Page 15 of Fathers of the Bride

“Yes, you’re probably right. Excuse me, I have to make a few calls.”

I went into the bedroom for privacy. After I shut the door, I dialed my daughter. When she picked up, I asked, “Young lady, what were you thinking? Have you lost your mind?”

5

Miles Kettering-Lane

“How couldyou do that to me?” I asked my daughter the minute I got home.

She was curled on the living room sofa speaking into her phone. Looking up, she said to me, “Daddy, don’t yell like that.”

“I’m not yelling. Why do you think I’m yelling?” Okay, I could hear myself yelling.

“Meeting Avery’s family is going to be hard enough. My fathers need to get along.”

“Well, that’s entirely up to your other father,” I said. Whoever she was speaking to said something. The tiny voice was familiar. “Is that Papa? Hang up. Call him later. We have things to discuss.”

“Papa, I should probably go,” she said into the phone. I have to admit, I took a little satisfaction being chosen. But then she said, “No, I just can’t have two conversations at once. It’s confusing. I’ll call you tonight.”

She clicked off and gave me a rather disappointed look. “Did you really hold your breath?”

“Hold my—of course not. I wasbreathing.” And then, to make my point, I demonstrated exactly what had happened. Breathing in and out, in and out. The room began to spin. To avoid hyperventilating, I plunked down in one of the Queen Anne chairs. “I was trying not to be angry. I read it in a book,How to Face Your Abusers.”

“Daddy! Papa never abused you.”

“Well, I know that. It doesn’t mean the book isn’t helpful. The breathing exercises alone make it worth a read.”

“Oh my God,” my daughter said in a rather exasperated way. I wish I could say it was the first time. “Did you at least try to have a civil conversation?”

“Yes, of course.”

“For how long?”

“Five minutes, maybe six.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very long time.”

“It certainlyfeltlike a long time,” I said. Then I asked—well, I should explain first. I, we, had always done our best to keep Kelly out of the divorce. The last thing we wanted was to put her in the middle of it all. Of course, she’d just jumped there herself so why not ask? “HowisPapa doing? In your opinion?”

For a moment, I thought she’d refuse to answer, but then she said, “He seems to be drinking a lot.”

“I’d drink too if I was carrot-colored.”

“I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“Is Raj also… ocherous?”

I expected some kind of comment about the word ocherous. I’d looked it up on my smart phone while driving home—yes, I know that’s not exactly legal, but it’s L.A. I was driving three miles an hour.

Despite a decade (or more) of building this child’s vocabulary, she ignored my very clever choice of words, simply saying, “It’s one of their endorsement deals.”

“Well, he looks more like a cautionary tale than an advertisement.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It’s not that good.”

“Daddy, does it bother you that Papa has a boyfriend while the two of you are still legally married?”