SIX

Since our divorce two years ago, my ex-husband Derek stopped by every other Friday at six p.m. to pick up our daughters for the weekend, not dropping them off again until Sunday evening at six. After forty-eight hours in the company of our teenagers—who could rival the best of Broadway’s stars with their flair for drama—Derek was not only ecstatic to be rid of them but anxious to garage his bulky Nissan Armada for another two weeks and jump back behind the wheel of his two-seater babe mobile.

The sports car was a new addition to Derek’s collection of expensive toys. He had purchased it as a divorce present to himself, perhaps viewing the SUV as an inadequate bimbo shuttle. The miniature car allowed him to proudly transport his ever-changing choice of big-busted, big-haired women around town. He probably even encouraged the feebleminded broads to stick their pretty, empty heads through the sunroof and wave to passersby whenever the weather permitted.

But I was only slightly bitter.

“I hear Dad!” My youngest daughter Katherine bounded down the steps, clutching her overnight bag close to her chest. She vibrated from the anticipation of escaping my demands for a weekend.

“Is your sister coming?” I asked as she flung open the front door and stuck her head outside.

She turned around long enough to glare at me. “I’m not her keeper.”

“I understand that,” I said, pretending my formerly sweet child hadn’t been permanently replaced by this surly thirteen-year-old but merely took a brief vacation. “But I thought perhaps you saw her while you were upstairs packing.”

“Well, I didn’t, okay?” she replied with a level of malevolence more suited to a sociopath.

My mother looked up from where she was reading on the couch. “Katherine, is that any way to talk to your mother?”

“Sorry, Grandma,” she mumbled. For some reason, my children treated my mother with a respect that failed to extend to me. “And it’s Katie, please.”

“What’s Katie?” my mother asked.

“My name,” Katherine said. “I prefer Katie to Katherine.”

My mother frowned at me, as if I must somehow be responsible for this request. “When did this start?”

“About eight months ago when she read an interview in Elle,” I supplied. “Apparently the name Katie Holmes ranks higher in desirability than Katherine Holmes.”

“Katie Holmes?” My mother tapped an index finger against her book. “Where have I heard that name before?”

“She’s an actress,” Katherine told my mother. “She married Tom Cruise, but they divorced because he’s like this humongous Scientology freak.”

My mother tsked. “There are too many divorces in the world today. At the first unpleasant thing, people rush off to consult a lawyer. Young people simply don’t want to make the effort.”

I bristled, figuring she meant her statement as veiled commentary on my own failed marriage.

“Oh, Katie Holmes is semi-young but he’s not,” Katherine said, her eyes as wide as saucers. “Tom Cruise is, like, ancient.”

“Honey, I know how old Tom Cruise is.” My mother set her book on the coffee table. “And he’s hardly ancient.”

“But he is. He’s, like, older than Mom.”

I squinted at her, wondering why she hadn’t compared the actor to her father instead. Was it because I’d aged so much less gracefully?

“Is he still running around like a ninja in those Mission Impossible films?” my mother asked.

Katherine’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “I don’t know about that, but he stars in this new movie called Oblivious. It opens in three weeks. I can’t wait to see it.”

“Oblivious,” I mused, thinking of how appropriate such a title would be for a reality program documenting my life here. The opening scene could feature my mother awakening in my former bedroom while I fell off the couch and onto a pile of spoiled tomatoes, my daughters rushing around as though I didn’t exist.

“Oblivion,” Katherine corrected. “Tom Cruise stars in Oblivion.” She rolled her eyes to recover from my stupidity, then sighed dreamily. “He’s really hot too. I mean, for an old religious weirdo.”

I stared at my daughter. When did she start thinking of Tom Cruise as hot? For that matter, when did she start thinking of anyone as hot?

“Hello?” a familiar voice called from the doorway.

“Daddy!” Katherine threw herself at her father as if he’d just been released from a long stint in prison, her overnight bag swinging from her shoulder like a battering ram.

Derek laughed and squeezed our youngest child, his balance impressively undisturbed as Katherine’s luggage knocked into him.

I studied my ex-husband, disappointed to note that not only had he maintained his enviable physique since our divorce but he only grew more handsome with age. Where were his gray hairs? And why did his facial creases only make him appear more dignified?

My gaze wandered toward my mother’s face, her many wrinkles prompting worries over the state of my own skin in twenty years. The thought did not comfort, and I wrenched my attention back to my ex-husband.

Derek grinned over Katherine’s head as they ended their embrace. “Hi, Bets.”

“Derek,” I replied evenly.

His eyes strayed toward my mother, who watched our exchange. “Claudia, nice to see you.”

My mother smiled. “Derek. So nice to see you again too. And how is the lovely Amanda?”

Derek flinched. “I’m no longer with Amanda.”

My mother raised her eyebrows higher than the confession warranted. “Oh? Isn’t she the reason why you divorced my daughter, your high school sweetheart and wife of seventeen years?”

Derek glanced at me before returning his gaze to my mother. He didn’t say anything, obviously not sure how to respond to this disturbing yet perilously close-to-the-truth accusation.

I decided to come to his rescue. “You’re mistaken, Mom. Amanda came after the love interest responsible for dissolving our marriage.”

Derek rocked backward, clearly surprised by my outburst. I normally made a point of not arguing with him in front of our children, but I was reaching the end of my rope after spending the past twenty-four hours with my mother.

Besides, my mother siding with me didn’t happen often so I might as well capitalize on our joint distaste for Derek’s extramarital affair. Who knew when the next opportunity to bond would present itself.

I cleared my throat and stepped toward the stairs, eager to be rid of my ex. “Meredith! Your father’s here.”

My oldest daughter poked her head into the upstairs hallway and peered down at me. “I’m on the phone.”

“So hang up,” I told her, trying not to let my exasperation seep into my voice. “Tell whoever it is that you’ll call back later.”

Meredith disappeared back into her bedroom briefly before reappearing to begin her unenthusiastic descent down the stairs, each thunderous step taken in her heavy, black boots echoing off the walls.

“Where’s your overnight bag?” I asked when she made it to the living room, empty-handed.

She flopped onto the loveseat. “I’m not going.”

“Not going?” I repeated. “What do you mean? What’s gotten into you?”

“I mean I’m not going.” She infused her voice with additional hostility, as though this new tone might help to clarify her intent.

“You are going,” I countered, trying to tamp down my budding impatience. “It’s visitation Friday, and your father drove over here to pick you up.”

Meredith folded her arms across her chest and glowered at me. “I have plans tonight.”

Katherine observed our exchange, obviously taking notes from her older sister on the proper way for a girl to interact with her mother. When I spied Katherine dropping her own overnight bag onto the foyer floor and the way Derek’s face lit up in response, I turned my back to them.

“This is not up for discussion,” I told my intransigent oldest child. “The arrangement is that you spend every other weekend with your father. You’ll just have to cancel your other plans.” I bit back my desire to add further commentary on how inconsiderate she was being by only mentioning her other commitments after Derek had already shown up on our doorstep.

Meredith crossed her legs, swinging one foot like a pendulum. “Well, I can’t change my plans now,” she said, as though I were the one being difficult. “Regan is already on the way over.”

Questions swam through my head. What kind of plans were on the agenda? What about these plans required that they happened tonight? Why did she schedule these plans knowing this was her weekend with her father?

The most pressing question bubbled to the top of the list and out my mouth. “Who’s Regan?”

Her foot stilled. I could practically see her mentally debating how much to reveal, and couldn’t help but remember how this difficult sixteen-year-old used to be such a talkative child, babbling about the most incoherent things before she hit puberty and turned into this frothing, secretive beast.

“Regan is my friend,” Meredith finally said.

“Male or female?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Why does that matter?”

I regarded her with disbelief. “Because I’ve never heard of this Regan person and I want to know what his or her relationship is with you.”

“Regan is male, okay?” She slumped back against the loveseat. “Happy now?”

I studied my daughter’s face for clues about her feelings toward this Regan. As usual, the only emotion I could read from her was profound irritation. “Is this a boyfriend? Why have I never heard of him before?”

Meredith leapt off the sofa and planted her hands on her hips. “No, he’s not a boyfriend.” She quirked her mouth with disgust, as if I’d questioned her romantic interest in a toad. “He’s just a friend. And I haven’t told you about him because I knew you’d act like this.”

“Act like what?” With increasing frequency, I felt as though my children and I were taking part in two entirely separate conversations whenever we spoke to each other.

“Like a . . . a nosy harpy!” she shouted.

“Meredith!” my mother interjected. “That’s no way to talk to your mother.”

Meredith sat back down. “Sorry, Grandma.”

You should be apologizing to your mother, I itched to tell her, but rather than resulting in an actual apology such a pronouncement would more likely lead to yet another argument.

“It’s just that she can’t mind her own business, you know?” Meredith continued, looking earnestly at my mother.

I blinked, dumbfounded by my sixteen-year-old’s bold appeal for sympathy. I blinked again when my mother actually nodded.

My mother leaned over and patted Meredith on the arm. “So, what are your plans with the young man this evening?”

“We’re going to the mall,” Meredith informed her. Her enthusiasm couldn’t be more apparent if they’d both been selected to participate in a special space-shuttle launch designed for exasperated children to escape their interfering parents.

“You want me to let you cancel your plans with your father so you can go to the mall?” I said, incredulous. “You’re there every other day!”

Meredith shot daggers at me with her brown eyes. “I was talking to Grandma. And they’re not my plans. You made them without even consulting me.”

“The judge made them.” My face grew hot with building anger. “And if you don’t go with your father, I’m going to have His Honor come over and arrest you!”

“Now, Betsy,” my mother scolded, “let’s not be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” I echoed, trying not to feel hurt that my own mother had not only jumped into the fray of this family dispute but joined the opposing faction. “Ridiculous is expecting everyone to change their plans so someone can go to the mall, a place they were just at yesterday.”

“It’s for prom,” Meredith volunteered. “He’s going to help me pick out a dress.”

“Prom dresses,” Derek exclaimed. He made the mistake of stepping beside me, close enough for me to kick him if I needed an outlet for my mounting frustration. “Those can be expensive. You need some money?”

I spun sideways and stared slack-jawed at my ex-husband, not quite sure how to react to this most recent betrayal.

Meredith beamed at her father. “Sure!”

Derek pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and began peeling twenties off a wad of cash. “I only have eighty in big bills here,” he said, almost apologetically.

Meredith jumped off the loveseat, clomped over to him in her combat boots, and snatched the money from his fingers. “That’s good.”

“Here, take this in case that doesn’t cover it.” Derek handed her a credit card, the act leaving me positively speechless.

She flashed her father a simpering smile as she pocketed her spoils. “Thanks so much, Daddy.”

Derek chucked her playfully on the cheek. “Anything for my little girl. We want you looking stunning for prom.” He turned around and spotted Katherine silently pouting, hurt and forgotten in the doorway. He reached back into his wallet and pulled out another hunk of cash, the assorted tens, fives, and ones pillowing up in his hand like a bribery soufflé. He extended the offering to our youngest daughter. “And why don’t you catch a movie while your sister shops for dresses? This should be enough for you and a friend, plus popcorn and sodas.”

Katherine’s lower lip snapped back into place as she accepted her father’s money. “Really?” she asked as an afterthought, perhaps belatedly considering that this might be some kind of loyalty test. “You don’t mind?”

“Nah, anything for my girls,” Derek said, slipping his wallet back into his pants pocket. “Besides, I’ve got more cash tucked away at home.”

I wondered if Derek still maintained his old method of money management, which had him hiding bills in unlikely places in the event of an emergency. I used to think he defined emergency as a hardship caused by a disaster such as an earthquake or a bank investigation, but after learning about his infidelity I expanded the meaning to include his need to keep restaurant charges, lingerie-store names, and jewelry purchases off our credit card bills.

Derek clapped Katherine on the shoulder. “If you give me directions to your selected friend’s house, I can drive you guys to the mall now.”

Meredith’s eyes darkened. “I don’t want her in my mall while I hunt for dresses.”

“It’s a free country,” Katherine said, no longer watching her older sister with reverence. “I can go to the mall if I want. Right, Dad?”

“You sure can, Katie.” Our daughter’s self-appointed nickname rolled off his tongue with ease, as if he were the top candidate for this year’s Father of the Year award. He took note of Meredith’s scowl and added, “But why don’t I take you to that theater down the street instead? You can call your friend from the car.”

“Okay.” Katherine already had her cell phone in hand, her fingers flying over the keys.

Derek eyed me, his head tilted in question. “And while I’m waiting for your movie to end, I’ll hang out here with your mom and we can catch up.”

My hands curled into fists. If I denied this request, my daughters would think I was petty and spiteful. If I agreed, I’d have to spend the next three hours entertaining the man whom I was currently mulling over burying in the backyard.

Both of my daughters looked at me with large eyes. They’d never hidden their dreams that Derek and I reconciled, although I suspected their motives had more to do with wanting their discipline-averse father around to let them run wild rather than any interest in seeing their parents reunited.

I turned to Derek. “Yes, we do have a lot to catch up on, don’t we? I’m anxious to hear about Tiffany’s latest liposuction procedure. Unless you’re no longer with Tiffany, that is.”

Derek didn’t take the bait. Instead, he squeezed Katherine’s elbow and guided her toward the door. “Meredith,” he called over his shoulder as he walked out, “be sure to be back by ten. Then we can head to my place.”

“Okay, Daddy.” She frowned at me and added, “I’ll wait for Regan outside.” She flounced out the door behind her father and sister, sounding like a Clydesdale tromping over marble.

Not one of them bothered to close the door, leaving me to slam it shut in their wake.

My mother was staring at me when I turned around to reenter the living room. “Is this how things always operate in your household?”

I fell onto the loveseat vacated by Meredith and took a couple deep breaths to dispel my irritation. “More and more, yes.”

She smoothed a wrinkle out of her slacks as I braced myself for the expected commentary on how I was a failure as a parent, one of her specialty speeches.

“Well,” she finally said, “the teenage years are tough. You simply endure the best you can and remind yourself that someday your children will be human again.”

To my horror, her kind statement triggered the urge to cry. I’d grown so accustomed to my mother’s criticisms that this unexpected generosity infused me with gratitude.

The urge to apologize for my own teenage behavior surged inside me. My mother had constantly grated on my adolescent nerves, leading me to continually test her own capacity for tolerance.

“Take you, for instance,” my mother said before I could form a proper apology. “You were the most unreasonable girl a mother could imagine. Why, one time you insisted I let you stop eating meat. You said all those innocent animals dying for a meal broke your heart and I should allow you to subsist solely on vegetables and grains.” She shook her head as if the very idea should have been enough to have me committed. “You became quite agitated when I denied such a ridiculous request. I’d never seen anybody so contrary.”

I stiffened, any remorse I had felt over my teenage behavior vanishing. I should have known my mother couldn’t stop talking after one kind comment.

I remembered how my father had humored that same request to be a vegetarian, and a pang of grief surfaced. I no longer mourned my father’s passing, but since his death I could better appreciate how he’d buffered conversations between my mother and me. Without a third party around to defuse tensions, my mother and I behaved like male caribou at the height of rutting season.

My mother huffed, and I conjured up the image of a snorting buck pawing the ground. “Did you know I knew a vegetarian once?” she said, adopting the same disbelieving tone and expression she might if admitting to witnessing an alien from outer space alighting in her bathtub. “She went by Lydia. This girl was the most sickly creature you’ve ever seen. She always seemed rather green around the gills. Why, she even looked like a vegetable herself.”

I rolled my eyes, her speech fully regressing me back to the age of fifteen. “Not all vegetarians are sick, Mom. If you’ll recall, I researched the topic before I approached you. It can be a very healthy diet.”

She looked down her nose at me. “Not if you’re eating expired tomatoes, it can’t.”

“Those tomatoes aren’t expired,” I said, vexed by the resurrection of this tired topic. “But since you’re so worried about it, I’ll use them up this week.”

“I already threw them away,” she proclaimed.

My heart beat faster. “You threw away perfectly good tomatoes just because they slipped a wee bit past the recommended date of use?”

“Two months is hardly a wee bit past, dear,” my mother said. “Imagine if you had stayed in my womb two months past your delivery date. Why, you were five days overdue as it was, and that delay nearly killed me.”

I groaned, wondering once again if I’d ever see the day when I wasn’t apologizing for some slight committed as an unborn fetus. “That’s not even close to the same thing.”

“And you should be thanking me for finally getting that kitchen in order. I’ve likely saved you and your family from a horrible bout of food poisoning.”

“I’m sure we would have survived,” I responded dryly.

Derek chose that moment to return from his chauffeur duties. He swung open the front door without even so much as a warning knock. Hopefully he hadn’t developed the impression that he was still welcome here, despite the reluctant permission I had extended as an exception meant for this evening only.

“God, this city is drab,” Derek said, glancing back at the clouds looming in the sky. “But traffic moved at a surprisingly fast clip tonight.” He closed the door behind him before plopping down on the loveseat next to me.

Derek watched as I promptly relocated to the other side of the room. After I resettled in the armchair Meredith insisted she was taking to college with her, I stared back at him. If this moment marked the point when a hostess should offer her unwanted guests beverages, my mother would just have to categorize me among the James Cantwells of the world.

“So,” Derek said, facing my mother, “why do we have the honor of your presence this evening, Claudia?”

“I’ve moved in,” she declared without preamble.

Derek’s eyes threatened to pop out of his skull. He was fully aware of how thoroughly my mother grated on my nerves.

“My husband’s spirit finally departed,” my mother added.

“Is that so?” Derek said, his eyes returning to their normal size. From anyone else I would have expected a more severe reaction to such an outlandish statement, but the notion of my dead father haunting my mother for the past three years was nothing new to Derek.

She smiled sweetly at my ex-husband. “In fact, it turns out you and he might have more in common than anybody realized.”

Derek didn’t move, like a frightened deer hoping his immobility allowed him to blend in with his surroundings.

“He too cheated on his wife,” my mother said.

Derek relaxed. My ex-husband either believed an adultery accusation merited no more attention than an increase in stamp prices, or he had already dismissed my mother’s comment as one of her short-lived speculations rooted in insanity.

“I’ve known for years, of course,” my mother told my ex, “but it didn’t feel right to speak ill of Rick while he was still around.”

“And yet, that doesn’t stop her when I’m the subject of conversation,” I butted in.

“Betsy here has been helping me investigate,” my mother said to Derek.

Derek eyed me. “Investigate what?”

“The identity of my father’s mistress,” I informed him. “We think she might be some woman he worked with at Track-It.”

“Leticia Robinson,” my mother provided, causing Derek to spin his head toward her.

“Or Kathy Smith, his part-time assistant,” I supplied, watching as Derek’s head swiveled again. With any luck, the man would have whiplash by the time he left my house tonight. That should cause him to think twice about inviting himself over the next time he agreed to let our daughters delay the start of their visitation weekend. “Right now, they top our list of candidates.”

We sat in silence for a moment, giving Derek time to absorb the information. I almost wanted to laugh at his shell-shocked expression.

Finally, Derek asked, “What makes you think Rick had an affair with one of these women?”

“A tube of ChapStick was recovered from Mom’s car after Dad’s accident.” I somehow managed to repeat this fact without rolling my eyes. “Mom thinks it not only belonged to the mistress, but that she had been in the car when Dad crashed.”

“That sounds rather far-fetched,” Derek replied. I could almost see him mentally adding the words even for your mother. “What else makes you think someone had been present that night?”

I lifted my hands, palms up. “I believe that’s it. As far as I know, the ChapStick was the only telling item found.”

When my mother failed to supply any information to the contrary, Derek quirked his lips. “You must have other evidence if you’re convinced of the fact.”

“I don’t need any other evidence,” my mother announced, sounding like a prosecuting attorney’s dream juror. “The lip balm wasn’t mine, and it wasn’t Rick’s either.”

“So naturally it must belong to Dad’s mistress,” I concluded, in case Derek had failed to follow my mother’s logic. To simplify matters, I opted not to mention our interrogation and subsequent dismissal of James Cantwell as the ChapStick user.

“How do you know the mistress worked with Rick?” Derek said, his gaze trained on me.

“Dad devoted all his time to Track-It. He didn’t have any other opportunities to meet women.” When Derek didn’t look convinced, I shrugged and reminded him, “It’s Mom’s theory.”

He rotated raised eyebrows toward my mother.

“As Betsy said, Rick spent most of his time working,” she said.

“How do you figure he made time for a lover then?” Derek asked.

“Just a hunch,” she confided. “A wife always knows when her husband is unfaithful.”

Derek and I looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment, neither of us daring to bring up his own infidelity.

“Well, you want to know what I think?” Derek said loudly, wrenching his eyes away from mine. He rushed on before either my mother or I could respond in the negative. “I think you’re both wasting your time. Some ChapStick found in the car doesn’t prove anything.”

I turned toward my mother, feeling vindicated that someone shared my sentiments, even if that someone was my ex-husband.

“On the contrary,” my mother countered. “It proves somebody else had been with Rick that night. His mistress, most likely. Betsy neglected to tell you that the lip balm was cherry flavored.”

Derek gazed at her for a moment before saying, “Well, be that as it may. But even if Rick did have a mistress, you don’t have a fighting chance of locating her now.”

My mother beamed at me. “See, Derek believes me about the mistress.”

He frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

“Then how do you explain the lip balm?” my mother asked, leaning forward.

Her undisguised interest in Derek’s opinion sparked a spurt of irritation. She’d never acted so enraptured to hear my own thoughts.

“The lip balm could have come from any number of places,” Derek said. “One of the paramedics or police officers responding to the scene could have dropped it.” He fell silent for a moment, rubbing his chin. “And if you want my honest assessment, I suspect Rick was alone that night. I bet he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford the payments on that car after Track-It went under, and drove into that tree on purpose.”

My mother and I gaped at him. Was Derek really suggesting that my father had planned his car accident? And if he’d believed this all along, why had he never mentioned it to me before? Had we grown so distant toward the end of our marriage that he wouldn’t feel compelled to confess such an earth-shattering theory?

My mother placed a hand over her heart. “You mean, suicide?”

Derek reclined deeper into the couch, apparently oblivious to the disturbance caused by his proposed scenario. “Possibly, or he might have only intended to wreck the car in order to eliminate the expense.”

“Rick wouldn’t have intentionally ruined my Buick,” my mother said. “He bought that car just for me.”

“That may not have been his end goal, but often people with depression become desperate and single-minded,” Derek said.

“Rick wasn’t depressed,” my mother retorted. “And he didn’t end his own life either.”

“How can you be sure?” Derek persisted. “Anyone would be depressed what with a failing business on the heels of so many bad investments. Many people have killed themselves for less.”

My mother’s head snapped up. “How do you know about Rick’s investments?”

“He may have mentioned something to me,” Derek admitted. “I knew you were having financial difficulties anyway.”

“Imagine, discussing finances outside the family.” My mother shook her head. “What is this world coming to?”

“I am family.” Derek paused. “Or was.”

I stared at my mother. “You never told me you were having financial difficulties.” I knew many of my father’s investments had only served to deflate my parents’ bank account, but I’d never considered that his speculations would lead them toward financial ruin. Maybe I’d wrongly assumed he had only risked discretionary money.

She straightened. “Some things are meant to be kept private.”

“Are you still having financial difficulties?” I pressed. I couldn’t help but feel injured that Derek knew more about my parents’ financial situation than I did, even if my mother had nothing to do with my father confiding in him.

My mother refused to respond, pursing her lips tightly together.

“Is that why you’ve moved in, Mom?” I suddenly realized my mother’s relocation might have nothing to do with my father’s spirit and everything to do with her diminishing ability to afford the mortgage payments on the home my parents bought five years before my father’s death.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother said. “I moved in because your father left me, which is how I know he didn’t commit suicide. His spirit never would have stuck around if Rick had taken his own life.”

“How do you know that?” I asked. “Is there some spirit rule I don’t know about?” Although I still intended to get to the bottom of her bleak financial situation, for now I was willing to move on to less distressing subjects, such as whether my dead father had secretly committed suicide.

My mother’s lips puckered. “Don’t be obtuse, darling. Rick would have been too embarrassed to face me again if he had plotted to take his own life. He’s not going to linger in our house after doing something as distasteful as deliberately turning me into a widow. That would require some nerve.”

I didn’t say anything, since I was also inclined to dismiss Derek’s suicide theory but for different reasons. My father had always spoken condescendingly about suicide, claiming it was an easy out for cowards too lazy to work on their problems. Derek used to debate him on the topic, arguing the psychiatrist’s position about low serotonin levels and a predisposition for depression. Regardless, my father had not only been unusually ambitious, but he’d also never acted the least bit depressed.

Unless, I admitted silently, he’d hidden his despair and my parents’ financial troubles had been a lot more dire than I ever could have imagined.

“How bad off are you financially anyway?” I asked my mother, my fleeting resolve to drop the subject evaporating.

My personal investment in the answer contributed to my impatience. Perhaps if we could strategize over ways for her to economize, she wouldn’t need to sell or rent out her house, thereby freeing my own.

“Mom?” I said when she failed to reply.

My mother looked at the wall across the room. “I refuse to discuss it.”

“But maybe we can help.” I arched my eyebrows at Derek, silently questioning whether he would be willing to offer his former mother-in-law monetary assistance.

Derek carefully avoided my gaze, staring now at his own patch of plaster.

“I’ve never asked for anybody’s charity,” my mother said.

A bolt of annoyance shot down my spine. “I’m not talking about charity. I’m talking about helping my mother. And if you’re so determined not to accept anyone’s help, how did you end up moving into my home yesterday?”

“Some things are meant to be kept private,” my mother repeated, setting her jaw at an obstinate angle.

I watched her suspiciously. “What else are you keeping from me?” Now that the possibility had been introduced, my mind conjured up all sorts of unvoiced issues from distant cousins secretly marrying each other to cancer scares. I spun toward Derek. “Did Dad say anything to you about other problems?”

He shrugged with an infuriating lack of concern.

I fixed my eyes back on my mother, noting now her absent rubbing of her stockinged feet. Could my mother’s bunions actually be malignant tumors? “Do you have health problems you’re not telling me about?”

“Of course not.” She dropped her foot back to the floor and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m fit as a fiddle.”

Her announcement cloaked me with a sense of doom. My mother would probably outlive me, her suffocating presence slowly squeezing out all my household oxygen until I eventually expired.

“What about Dad?” Even though the issue was somewhat irrelevant now, I couldn’t help but question what other secrets had been kept from me all these years. “Was he sick?”

“Of course not,” my mother said again, but with less conviction.

I pounced on her uncertainty. “Are you sure? It might be important. What if he suffered from something hereditary that I need to attend to now?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed. “What on earth could have afflicted your father?”

I churned through the possibilities. “He could have had coronary or digestive or respiratory problems. Maybe he was prone to Parkinson’s or osteoporosis, or his family has a history of Alzheimer’s.” I gripped the chair’s armrests. “Mom, it might be important.”

My mother remained mute for a moment, but then she broke, speaking in barely a whisper. “There was one thing.”

I jerked forward, a new fear seizing my potentially diseased heart. Did this second in time represent my last peaceful moment before I learned that I had inherited the Clapton cardiac arrhythmia, or a predisposition for colon cancer, or alcohol-intolerant kidneys?

“He had . . . ED,” she said quietly.

“ED?” I frantically tried to decipher the acronym.

“An eating disorder,” Derek supplied.

“Dad had an eating disorder?” I asked my mother. My father had always dug into his food with carefree abandon, but maybe he’d only put on a show before sneaking off to purge in secret.

“Not an eating disorder,” my mother murmured.

Derek furrowed his brow, obviously flipping through his mental diagnostic manual.

“Erectile dysfunction,” my mother stammered.

“Dad had erectile dysfunction?” I grabbed my thighs, my hands tightening around my own flesh. “Why on earth would you tell me that?”

She glowered at me, her chin jutting into the air. “You asked me to. Demanded it.”

“I asked whether he had any actual diseases!” I shouted. “Something fatal or debilitating that I need to worry about myself. I didn’t want to know about his flaccid . . .” I waved my hand in the direction of Derek’s crotch, causing him to fold his hands in his lap. “. . . body parts.”

“Then you should have thought of that before you started with your self-righteous interrogation.” My mother twisted sideways and resumed her fixed stare at the wall.

I looked helplessly at Derek. It might be months—years—before I recovered from the aftershocks of this discovery. I couldn’t help but blame my mother, even if I had pressured her into the confession. She must have known I had been referring to life-threatening diseases, not bedroom difficulties easily cured by little blue pills.

I shook my head, attempting to banish the disconcerting images now refusing to go away.

The three of us sat in silence, none of us willing to broach any other subjects. But I secretly vowed to get to the bottom of my mother’s financial problems once I secured a moment alone with her. If there was a way to prevent her from moving in, I was more determined than ever to find it.