Finals Week

"Are you going to divorce her?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Sammie. That depends on her. If she had come to me..."

I hugged him again. "I know. I told her to, Dad." I couldn't help it. I started crying and his big arm pulled me close. I cried into his chest like I did when I was five and the dog chewed up my dollhouse, or when my first boyfriend dumped me when I was 15. He may not have always been there, but he flew home from Miami for that.

"At that point, it was already too late," he said quietly. "She needed to do it on her own, not because she got caught."

I nodded miserably. "Do you have somewhere you can stay for a couple of days?" he asked. "You could go back to the beach."

"No, I want to be close," I said. "I can stay with Chloe."

We talked until he had to go back to the office and I called Chloe. She was happy to let me stay there for a couple of days and I drove over. It must have been eight or so when I felt my phone vibrate. It was Mom. I took the call.

"You just had to do it, didn't you?" were her first words.

"Mom, he already knew," I said. I heard a gasp over the phone.

"What? How... what are you talking about? You told him!"

"I was going to," I said. "I told you I would, Mom. I gave you your shot to come clean. Now I find out you lied to me. That wasn't some 'one-time mistake'. You've been banging that creep for a month. Dad knew about it. Remember I told you the asshole would brag about it? Well that's exactly what happened and one of Dad's clients told him."

I could hear sobbing on the other end. "Where are you, Mom?"

"I'm at home," she choked out. "He told me he was leaving, packed and just left. I'm so sorry, Samantha. I was just so ashamed. I couldn't tell you... I know you think I'm a whore."

"No, I don't think that," I said. "If you were a ho I would have found out years ago. I do think you've screwed the pooch, literally and figuratively. You're going to have to see if you can fix this. You are going to try and fix this, right?"

"I don't know how I can!" She sounded miserable. Of course, she was sort of miserable.

"Do you still love Dad?" I asked.

"I can't talk about this over the phone," she said. "Please, Samantha, if you love me, come over here and talk to me. I need you."

I told Chloe I was going, packed up my stuff and drove over to the house. Dad called me on the way over.

"Was it ugly?" I asked.

"Pretty bad," he said. "I'm staying at the airport Hilton. Where are you?"

I told him I was on the way home to talk to Mom. "Do you want me to come there, instead?"

"No, I'm okay," he said. "Go talk to her, Sammie. She probably needs a shoulder to cry on. Will you meet me for breakfast?"

"Dad, you know I'm not much of a morning person," I said. "When were you thinking?"

"Five AM." He chuckled. "I'm taking the day off tomorrow. 10:30 at the diner?"

I told him that worked for me. When I got home, Mom was a mess. I knew she would be, but this was bad. She cried for an hour before I could understand a word she was saying. Finally, she pulled it together enough for me to understand her.

"You know that question you asked me, Samantha? If I love Barton? Of course I do. I don't know if we're 'in love' anymore. We've been drifting apart, Samantha. Ever since you went away to school, it just seems like we've been going through the motions. He works, I work, we just seem like we have separate lives and the only thing we have in common is you."

"Jesus, Mom, how did you let it get like this?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Do the two of you never talk? If you were feeling like that, why didn't you just tell him instead of fucking that asshole?"

"I don't know!" She burst into a fresh round of sobbing. "It's like there's this wall there. It just built up and neither one of us were brave enough to climb over."

"So instead of just telling Dad you aren't 'in love' you decided to sleep around?"

"No! It wasn't like that. It just happened, Samantha. We were around each other all the time at work. We did deals together and he wanted me. I was just weak and stupid."

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm sure Bart doesn't want to be married to me now, if he did before. I guess he'll probably file for a divorce."

"Don't you think the two of you should sit down and talk about this?" I asked. "Christ, Mom, you should have talked about it years ago! What the hell is wrong with you? Am I the only adult in this family?"

She looked up at me with those puffy eyes and wailed. "I'm so sorry, baby. I guess you are. Samantha, can you ever forgive me?"

"Do you even have to ask?" I went over and sat beside her on the couch. I put my arm around her shoulders. She felt frail and thin. "I forgive you, Mom. I'll help you, but I swear to God, if you ever lie to me again, I'm done with you. Do you understand that? I can accept that you aren't 'in love' with Dad anymore. I can't accept what you did, or how you lied to me. If you ever do anything like that again, we're through. Do you get that?"

"Yes, I'm so sorry," she said. She was making the arm of my blouse wet. I handed her the box of tissues. She blew her nose and looked at me, searching my face. She must have found what she was looking for, because she leaned back with a sigh and put her feet up.

I swear, for the next six months, I felt like a marriage counselor. They did get together for those talks, and they would each tell me about them. Dad did file for a divorce, and it went as smoothly as those kinds of things can. Neither one of them was out for blood, but they did fight over things.

The biggest surprise was that when the dust settled, they both wanted me to have the beach house. Dad moved to Tallahassee and met a very nice attorney that I loved from the first time I met her. They got married almost as soon as the divorce was final.

It was a little awkward at my Masters awards, but there weren't any fireworks. I know Mom dates, but she hasn't been serious enough with anyone to introduce them to me. I've got my own life. I'm in a private practice and I live in the beach house. I'm dating a nice guy. He's a building contractor, but we aren't in any hurry to get married. I only want to do that once, and I need to be sure he's the one. He's been dropping some hints. We'll see.