Calling Catherine

I wanted to tell you myself,” she said. “I wanted to tell you for such a long time. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell you and I couldn’t not tell you.”

The affair was over, so much of this was history now. I found it hard to catch up. This should have been none of my business. Love is love, after all, and I’m all for it. But because we were tangled up together, it became something done behind my back. What made me angriest was that my daughter was fired. She had broken up with Chuck, but his wife found out, and to try to keep his family together, Catherine had to leave. She never complained about this, never thought of herself as a victim, she had done what she had done. “It was all inevitable,” she said. Chuck and his partner helped her find another job and he looked after her as best he could, still loving her, but the fact remained: he let her go.

And this had all happened a year ago. I was angry with Chuck, I didn’t want to speak to him, but the anger made it possible to skip over the part where my best friend had slept with my daughter, and my daughter had slept with my best friend.

So I admit it came in handy.