Page 6 of The Art Of Starting Over

Now Ester had him, while Devy and Maren had a carful of their belongings and broken hearts.

To make things even worse, Devorah had tried to hide the truth from Maren. No child should have to deal with adult situations. Nor should any child have to see how imperfect their parents are. Dev thought she could keep everything under wraps by saying Maren’s father needed some space and that he was moving out for a bit. They certainly wouldn’t be the first couple to separate. But then Maren saw the video, thanks to a classmate whose mother had seen it. When the school called and said Maren needed to come home, Devorah knew her daughter had found out.

As soon as Dev saw Maren in the nurse’s office, they both broke. They held each other and cried in the hallway. On the way home, Maren said she didn’t want to go back to school. Devy agreed and suggested they go away for a bit. They needed to get out of Chicago and away from the stares.

That night, after they’d eaten a quiet dinner, Maren walked out the front door, with Devorah hot on her heels and pleading for her daughter to come back to the house. Maren walked to Ester’s place and pounded on the door until Chad answered. Dev stood there in the yard, waiting for her daughter to come back to her, while Chad fed their daughter the same bullshit he’d given Devy—he was in love, everyone else be damned. Chad didn’t seem to care that his daughter was losing her best friend in the mix. As long as he was happy, that was all that mattered.

“Rita was my best friend,” Maren had screamed, her fists clenched at her sides.

“And I’m going to be her dad now,” Chad had said as he tried to put a comforting hand on Maren’s shoulder. “Everyone wins.”

She’d jerked away. “You’re supposed to be my dad! Mine. Not hers.”

Chad could’ve handled the situation differently, but he thought only of himself in that moment with Maren. He ruined not only his marriage but also the friendship between Ester and Devorah, as well as between Maren and Rita. Although the girls were completely innocent, they were forever changed by his and Ester’s actions.

Devorah would survive. She’d pick up the pieces of her shattered heart and move on.

Maren would forever remember the time when she found out her father was having an affair with her best friend’s mother and had chosen the best friend over her.

“Selfish prick,” Devy muttered as she wiped angrily at her cheek. She tore her gaze away and looked around the house.

Devy surveyed the damage she had done to Chad’s clothes—she’d shredded them and left nothing more than rags as a result. Their dinnerware set, the one they’d chosen before they got married, sat in heaps of shards on the counter and floor. She didn’t bother to clean up. Chad had made a mess of their lives. Dev had done the same. In fact, aside from what she’d packed and planned to take with her, Chad didn’t have much of anything left.

The front door opened, and Maren called out for her mom.

“In the kitchen.”

“I guess I’m ready when you are.” Maren was dressed casually, in a pair of sweatpants and matching sweatshirt, for the long ride back to Oyster Bay. She had long, thick brown hair with natural blond highlights and expressive green eyes. Maren had sprouted early, growing taller than most of her classmates.

They were going home. Well, back to the only place they could go. Staying in Chicago was out of the question, at least until the videowas yesterday’s news, and for people to forget the utter humiliation she had experienced. As it was, she couldn’t even face her neighbors and didn’t even want to look at the other parents on the PTA. At the end of summer, they’d return to Chicago with their heads held high, and Devy would be ready to tackle next year’s PTA schedule.

Only, they wouldn’t return to the house Devorah loved so much. It held far too many memories, all muddied by Chad admitting he and Ester had been together in the home, the foundation he’d built with Devorah.

So she was going back to the father she barely spoke to and to a brother who already hated Chad. As soon as they found out, every conversation would have a long line of “I told you so’s.”

“Are you sure you have everything you want to take?”

Maren nodded.

“Your father can mail you whatever.”

“I don’t plan to talk to him,” Maren said as they headed toward the front door. Devorah wanted to cheer, fist pump, and give her daughter a high five, but she wouldn’t. Chad needed to work out his relationship with his daughter, without any interference from Devy or anyone else. Fat chance it would happen anytime soon. When she told Maren they were leaving, all Maren could say was that her dad had chosen someone else to be his daughter. That knife to the heart twisted more than the cheating. Devorah never wanted to see her daughter in pain. Especially not at the hands of her dad.

Devy fought back tears as she drove out of the neighborhood she loved. Past the homes she’d visited for various parties, past people she’d called friends. She hadn’t told anyone they were leaving, other than Maren’s school, but Devy suspected people knew. Hell, everyone in the surrounding area knew. Within hours of the video posting, she’d had to shut her phone off. The calls and texts were too much, and she had nothing to say. She didn’t need to hear people tell her how sorry they were or ask if she was the one Ester had talked about in the video. Everyone knew. Ester had done a stand-up job not hiding anything andputting their entire messy situation on full blast for everyone to witness. Ester and Chad easily could’ve saved Devorah from embarrassment and told her outright. Life could’ve been a lot easier for everyone involved. But no, Ester wanted the drama.

Ester wanted the views.

“I will find a place here later,” she said to her daughter. “We’ll come back in the fall, in time for school to start.”

“Do you think people will have forgotten?”

No.

Devorah hated that she wasn’t able to protect her daughter from any of this. No child should have to bear witness to something of this magnitude. Maren should grow up thinking her father was perfect. But instead, at nine, Maren worried about people never forgetting what her father had done.

“We can only hope. If not, we can try for a different school.” They definitely needed a fresh start.

“Maybe.” Maren stared out the window. Devy reached for her daughter’s hand and held it tightly. She would do whatever it would take to make things right for her little girl again. Her brother, Colt, would step up. He’d be a father figure, and her dad ... well, he’d remind Devy how he’d told her not to follow some wannabe to college. Which was exactly what she had done. While she loved her job as an estate curator, she wasn’t rolling in the dough, according to Chad. And her income definitely wasn’t enough to continue the lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to in Chicago.

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