The silence that followed stretched on for so long she wondered if her mother had heard her.
“Knew?” Her mother looked shocked. “You mean about the affairs?”
“Affairs?” It was Frankie’s turn to be shocked. “He had more than one?”
“Oh—I—” Her mother looked thrown. Then she lifted her chin. “Yes. Yes, he did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you worshipped the ground your father walked on, and I didn’t want to be the one to kill your feelings. But it seems that happened, anyway.” Her mother looked tired. “But if you knew about the last one, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he made me promise not to. He told me it was the first time he’d done it, and that he was never going to do it again. I didn’t know he was still seeing her until the day he walked out. And I didn’t know how to handle it. I knew you loved him and I didn’t want to hurt you. I lived with it, stored it inside me like some toxic virus that isn’t allowed to meet with the air in case it combusts. And I always wondered whether if I’d told you the moment I’d found out, if I hadn’t kept my silence, you might have been able to fix it.”
There was a long, pulsing silence.
“Oh, Frankie. Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother reached across the table and took her hand. “Nothing you did or didn’t do would have made a difference. He was playing you, just as he played me. His first affair was when I was expecting you. I found out because I went into labor early and no one could find him. It turned out the reason they couldn’t find him was because he was having a very intimate meeting with a coworker. After that things went quiet for a couple of years, but then it started again.”
Her mother talked, outlining a catalog of infidelity that Frankie struggled to comprehend. She’d thought she was the one with secrets, but it turned out that her mother had plenty of her own. Deep, painful secrets that she’d never shared.
“Why did you stay?”
“Because I loved him. And because of you.” Her mother poked at the foam on her coffee. “I thought that staying together was best for you. I didn’t realize that what I was doing was damaging you.”
Frankie’s chest ached. “Because of what I saw as a child, I grew up believing there was no relationship that couldn’t be
destroyed. And I saw what Dad’s leaving did to you. I’ve lived my life trying to avoid that sort of pain happening to me.”
“I know. And you’ve been so much more sensible than I ever was. You’ve made your own life and made great choices. Look at you, Frankie—” her mother waved her hand “—you’re so independent. You have a great apartment, a fabulous job, friends who love you and no romantic attachments.”
“I’m in love with Matt.”
“I—” Her mother gaped at her. “What did you just say?”
“I’m in love with Matt.” Saying it felt so easy. So real. So right.
There was nothing holding her back now. Nothing.
Her mother’s eyes widened. “The Matt? Sexy Matt?”
“Yes, sexy Matt, but I’d appreciate it from now on if you’d just call him Matt. No innuendos. No squeezing his butt. No behaving in an inappropriate fashion. I want to see you, Mom. I want to start fresh, but I don’t want to dread every visit in case you embarrass me.”
Her mother was still gaping. “But—I thought you were living in his apartment because that girl—”
“Roxy.”
“Because Roxy needed a place to stay and had moved into your home.”
“I’m living there because I want to be with Matt. My home is wherever he is.”
“It’s that serious?”
“Couldn’t be more serious.” Except that she felt like smiling. Never before had something so serious made her want to smile so much.
“Has he proposed to you?”
“The details are my business.”
“That means he hasn’t.” Her mother’s eyes lit with anxiety. “It might just be sex, Frankie. He might hurt you. He might not want—”