Page 47 of The Frathole

Mom and Dad exchange a look before Mom says, “We were very happy you were using condoms, but we did need to have a talk with you. We didn’t traumatize you, did we?”

“I mean, it’s not the only serious conversation we had. There was the time I snuck out.”

“You’re saying it like that was only once,” Mom observes.

“And the time the cops came over because they caught me and some friends in a park after it was closed. And that one time when I was making out with Mandy Forbes at that house that was under construction.”

You know, as much as Marty can get to me, he wasn’t that off about the kind of person I am. But I haven’t even been home, so I’m stumped about what I could’ve done.

“And…” I’m about to go on.

“You’re not in trouble,” Dad insists quickly, like a lawyer trying to keep me from incriminating myself more than I already did. “But we wanted to talk to you about something.”

“We don’t have to get to it right away, though,” Mom adds. “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve been up to?”

I search around the kitchen, sniffing… “What’s for dinner, exactly?”

“Oh, we were planning to go out,” Mom says. “We didn’t have time to get something together, but also, this is important enough that we figured we’d want to discuss it before eating, hence meeting here first.”

That’s unusual…

“If it’s so important, why didn’t you tell me over the phone?”

“It’s the kind of thing you deserved to hear in person, Ry,” Mom says. “And it’s something we probably should have told you sooner.”

Now I’m really on edge. I wait for one of them to explain, but they’re quiet, as though each is waiting for the other to tell me this news.

“Someone has to say it now. Is it Grandma?” She had a stroke last summer, but from everything they’ve told me, she’s been fine recently. It’s the only thing that comes to mind, though.

“No, no,” Dad rushes to reassure me. “Grandma’s fine. This is not about anyone’s health.”

“Okay…” I drag out.

Between the odd way they’re acting tonight and the way Mom’s been acting recently, I have a pinch in my gut, some instinct that I’m hoping once they share what’s on their minds, I’ll reveal what I feared they were about to tell me, and they’ll laugh it off as a wild thing to conclude.

Unfortunately, Mom says, “Your father and I have been doing a lot of thinking the past few years, since you’ve been in college…”

The blood in my face drains as her words confirm what was already stirring in my mind, a fear I have a word for, though I keep trying to pretend the word doesn’t exist.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” she says. “We both love you.”

“So much.”

“Someone just say it,” I force through my teeth.

Mom takes a measured breath, the sort I recognize from other times when she’s had to deliver bad news. “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

There it is. The word I was trying desperately to avoid, and now that she’s said it, I feel even more oblivious than usual. And not only oblivious, but selfish. Was I so self-involved that I didn’t consider this could have been on the horizon for the two people I care about most?

I’m waiting for a torrent of emotion—rage, guilt, shock—but I’m surprisingly numb. To make matters worse, they’re silent, staring at me, as if to gauge my reaction. I open my mouth to say something, anything that will make this stop, but words catch in my throat. Not that I’d have any even if I could think of something.

After a stretch of time, I finally manage to get out, “What?”

“Divorce,” Dad says, avoiding eye contact. “We’re getting a divorce.”

“Not, like, a separation?”

They turn to each other but won’t look each other in the eyes either, and again, I know them well enough to have an idea of what they won’t say. “So you’ve already been separated?”