I wasn’t used to parking this big boy yet.
My phone rang as I slid out of the truck, landing on my feet lightly.
“Hello?” I answered, pressing the lock button on the key fob as I started to walk towards the front of the building.
“Hey, I’m going to be late for lunch. I have a job interview,” Ruthie said excitedly.
I squealed. “How exciting! Where?”
“Halligans and Handcuffs,” she answered. “I’m pretty sure it’s a pity job given to me by your man, but I’ll take just about anything at this point.”
I laughed. “Trust me. If Silas didn’t think you were qualified, you wouldn’t be getting the interview. He may like you, but he likes his businesses better.”
“Businesses?” Ruthie asked.
I nodded, coming to a stop at the side of the building so I didn’t have everyone and their brother listening to my conversation.
“Yeah, apparently he owns Halligans and Handcuffs, as well as Life Flight,” I told her. “Although I just figured it out a couple of days ago when he took me with him to the office and forced me to file paperwork while he did something on the computer.”
Ruthie laughed. “Forced you to file paperwork? I’m sure he did that.”
I laughed. “Okay, well I did it willingly. Regardless, I just found out about the place, though.”
“Well, you’ve only known him for like two months. What did you want to do, know his whole life story in that short of a time period?” She asked laughingly.
I sighed. “I gotta make a run for it into the Target. But I’ll call you back later today and let you know how the meeting with the parents went!”
Something I so wasn’t looking forward to.
At all.
“Later, chicka. Good luck,” she said.
I laughed as I pressed the ‘end call’ button and dumped the phone into my bag.
Making a mental list in my head of things I needed to get, I quickly started for the front door, stopping when I reached the very corner of the awning in the front.
Which was why I saw my dad, who hadn’t seen me.
He was with a woman…a woman that was not my mother.
And I couldn’t tell you why I stopped and listened to their conversation instead of saying hello like I usually would have.
Instead, I moved until I could just barely see my father’s back, but I could hear everything he was saying to the pretty blonde-haired woman in front of him.
“I’m sorry, Judy. I didn’t mean to string you along. I never would’ve done that intentionally. It’s just that my ex-wife and I decided to give it a second go, and I’ve wanted that since we’d divorced six years ago. I’m so sorry I hurt you,” my father said, touching the woman in front of him on the arm.
My heart sank.
“If you loved her, why’d you leave her?” This Judy chick hissed at my father.
I stopped behind the huge red pillar at the front of the Target and waited to hear his reply.
“After my daughter went to prison, my wife and I took a break. My wife decided that the break needed to be permanent when she and I had a difference of opinion where our daughter was concerned,” he admitted.
It all finally made sense.
Were my parents ever going to tell me this?
Or was I supposed to go on blissfully unaware?
Getting back to the truck wasn’t very hard.
I just pulled my hood high over my head, tucked my bag back into the crook of my arm and walked slowly back to Silas’ truck.
The moment I was inside, I pulled my phone out and called Silas.
He was the first one I thought to talk to, and that no longer made me nervous.
Because I loved Silas.
Even if he hid stuff from me.
“Did you know?” I asked, tears coursing down my cheeks.
“Know what, baby?” Silas asked worriedly.
“About my parents,” I answered.
“What about them?”
“That they were divorced,” I cried.
I could tell he paused in what he was doing. “Yeah, I knew.”
My eyes closed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to find out because I listened in on a conversation between my father and his ex-girlfriend in front of Target?”
He cleared his throat and said, “Because it’s not my job. They’re your parents, baby. It wasn’t my place.”
“God,” I breathed. “They divorced because of me.”
“They divorced because they were both hardheaded and wanted to divorce. Talk to them. I have no answers as to what they were thinking when they did that,” Silas said. “But if you talk to them, then you’ll get the answers you need. I’m sorry you found out that way, baby.”
Oh, I’d be getting answers all right.
A lot of them.
***
My gut was churning as I made my way up my parents’ front walk six hours later.
I looked longingly over my shoulder at Silas’ place, then waved at the man on the motorcycle that was parked under the tree across the yard.
He waved back, and I walked into my parent’s house without knocking.
I found my mother at the kitchen sink, and my father sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper.