Page 56 of Best Kept Vows

“Go right ahead. At least now, if we sell the company, we’ll all make money. He takes over and drives it into the ground—you’ll be left with nothing but Dad‘s investments, which won’t buy you diamond tennis bracelets.” I gave her new jewelry a pointed look.

I knew my mother was surprised but so was I. All I’d ever wanted was to run this company, and now it didn’t matter. Was it because it was failing? Would I want to stay if it were successful?

I thought about it while Mama spluttered, spewing more poison that I didn’t even bother to listen to.

No, I realized—I didn’t care about the company right now because it had taken my wife from me.

I walked to my office door, held it open, and waved toward it, making it clear to my mother that I wanted her to leave. She got the hint, though not gracefully, muttering about how ungrateful I was, along with a few other unflattering remarks that barely registered.

That evening, I was packing up to leave work with a heavy heart, when Hendrix called me. My heart was heavy because Lia wouldn’t be at home. She’d be at that cozy apartment.

I’d taken the farmers’ market peaches to her on Sunday, and she let me in and showed me her apartment, where she was staying fortwo whole months. She hadn’t asked me to stay for a drink; instead, she had told me she had a salon appointment.

While I was sitting at home, examining my imploded life, Lia seemed to belivinghers. She had a new job, a new fun apartment in the center of the city, no Sunday dinners,andshe looked—I both hatedandloved it—content.

“He asked for you,” Hendrix informed me. “Says he wants to have dinner with you tonight.”

“How’s he doing?” I asked.

“He’s having more bad days than good ones.”

When I got to my parents’ home, Pamela told me that my mother was not home, which was a relief. Mama had a busy social life and had always preferred not to be at home unless she was entertaining.

“I set up dinner in the kitchen. He wanted to eat in the breakfast nook,” she told me.

I followed Pamela into the kitchen, where I found my father in his wheelchair beside Hendrix, who rose as soon as he saw me. We shook hands, and then I took a seat next to my father on the bench where I’d had breakfast as a child.

“Chicken…parm,” my father said. “Your favorite.”

I smiled. “Yeah, Dad.”

Pamela served us. The cook had made chicken parmigiana with fusilli instead of linguini because the smaller pasta was easier for Dad to eat.

“There’s also a lemon icebox pie, if you eat all your dinner,” Pamela teased my father.

He grunted.

“I’m going to eat in my room.” Hendrix got up. “He needs me, you call, okay?”

I nodded, unsure as to what was going on.

“I…am…fine,” my father growled when he saw my concern. I wasn’t exactly nervous, but I worried that I wouldn’t know how to take care of him if he needed me to.

“Ada…Tris…tan.” He took a deep breath.

“Why don’t we eat first andthentalk?”

Dad looked around and then glared at me. “Get…wine.”

My father wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol, considering all the pills he was on. But the man was dying; at least, that’s what Hendrix had told Lia. If he wanted wine, then fuck it, the man should drink wine.

I pulled out a bottle of Barolo from the red wine fridge in the kitchen. Dad had an extensive cellar in the basement,where he had nearly five hundred bottles of wine. He was a collector. I thought about how he’d saved all this wine and was now not able to drink any of it. He’d waited too long to stop working. Waited too long to live his life the way he dreamed—traveling the world after retirement.

He took a sip of the wine and gave me a half smile. “Good.”

“Yeah, Dad.”

We ate in silence, and I saw that he ate barely a quarter of what I did at the same time. I didn’t push him when he said he was done.

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