Page 57 of The Me I Left Behind

“Well, yes.” Suddenly, she realized she’d probably jumped the gun a little, had gotten ahead of herself. “Just hold that thought for a minute, can you? I’ll get there in a minute.”

Jason leaned back and sighed, looking away.

She continued. “Apparently, the inspector was here today because your dad wants to sell the house. He didn’t tell me that, of course, so it was a surprise to me.”

“But why?” Jason asked. “Why does he want to sell the house? Are we getting a new one?”

She breathed in and out again. Slowly. “No. We are not getting a new house. I believe your father wants to sell because he either wants the money, or he wants to punish me.”

“No. Dad has money.” Jason’s face screwed up, questioning. “What did you do to him, Mom?”

“She didn’t do a damn thing, Jason. It’s all Dad.”

He twisted to look at her. “How do you know that?”

Maggie leaned forward. “Kids. Stop. Listen to me. Please? Just listen for a minute.”

Jason closed his eyes, as if he were trying to block it all out.

Chloe’s arms snaked around Jason’s waist.

Bracing herself, Maggie started in again, knowing she didn’t want to stop until she’d said everything she wanted to say. “Kids, your father and I haven’t gotten along for a long time. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I will not go into them right now. Maybe when you are older. What you need to know is that we are getting a divorce. That’s one reason your dad has been spending the past few months in Australia. It’s true he started a new business in Brisbane, and needs to be there right now, but it’s also because he and I do not want to live together any longer.”

Jason stared. “So, it’s not just work. It’s an official divorce.”

“Yes.”

“Then, you lied.” His stare was intense.

“I wasn’t ready to talk to you kids about it yet. And as the adult here, that was my prerogative.”

Jason ignored that. “What about us? Me, Carol, and Chloe? Don’t we get a say? What happens to us?”

“Of course, you do.” She let go of another sigh.This is going to get difficult before it gets easier.“In a way. Look. I’m going to be as honest with you as I can be. I don’t know a lot yet. Julia is handling the divorce, and part of that is custody. And yes, your dad has an attorney, too, to handle his end of things. That’s the way it works. To answer your question, Jason, I don’t know exactly what will happen. Sometimes in a divorce, the kids live with one parent full-time and visit the other on weekends and holidays. Sometimes there is joint custody, where the kids spend, say, a week at one parent’s house, then a week at the other. But I think you all know that already.”

“We do, Mom. Friends…” Carol offered.

“That sort of sucks, doesn’t it?” Jason said. “What about school and stuff?”

Geez, she hadn’t expected to go there yet. “While I don’t want this to happen, if your dad doesn’t pay for private school, then you’ll have to go to the public school. I won’t be able to afford it.”

Jason glared. “Well, if you’d worked before now, maybe you could afford it.”

“Your dad didn’t want me to work, Jason.”

“Right.”

“I’m telling you the truth.” She studied him. Obviously, he was tearing himself up inside, rolling over all this information. Yet, she knew he’d been moody and stewing on something for a while now, so perhaps getting it out in the open was a good thing.

He glanced off, apparently thinking. “What if Dad doesn’t live in the same school district, or he wants us to go to a differentschool than you do? How does that work? We can’t go to two schools.”

“No, you can’t.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled away. Instead, she touched his knee. “Jason, these are legit questions. All that has to be worked out between your dad and me and the lawyers. The thing is, as long as he is living in Australia, which is a different country, the judge will probably say that you should live full time with me, and you can visit him on vacations.”

“Geez, Mom. Whatever you did to piss him off, you sure weren’t thinking of us, were you? You’ve totally screwed up our lives.”

Of all the things she had mentally prepared herself for, Jason’s words—him blaming her—were not among them. She choked back a sob and looked away.

Carol scooted to the edge of the couch, leaning toward her brother. “Jason! That’s total bullshit. Mom didn’t do anything. You know how Dad treats her. You know how he treats us. Whenever he can get a dig in, he does. If he wants to slap us around, he does that too. And Mom has had enough of it. You got that? So just shut the fuck up.”