Page 95 of Snake

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Until August.” Turning to Pom, she added, staring him straight in the eyes, “Remember, when we had a spa day last month, I told you I was going out with her that night for her farewell.”

Pom’s burgeoning dramatic scene fizzled out. “Oh, of course! She’s in ... Peru, right?”

Smiling to himself, Pops picked up his plate and went to sit at the table.

“They started in Peru, but they’re in Colombia now.” Autumn collected her own plate, pulled three wine glasses from the rack, and joined Pops at the table. “They’re visiting almost every country, I think.”

“She does admirable work,” Pops said as Pom joined them and set the open wine bottle in the center of the table. “There is no more important job than teacher. Everything comes from education.”

“Yeah,” Autumn agreed, swallowing down the melancholy sigh that wanted to join the word.

There was absolutely no chance her father meant to compare Ida’s career as a high school Spanish teacher favorably against Autumn’s own corporate career, but just now, while she was feeling especially tender, when the steel armor she’d made of her skin had developed a few gaps and cracks, Autumn felt the comparison anyway. Ida changed children’s lives. Every day, she made impressions on children who would carry those impressions into their own lives and the world they lived in.

And Autumn built shopping centers.

She didn’t even build them. She didn’t even design them. She bought and sold the idea of them and the property they were on. Big freaking whoop.

Sighing again, she grabbed the wine and filled her glass. Then she drank the whole glass dry. When she set the empty on the table, both her dads were watching her.

“What?”

In tandem so perfect it might have been rehearsed, her fathers turned to each other and shared a look.

Pom made a small offering flourish with his hand. “You can go first.”

Pops thanked him with a nod and shifted his attention to Autumn.

“Wait,” she said, putting up a hand. “Did you two plan this? Are you in cahoots?” The real implication landed on her with a thud. “Is this an intervention?”

Her fathers shared another glance. Then, with studied innocence, Pom focused on his food while Pops turned back to Autumn. “No, lass. It’s not an intervention, and we’re not in cahoots. But we both love you, and these past couple of weeks, we’ve been worried.”

“Longer than that,” muttered Pom.

Pops shot him a quick look before telling Autumn, “True, we’ve been worried longer. But this feels like things are coming to a head, and—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Pom interrupted, “before you make some kind of infection metaphor we’ll all regret. We’re eating here.”

Pops chuckled. “Yes, fair.”

Pom picked up from there. “You’ve been heading full-speed toward a wall, babydoll. Of course we’ve been worried.”

Autumn considered the men before her. They’d been divorced for more than a decade and only reluctantly civil for most of that time. She’d needed an elaborate schedule to make sure she saw them both an equal number of times, doing equivalent types of things—if one got a lunch, the other couldn’t have a dinner. If one got a dinner and the other wasn’t available for dinner that week, a short shopping trip or museum visit would work as a substitute, but not a ballet or concert. If once got a ballet or concert, the other got a round of golf or a winery or spa day.

All of that because they couldn’t enjoy each other’s company, so they couldn’t enjoy her company together. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, her birthday, she’d celebrated twice—or, really, once, but in two insufficient halves.

Maybe Pops hadn’t been surprised that Pom had bought the Thai food he liked. Maybe this had all been part of some complicated Autumn-focused scheme.

“How long have you two been talking again?” she asked.

They shared another glance, and this one had the stink of guilt.

“Oh my god! You have been! For how long?”

“Not long,” Pops answered, reaching his big, hairy hand to squeeze hers.

Not to be outdone, Pom grabbed her other hand. “Just since the spring, really.” He gave her hand an extra squeeze and huffed dramatically. “Remember that day I picked you up and we had lunch at Harry & Izzy’s?”

“Yeah ...” She tried to study the words for hidden import. She recalled everything about that day, but it been unremarkable. Just an enjoyable lunch with her Pom. “What about it?”

---