“How late can we stay, Mother?” Haylee asked.
“I’ll be there at eleven . . . thirty,” she said, adding thirty minutes to our usual curfew.
“Thank you, Mother,” Haylee said quickly, and looked at me.
“Thank you, Mother,” I said.
That was on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, she walked into the great room where we waited and announced that she and Daddy would be getting a divorce. The reality of what had been building in our house finally settled on Haylee’s face. She looked at me and matched my sad and frightened expression.
Mother hugged us both and then sat across from us. We were on the settee as usual, sitting side by side.
“It’s for sure?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. It’s for sure,” Mother said. She gave us a weak smile before she continued. “I know the two of you have noticed how long and how often your father has avoided you and me, especially these past few months. I have done my best to protect you from the ugly truth.”
“What ugly truth?” Haylee asked, because Mother paused so long, and her face went from anger to sadness and then back to anger.
“Your father has been with another woman, a woman who has her own child from another marriage, too. Apparently, he’s been a better father to her daughter than he has been to you.”
“Why?” Haylee asked.
Now Mother smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was a smile full of anger. “Why? Men more than women are always looking to see if the grass is greener somewhere else.”
“Grass?” Haylee looked at me.
Did I dare explain?
“Attention deficit disorder,” Mother said, which did nothing to help Haylee understand. “He has wandering eyes. He always did, even before you were born, but I tolerated it. His pleasure is so important to him that he’d even sacrifice being with you. You’ll understand more when you are older.”
“But you always told us we should look for a man like Daddy,” Haylee said.
“And I regret that now. I was trying to make this a happy home, despite his . . . indifference.”
Haylee looked at me, but I just stared ahead, pushing my thoughts back like someone trying to keep a spring from popping out of a mattress.
“Anyway, it’s beyond understanding at this point. I had to get a lawyer, who has met with your father’s lawyer, and we’ve agreed on a settlement. I will have full custody of you. He can visit on certain days, but until you’re eighteen, you will not stay with him.”
“He agreed to that?” I asked.
“Oh, he didn’t have much choice,” Mother said with a cold smile.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s moved in with his concubine.”
“What’s that?” Haylee asked first.
“A whore,” Mother said bitterly. She stared ahead, looking through us, and then her eyes seemed to snap, and she sat forward. “Nothing will change for us. In fact, you might not even notice a difference. We’ll talk more about it, but for now, that’s enough.”
She rose. Then she lunged forward to hug us, before turning to go make dinner.
Haylee looked even more upset than I did, but it wasn’t until later that I learned that was because she thought Mother might now change her mind about letting us go to Jimmy Jackson’s house.
7
I suppose people would say there could never be anything “normal” about identical twins, and now, being the children of divorced parents seemed to confirm it. If anything, once our classmates learned that our parents were divorcing, it was bound to lead to more teasing and hurtful remarks, like “Which one will live with your father, or doesn’t it make a difference? Maybe he wouldn’t know which one of you was living with him.”
None of this seemed to upset Haylee nearly as much as it did me. I could almost say it didn’t bother her at all. She was so busy planning our social life that she deliberately ignored what was happening at home. The reality did eventually settle in with her, but she was determined not to let it depress her before or during the date at Jimmy Jackson’s house. She constantly work