There was no Christmas tree, no lights, no wreath, and the holiday was only a week away.
“So, I’m thinking about going to Aspen for the last few days of break,” I said casually, watching for any reaction. “Landon and Wilder will be up there practicing for the X Games before we head back, and I’d love to get some time on the slopes.”
Mom tensed. She hated when I went snowboarding or did anything that didn’t come with a seat belt and air bags. “Oh?” she asked, flipping the bacon again.
My eyes narrowed.
“Well, I mean, if that’s something you’re interested in, I could definitely see if we could open up the company’s house there,” Dad offered. “I mean, we’ll be up there all of January for the Games, so why not?”
My mouth hit the floor. Dad hated me anywhere near extreme sports—or Landon, for that matter.
What the hell?
“And I was thinking maybe I’d get a tattoo in the next couple of days, too.”
Mom’s grip tightened on the spatula, and Dad turned around, swallowing with force. “Okay…well, you’re a grown woman and whatever you choose—”
“Cut the crap!” I snapped. “What the hell is going on? You two are acting weird and there’s no Christmas tree, or any of the usual overkill that Mom likes to deck the halls with—sorry, Mom, but you do. Are we doing something insane like going to Disney for Christmas or something? Are you pulling a John Grisham and Kranking me? Because I love you guys, but I’ve seriously been traveling the last two months and all I want to do is hang here at home.”
Dad switched off the mixer and came to stand next to Mom.
They locked eyes, and she moved a few feet away toward the sink.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. “What’s going on?” I asked in a voice I barely recognized as my own.
“Rachel, there’s something your mother and I need to tell you.”
“Is someone dead? Did something happen while I was gone and you didn’t tell me?”
Mom came around the island bar and took my hand. “Nothing like that, baby. It’s just that your dad and I…well…” She looked up at my dad, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“We’re getting a divorce,” Dad said.
The ground shifted beneath my feet, and even though I sat on the stool, immobile, it felt like I was falling, like they’d just demagnetized the poles and now my compass spun without direction. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, honey. We didn’t want to tell you while you were gone. That’s so much stress on you, and we figured it was best to let you be happy,” Mom said softly.
“How long?” I asked Dad, who still wouldn’t look up. He took the bacon off the stove, like that was going to help us in any way.
“We’ve known since before you left,” she whispered. “Your dad moved out the week after you called from Dubai.”
I shook my head, trying to make it all fit. “You’ve known for months? But you were here when Mom called me,” I said to Dad.
“She asked if I would come over, and of course I wanted to talk to you,” he said, glancing up.
“But…but you were happy. You loved each other. You… I just don’t understand! You guys are like the poster children for marriage. Hell, you’re like the inspiration for perfect people. It doesn’t make sense. I know you used to be unhappy, but that was like twenty years ago…”
You adopted me. I fixed everything. You said I glued you back together.
“Rachel, just because people fall in love when they’re twenty doesn’t mean that it lasts. Sometimes people grow apart,” Mom told me.
“Or sometimes people simply decide that you’re not what they want anymore and forget to tell you,” Dad said quietly, looking over at Mom.
Her eyes dropped to her hands.
That sick feeling spread from my stomach to my heart. “What happened, Mom?”
She gave me a pained smile but only met my eyes for a flash. “It’s not important.”
Not only had my parents’ marriage disintegrated while I was gone, but I didn’t even get to know why.
Suddenly the home I was raised in, with so many birthdays, holidays, and family movie nights, felt more foreign than the countries I’d been in the last two months.
“Dad? You don’t live here anymore?”
He shook his head. “No. I bought a place closer to the office. But I have a room set up for you.”
“She’s not going with you,” Mom spat.
“Oh, she’s going to stay here with you? After what you’ve done?”
“This is her home. You can leave it, but she’s not going to.”
“What the hell would you know about home? After you brought him here? In our house? Our bed?” Dad’s accusation echoed in my brain, reverberating until it was all I could hear even though their fight continued around me.
“Never around.”
“Unfaithful!”
“Lonely!”
The words wrapped around me in a cacophony of ugliness. How did this happen so quickly? How could something I’d always seen as unshakable crumble without me noticing?
Was all love doomed to end up here?
Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t they tell me? Why was I enough to bring them back as a baby, but not now?
“She’s not going with you!”
“Well, she’s sure as hell not staying with you!”
The world came back into sharp focus.
“Enough!” I shouted as I stood. The bar stool crashed to the hardwood floor behind me.
They stared at me in startled silence as I tried to force the words out. “I’m not a child anymore. Maybe that’s why this is all happening. I don’t know. But I do know that I’m capable of making my own decisions, and right now, I don’t want to be around either of you.”
I turned and made it to the living room before they spoke.
“Rachel, we’re sorry. We wanted to do this better. Gentler,” Mom said.
“Did you cheat on him?” I asked her quietly, needing to know.
She looked down at her hands.
“And you just moved out? Gave up? Just like that? You couldn’t even tell me?” I asked Dad.
“I couldn’t stay here. There’s a lot you don’t know,” he replied quietly.
“Yeah. I see that now.” I sucked in a breath. “I think I’m going to leave. You two figure out your stuff, because you’re acting more childish than I ever could. If you want to dissolve our family, that’s your choice. I don’t get a say. But I also don’t have to sit here while you hurl poison at each other.”
Twenty minutes later I pulled out of the driveway in my car, everything I brought home in my backseat. I’d never even unpacked.
It had taken less than twelve hours to upend everything I thought I knew.
I wasn’t sure how long it took to get there, mostly because I didn’t really remember most of the drive. I only hoped I hadn’t run any red lights, and I wished for the millionth time that my cell phone had been turned on. But once my parents informed me that true love doesn’t last forever, there was only one person I wanted to see.
I needed his arms around me, his voice in my ear promising that we’d make it. I needed Landon.
The giant gate at the front of his house never failed to intimidate me.