“What do you want me to say?” Robin said tersely across their kitchen table. This is what she said whenever she wanted to say what John didn’t want to hear. She’d been saying this a lot the past several years.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I just know I only have one shot to do this right.”
Her empathy was not a question. For all their problems, this was deeply sensitive stuff. Which still didn’t make it anything they could handle right now.
“Right for who?” she asked. “I know you have to figure this out for your mother. Mike can go to hell, as far as I am concerned. But where are you on this?”
His silence red-flagged the conundrum. It was now almost two weeks since John found out about his father, and he was stalling on doing anything about it.
“He’s never coming of out this, right?” Robin demanded. “I know this Dr. Bolger told you this, but you believe it, right? This isn’t about you holding out hope that he might still come around?”
“On the morning of February 21, 1985, my father told me to make sure that I shoveled the driveway before he got home from work that night,” John said. “Those were the last words he ever spoke to me, and I don’t expect that to change.”
“You don’t expect it?”
He pushed back at her grilling. “That will not change.”
“So he’ll be just there, beyond communication, beyond reach, for who knows how long. Like a goldfish.”
“Jesus!” John recoiled.
“You cannot put me in this position, John! I know what you’re doing. You’re forcing me to make all the coldhearted arguments you’re afraid to make for yourself,” she said. “Fine, I’ll do that. You’re suggesting we get into Katie’s college money, shoot a hole through our finances, so that you can take over the expense of keeping your father alive. The father who, up until a few days ago, you were content with being dead. And who is never coming back, not really.”
John winced. Robin kept at him.
“Do you have any idea what your mother’s care is going to cost us when the time comes? Her insurance is not going to keep her in the sort of home we want for her. Not even close.”
He drew himself inward, and trusted her to understand.
“You can’t know, Robin,” he said quietly. “Unless it was your father, you can’t know what it felt like to be in that room. To feel … something that we were sharing. I can’t let that go any sooner than I have to.”
She took his hand. No matter where this marriage was headed, that she took his hand right then … He appreciated it, more than she could ever know.
But she still had to speak the harsh truth.
“We can’t afford this, John.”
“I know.” He hung his head. “But I need us to make it work. Just for a while. Please.”
She squeezed his hand to signal him to look to her. And to really listen.
“For a while,” she said evenly. “A little while. We have a responsibility to Katie’s future. And your mother’s. What you’re hanging onto—and I swear I understand what you’re struggling with—is the past.
“You’re getting to touch something powerful, in a way no one ever has. Be grateful for that. But when the time comes, I am trusting you to do the right thing for this family.”