Ugly Love

Chapter thirty


MILES


Six years earlier


We quietly walk to an empty waiting area. My father sits first,

and I reluctantly sit across from him.

I wait for his confession, but he doesn’t know I don’t need it. I

know about his relationship with Lisa.

I know how long it’s been going on.

“Your mother and I . . .” He’s looking at the floor.

He can’t even make eye contact with me.

“We decided to separate when you were sixteen. However,

with as much as I traveled, it made financial sense for us to wait

until you graduated before filing for divorce, so that’s what we

decided to do.”

Sixteen?

She got sick when I was sixteen.

“We had been split up for almost a year when I met Lisa.”

He’s looking at me now. He’s being honest.

“When she found out she was sick, it was the right thing to do,

Miles. She was your mother, and I wasn’t going to leave her

when she needed me the most.”

My chest hurts.

“I know you’ve put two and two together,” he says. “I know

you’ve done the math. I know you’ve been hating me, thinking

I was having an affair while she was sick, and I hated allowing

you to think that.”

“Then why did you?” I ask him. “Why did you let me think

that?”

He looks at the floor again. “I don’t know,” he says. “I thought

maybe there was a chance that you didn’t realize I’d been

dating Lisa for longer than I let on, so I thought bringing it

up would do more harm than good. I didn’t like the thought

of you knowing my marriage with your mother had failed. I

didn’t want you to think she died unhappy.”

“She didn’t,” I reassure him. “You were there for her, Dad. We

both were.”

He appreciates that I say this, because he knows it’s true.

My mother was happy with her life.

Happy with me.

It makes me wonder if she’d be disappointed now, seeing how

things have turned out.

“She would be proud of you, Miles,” he says to me. “With how

you’ve handled yourself.”

I hug him.

I needed to hear that more than I knew.