WHEN BETT FINALLY CAME IN, her mother and Aunt Jeanette were already there. They’d left after Bett’s race and not stayed for the boys’ one. Dan and Ranger had done well, coming in sixth and tenth, respectively.
And now here were her mother and aunt, cooking soup like nothing was different.
“Is it true?” Bett demanded, still in her running gear. “Was Dad having an affair with the—with Stephanie’s mom for a year before the gas explosion?”
Bett’s mom stopped stirring. Bett knew she was shocked, not only at the question, but that Bett was asking it.
“Yes,” her mother said finally. “It is true. How do you know?”
“Bill Roan. I saw Bill Roan at the meet and he told me.” But even as she said it, Bett felt a dozen more puzzle pieces fall into place.
Mrs. Roan with not enough on.
Bett’s dad bent over Stephanie.
He was bent over Stephanie after the explosion because he didn’t know Bett was there. He had snuck out of the house to sleep with Stephanie’s mother, so he was already there and he didn’t know Bett was, too. That was why he had run to Stephanie and not her. That was why.
Oh my God, everything is different and nothing is different and everything in the world has exploded and I don’t know how the pieces will come back together.
“You’re welcome to call her the Floozy,” said Bett’s mom. “You know that language is permitted here in this home.”
“No,” said Bett. “It’s not fair. If she’s a floozy, then so is Dad. It takes two to tango.”
Bett’s mother stared at her. Then she snorted. “Believe what you will,” she said. “Why do I make soup? I hate soup.”
“So do I,” said Bett.
Silence, except for the stirring pot.
“How did you know?” Bett asked finally.
“Took me a while,” said her mother. “He kept going to the insurance office where she worked. I thought he was straightening out something about our homeowners’ policy, but no.”
Bett shook her head.
“At least that’s better than what I thought,” said Aunt Jeanette. “I swore he was taking out a policy on your mother’s life and was planning to do her in.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Bett, irritation at Aunt Jeanette rising like a tide.
“It was,” said Bett’s mom. “But in a way it was true. His leaving did do me in.”
“Is that why you don’t care if I don’t see him? And why he stopped coming to see me in the hospital?”
“He stopped coming because the twiddly little creep chose that day to leave us, and he wanted to come to the hospital to tell you, but I figured you had enough on your plate.”
“He did? He wanted to tell me in person?”
“Yeah,” said her mother. “When you were deaf as a post and in the hospital. And when I said he had to wait until you were better, he told me I had to do it.” She gave the soup a ferocious stir so it sloshed over the sides of the pot and hissed onto the burner of the stove. “The coward.”
“MOM! You should have let him tell me!” said Bett.
Bett was suddenly furious with her mother. But she hated her father more. Who left his family while his kid was in the hospital? Would Bett ever stop hating him?
“I begged her, you know,” Bett’s mother said, not quite looking at Bett. “I begged her not to take your father.”
“I told you not to,” said Aunt Jeanette.
“I had to,” said Bett’s mother.
There was a pause, and then she turned to face Bett. “But now,” she said, “just so there are no more secrets: I’m dating your principal.” And she moved away from the stove while Bett thought of the section of neck on Mr. McLean where he decided his beard ended and his chest hair could begin and felt physically ill at the thought that he would be spending time in the SIM card house and there would be no escape. What kind of day was this? Bett was suddenly too exhausted to even think about it.
“Ugh,” she said to her mother, and went up the four stairs that led to her bed.