his family, their happiness.
He’d lied. He was a liar. A cheater.
Raven. Her friend would help her; her friend would make everything okay.
Andie turned and ran back to her bedroom. She closed and locked the door behind her, crossed to the window and opened it. With one last glance backward, she climbed over the sill and dropped to the ground.
It was late, the sounds and smells of the night assailed her senses: the perfume of some night-blooming flower; the call of the crickets and a bullfrog; the scream of a horn somewhere in the distance.
Andie picked her way across her yard and through the hedge that separated the Johnsons’ property from their’s. A car swung out of the driveway across the street, momentarily pinning her in its headlights. Andie froze, afraid that Mrs. Blum, a third-shift nurse at Thistledown General, would see her and call her mom.
Mrs. Blum moved on. So did Andie.
Within moments, Andie found herself below Raven’s bedroom window, tossing pebbles up at the glass and praying her friend would come. How many times had Raven come to Andie’s window, seeking comfort? Too many to count, Andie acknowledged.
Now it was her. Andie’s chest ached at the realization. For the first time ever, her home didn’t feel safe and happy, it didn’t feel … perfect anymore. For the first time, she wanted to be somewhere else.
The