Page 18 of Absolution (Infidelty #3)

Kyle

“Well, son,”

my father says, swirling his black coffee.

“how about you and I go swing a couple of holes this morning? There are some clients I’d like you to meet.”

I glance up from my plate.

“I told you; I’m not moving here.”

He waves that off like I’m joking.

“Then let me kick your ass in front of them.”

I smirk. Of course. Nothing says bonding like an ambush with clients. I glance over at the kids, packed in next to me at the round dining table, making a glorious mess of the syrup-drenched pancakes.

“Go enjoy the day with your father,”

my mother says from the other end of the room. She’s wearing a silk robe and a tight smile.

“I’ll watch the kids.”

I nod, pushing back my chair and tossing my napkin on the plate.

“Hey, would you guys like to spend the day with Grandma?”

“Yes.”

Iris says, while Jemma and Levi nod, their mouth full of half-chewed pancake.

“Just call me if you need anything,”

I tell them, tapping the tablet from the centre of the table.

“I’ll come right back, okay?”

I glance at my mom.

“Levi already took his meds. I’ll be home before his next dose. Just follow their lead, they know what to do.”

She gives me a look over her rimless glasses.

“Kyle. I’ve raised a child before, you know.”

I smile tightly. Technically, yes. Though grandma did most of the actual raising.

My father insists on driving his beloved vintage convertible to the club. He calls i.

“The Shark”

and handles it like it’s part of his own myth. I sit in the passenger seat, watching his knuckles grip the wheel, rings flashing in the sun.

We pull up to the club, and instead of heading to the golf carts, he leads me toward the lounge.

“I thought we were playing a few holes,”

I say, slowing down.

He gives me a look over his shoulder.

“Come on, son. Real networking happens over whiskey.”

“It’s ten a.m.”

He doesn’t reply. Just raises an eyebrow like I’m embarrassing him.

Inside the doors, it’s a different world entirely.

Men in tailored suits recline in overstuffed leather chairs, cigars in hand. A haze of smoke floats just below the vaulted ceiling. Waitresses in what I can only describe as aprons pretending to be skirts glide between them, refilling glasses and laughing at things that aren’t funny.

It looks like something out of Mad Men, if Mad Men had a ‘no women unless they’re serving you’ rule.

Jesus.

No wonder it’s members-only. And men-only.

I glance around the room. Everyone here looks like a version of my father.

And I wonder, what the hell am I doing here?

I may not know exactly who I am yet. But I do know who I don’t want to be.

Watching my sixty-year-old father flirt with a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, with his hand casually resting on her ass like it’s a damn armrest, makes me physically sick.

Is this me?

Jesus.

The cigar smoke coils thick in my throat. I cough once, then again, harder. My chest tightens, sharp and sudden. A bolt of pain shoots across my ribcage.

I freeze.

It’s just the smoke, I tell myself, but then the pain deepens, radiating up toward my shoulder, and a wave of dizziness crashes over me.

I stumble outside, vision tunnelling, clutching the railing as the stone steps blur beneath me. My knees buckle near a manicured hedge, and I double over, gasping.

My heart’s racing, wild and uneven. It feels wrong. Like something’s misfiring inside me.

I’m having a heart attack.

The thought slams into me, and now I’m sweating. My hands won’t stop shaking. I can’t draw a full breath. Everything narrows to the pounding in my chest and the crushing weight on my sternum.

“Sir?”

A soft voice. I barely register the hand on my back.

“Are you alright?”

I glance up. It’s one of the waitresses, barely more than twenty. Her face pales as she sees me.

“Your father asked me to check on you-”

she starts, but I cut her off, choking out.

“Call someone.”

I press my hand to my chest.

“I think… I think I’m-”

She crouches beside me, her voice steady now.

“You’re not having a heart attack.”

“I can’t breathe,” I rasp.

“I know. I think it’s a panic attack. You’re safe. I’m right here.”

She takes my hand and holds it firmly.

“Just breathe with me. In through your nose. Good. Now out.”

My chest still aches. My limbs feel like rubber. But her voice cuts through the panic, slow and certain.

“Again. In. Hold it. Now out.”

Gradually, the stabbing fades. The air starts to come easier. And when I finally look up, I realize I’m still alive.

Barely.

Then she brushes her fingers over my chest.

I flinch, pushing her hand away.

“I’m fine.”

She doesn’t take the hint. Instead she leans closer, perfume thick in the warm air.

“Are you sure, sir?”

“How old are you?”

I ask, jaw tight.

She straightens.

“Twenty-one.”

I lift my hand, show her my ring.

“I’m married.”

She doesn’t even blink.

“So are most of the men in there.”

I swallow hard.

“Then why… how can you do this?”

In one second, the smile drops. Her eyes go cold, flat.

“Is it the fault of the single woman,”

she says evenly.

“or the married man with his hand on her ass?”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

She watches me for a beat, then adds.

“Not everyone is born with a silver spoon, you know. Some of us have to work. To pay bills. To take care of people who depend on us. So, we swallow our pride. And we giggle when some asshole calls us doll.”

I look away, ashamed.

“Would you like anything else, sir?”

she asks, her voice sharper now.

“No,” I mutter.

She turns and walks off, leaving me alone on the steps, nausea and shame curling in my gut.

This is the world I brought my daughters to.

Jesus.

What the fuck was I thinking?

Once I feel like myself again, I head inside to find my father. He hasn’t moved much. Only now, the same waitress is perched in his lap.

I march right up to him.

“Something came up,”

I say tightly.

“I have to go back.”

He starts to protest, but I’ve already turned around.

“Son-”

he calls out, trailing me.

At the front desk, I’m mid-sentence asking for a car when he walks up.

“It’s alright, Harry,”

he says to the concierge.

“I’ll drive him.”

I say nothing, just follow him out.

The drive is quiet at first, thick with everything we’re not saying. Until I can’t take it anymore.

“How can you do this?”

I ask, staring out the window.

He doesn’t answer. Just pulls over onto the shoulder and kills the engine.

Then he turns in his seat.

“You know,”

he says calmly.

“I have had enough of your holier-than-thou attitude.”

I stare at him, startled.

“You may not like it, son, but you are just like me.”

That hits like a punch. I open the door and step out. He follows.

Cars rush past us on the road. Wind whips at our shirts.

“How the fuck am I like you?”

I ask, spinning to face him.

He doesn’t blink.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t stepped out on your marriage.”

I glance away.

“That’s different.”

“No, son. It’s not.”

He steps closer, lowering his voice.

“It’s exactly the same. You had an excuse, just like me. You needed her. She wasn’t there. You felt alone. Boo hoo.”

His words are poison, but they sink in all the same. He leans in, practically nose to nose.

“I never wanted to marry your mother. It was an arrangement. She didn’t want it either, but she was raised to say yes. So, we made a deal. I do what I want, she does what she wants. The only difference? She’s good at hiding it.”

I stare at him, stunned. Mouth falling open. I never once considered…

“Marsha taught you manners,”

he adds.

“But she didn’t teach you accountability.”

And then, like a final knife.

“Does your wife know? Or does she still think you’re the good guy she married?”

I stare at him not saying a word. I want to fight back. I want to say something sharp, cut him down, deny him, remind him I’m not the monster he is.

But I can’t. Because the worst part is, I’m not the good guy, not anymore.

So, I do the only thing I can, I get back in the car.

He follows a beat later, smirking like he won.

Neither of us says a word the entire ride back. The silence is thick, choking. I can smell the smoke from the lounge still clinging to my clothes.

When we pull into the driveway, my father doesn’t even put the car in park before muttering.

“You’ll see, kid. One day you’ll thank me for telling you the truth.”

I step out, closing the car door behind me. Through the living room windows, I see the kids gathered around a puzzle or maybe a board game, their heads bowed together in concentration.

And just behind them, my mother.

She’s sitting straight in one of her ridiculous white wingback chairs, a book in her hand and a cup beside her. Calm. Collected. Elegant as ever.

She doesn’t see me watching. But I watch anyway.

And suddenly, I don’t see the woman who planned every Greyson holiday with military precision.

I don’t see the woman who was barely around when I was growing up.

I see the woman who had no choice. Who made the best of a prison cell.

I’ve never met her parents, though I know they were alive well into my teenage years. I asked her about them once. She got this distant look in her eyes before changing the subject. I never pushed.

But now, for the first time, I try to imagine it, what it must’ve felt like to be a daughter someone could love, then throw away like a burden.

How do you survive that?

How do you learn to love after that?

I don’t say any of this aloud.

Just open the door, step into the house, and call out.

“There’s been a work emergency.”

My mother rises instantly, smoothing her skirt.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Client fallout. I need to be back in Austin ASAP.”

“Are you taking the children?”

I nod.

“I’ll book flights now. Can you help them pack?”

She doesn't hesitate.

“Of course.”

I turn to Iris, Jemma, and Levi.

“Pack up, team. We’re heading home.”

“But…”

Jemma starts to whine, but stops at the look on my face.

“We’ll come back,”

I say, not meaning it.

Within twenty minutes, bags are zipped, gifts are gathered, tablets charged. I hold Levi’s medication bag like a lifeline and keep myself busy until the car pulls around.

My father doesn't come down to say goodbye.

My mother does. She kisses each child on the forehead, even murmurs something warm to Levi, who surprises me by hugging her back.

She looks at me last.

“Safe flight,”

she says, no trace of warmth.

“Thanks,”

I answer flatly.

She opens her mouth like she wants to say something else. But she doesn’t. She just steps back as I usher the kids into the cab and shut the door behind us.

As we pull away from the house, I stare straight ahead. I don’t know if I’m running from something or toward it. But I know this: I am not my father.

And I’ll burn my life to the ground before I become him.

I’d already texted Jackie before we boarded, so she’s waiting at the curb by the time we land. The pickup lane is crowded, no room for long greetings. The kids rush into her arms before piling into the backseat. I slide into the passenger side.

She pulls out into traffic.

“So,”

she says, glancing in the rearview.

“did you guys have fun with Grandma and Grandpa?”

Instantly, the backseat erupts with stories. The puzzles, the beach, the pancakes Levi says were not as good as hers. Jackie listens, nodding, smiling, asking just the right questions at just the right time.

I sit beside her, half-listening. Half-somewhere else.

I’ve been here before. This feeling. This low, this ache, this quiet panic of waking up in a life I barely recognize and wondering how I became this version of myself.

Last time…

Last time was after the kids were born. When Jackie went into labour and I-

I pushed it down then. Because pushing it down was easier than facing it. But I can’t do that again. Not now.

Levi’s laughter rings out behind me, and I glance back. He’s leaning against Iris, showing her something on the tablet.

I don’t want him to grow up thinking silence is strength. Or that distance is dignity. I don’t want the girls to love men who disappear when things get hard.

If I want to be different, really different, then I need to do what my father never would.

I have to ask for help.