Page 40 of Soft Tissue Damage

Alarm thuds through me. Is she going to tell him about our kiss? Now is not the time for the mutual baring of souls and the chance for Leon to seize any high ground. I can already hear him storming about the betrayal of his girlfriend kissing his father and making this all about his hurt and not hers. What we each did is not equivalent. The kiss between me and Elena was my fault, not hers. I want Elena to feel as beloved as she deserves. Leon was just horny.

I push my phone into my pocket and step into the room. “What’s going on in here?”

Apart from Elena’s crying, the room goes very quiet. I stride forward and take Elena’s phone from her, and scroll through the photos and messages.

“I see,” I say coldly. It disgusts me all over again to look at the photos of Leon and this other young woman. I wish Icould have spared Elena the sight, but a short, sharp shock is preferable to a long, drawn-out breakup. “Dating two women at the same time is shameful behavior, Leon. I’m disappointed in you.”

“We weren’t dating,” Leon bursts out.

“So it was just sex? Is that better?”

Elena cries even harder.

I want to reach out and scoop her into my arms and cradle her tightly against my chest. I crave to kiss every tear from her cheeks. It’s torture being this close to her but being unable to comfort her.

I turn to my son. “I think you should go to your mother’s and give Elena some space.”

Leon looks at Elena, waiting for her to tell him she doesn’t want him to go, but she’s still crying and looking at the floor.

“Whatever,” he mutters, and storms out of the kitchen.

I give Elena’s phone back to her and pass her a tissue. “I’m so sorry, Elena. I’m ashamed of my son. You don’t deserve to be treated this way.”

Elena mops her face with the tissue. “It doesn’t matter. I’m okay.” Then she breaks down into sobbing again. “I thought things were getting better between us.”

I put both my hands gently on her shoulders and caress her with my thumbs. It takes all my self-control not to pull her body against mine and rock her against my chest. “I’m going to cancel my poker game.”

“No, please don’t ruin your evening for me.”

“I promise you’re not. Stay here, and we’ll talk. But first I have to speak to Leon.”

I put a glass of water into her hands, steer her into the living room, and gently make her sit on the sofa. “Rosie is asleep upstairs, but I’ll be right back. Thirty minutes at the most.”

She cups the glass, stares down into it, and says in a small voice, “All right.”

The helpless note in her voice breaks my self-control. I go down on my knees and cup her face. “It will be okay. I promise. I will make things okay.”

But first I have to get Leon out of her life for good.

Ten minutes later, I’m standing on my ex-wife’s doorstep, ringing the doorbell.

Rebecca answers. Her long red hair tumbles over her shoulder. She fluffs it, her face unsmiling. I have no smile for her either.

“Can I please talk to Leon?” I ask.

“Hello to you too. What’s it about?”

“Leon knows.”

Rebecca hesitates, and then lets me in. “He ran upstairs a few minutes ago. He seemed upset about something.”

“Leon,” I shout as I enter the house. “Get down here right now.”

Slowly, sullenly, Leon comes down the stairs and meets me in the living room.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“Nothing, Dad,” Leon says, throwing his hands up like he’s been wrongly accused.