“It won’t matter.”
“They’re practically grown-up, Jack. They’ll understand. And we won’t mention divorce, just separation.”
He smiled, but it was bleak and bitter. “We can call it anything we want. Hell, call it a vacation, but they’re not stupid. I’ll lose them.”
Suddenly she was afraid, too. “Maybe we won’t have to tell them. Maybe they won’t have noticed that anything’s wrong between us.”
“Birdie,” he said, smiling sadly at her. “My dreamer.”
She wasn’t quite sure why, but the way he said it made her want to cry. “We haven’t made a decision about the future, Jack. We’re just taking a break. That’s all. There’s still a chance for us,” she said fiercely.
He touched her face gently, as if she were spun from glass that he’d broken long ago. “I want to believe that.”
“Me, too.”
TWENTY-FIVE
It was late Saturday afternoon when the shit hit the fan.
Jamie was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fire. Her small, pointed chin was jutted out in the bulldog expression Jack knew meant trouble. “Okay, you guys, spill it.”
Stephanie, in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, paled visibly.
“You want me to ask it another way?” Jamie said, her voice rising. “Steph and I aren’t idiots. We know something is going on between you two.”
“Leave me out of it,” Stephanie said.
Elizabeth, who was sitting on the sofa, tucked her legs up underneath her. She didn’t answer.
Obviously, she was leaving it up to Jack. That had always been their pattern. Elizabeth decided what the girls could and couldn’t do, and Jack was the bad guy who laid down the law, the one who gave them a “talking to” when Elizabeth was unhappy with their grades.
“So?” Jamie demanded again.
The girls looked at Jack. They knew: All bad news came from Dad.
He gazed at his beloved daughters. Jamie’s tight, ready-to-be-pissed expression was ruined by eyes that were already sad. And Stephanie never looked up from the hands coiled in her lap. She was like a buck private, hunkered down behind a building, waiting for the shrapnel to start flying.
The thought of telling them, of actually speaking the toxic words aloud, made him almost sick to his stomach. They would always remember that it was his voice that had torn their family apart.
He couldn’t do it.
He was so deer-in-the-headlights frozen that he didn’t notice when Elizabeth got up, walked around the sofa.
She was behind him now. She squeezed his shoulder, and there was a gentleness to her touch that hurt more than any punch.
“I know you guys sense that something is not normal with Dad and me,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly calm.
He couldn’t believe she was going to do it. Birdie. The woman who ran from conflict and couldn’t make a decision to save her life … the woman who’d stand in front of a train to spare her children’s lives.
“That’s an understatement,” Jamie said mulishly. “We know Dad slept on the sofa last night.”
“People who love each other have fights, Jamie.” Stephanie looked up. “That’s all it is, right?”
Elizabeth’s hold on Jack’s shoulders tightened. It occurred to him to reach up, to lay his hand on hers, but he was paralyzed by what was unfolding. He could barely breathe. “It’s a little more than a fight,” Elizabeth said evenly. “The truth is, your dad and I have separated.”
Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. The color faded from her cheeks. “Oh, my God.”
“I know this is difficult to hear,” Elizabeth said quickly. “And we’re going to have to work together to get through it, but we’ll be okay. We’ll always be a family, no matter what.”
“Oh, this is fucking great. We’ll always be a family. What a crock of shit.” Jamie shot to her feet. She was breathing hard, and Jack could see that she was close to tears. “That’s right up there with a guy asking to be just friends. It means he already has another girlfriend.”
Elizabeth’s grip became painful. “Honey, let us explain.”
“No way. I’ve heard all I can take.”
“Listen to us, please. Your dad and I were so young when we got married,” Elizabeth said.
Stephanie’s head shot up. “That’s your reason? Because you got married too young? I thought … I mean you always … Oh, shit.” She burst into tears.
This was ripping Jack’s heart out. Nothing had ever hurt this much. Nothing. Ever. “Honey …” He didn’t know what to say. He glanced helplessly up at Birdie. She gazed down at him; her mouth trembled. And then her beautiful face crumpled.
Jack didn’t think. He leaned sideways and pulled her into his arms. “We’ll get through this,” he whispered against her wet cheek.
He had never loved her more than he did right then. She’d been stronger in this than he could have been, and now he saw the cost of that strength. She was tearing like old cloth, coming apart in his arms.