Page 88 of The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

Yes, I think I’ll enjoy having a family legacy on Ninth Street.

THIRTY-TWO

Sophia

He looks older than I remember him, even though it’s only been a few weeks since I last saw my dad. The revelation of his secrets has aged him, and the heart attack probably didn’t help. Or maybe I just see him differently now.

I’ve been putting off this day for as long as possible, but I know if I’m going to get through this, I need answers from Dad. I need to look him in the eye when I ask him my questions.

“Hey, Sophia,” he says, his arms open like he expects me to run into them. I wanted to meet him in the park he’d always take us to the day after he got home from a “work trip.” It’s twenty-five degrees and I’m wrapped up in my down coat, hat, and gloves. I can barely move I have so many clothes on.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, staying seated.

“You don’t want to go inside? We could go to that coffee shop on the corner?” His words come out in puffy clouds of breath and hang there before slowly dissolving into the air.

I stand, but don’t move toward him. There’s no point in niceties when I’m feeling anything but nice. “Nope. We can walk.” I push my gloved hands into my pockets.

We walk in silence for a while, toward the fenced-off playground.

“Remember when I used to bring you here?” he asks.

“Yeah. There was always a trip to the park after you’d been on one of your long work trips.”

A white ribbon of breath pushes out of him, like he’s being exorcised. But we stand in silence.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sophia.” His tone is harder than I expected. I’m not surewhatI expected, exactly. That he’d pretend everything was fine and we wouldn’t talk about his betrayal? Or that he’d beg my forgiveness?

Yes, the second one. I expected him to be contrite. Or that he’d feel some kind of shame. From his tone, it’s like I’m holding on to some unjustifiable grudge.

“Is there anything youwantto say?”

“Not really,” he says.

I turn to him. “Really? I just found out you’ve been living a double life my entire existence and you have nothing to say?”

“Sophia,” he says exasperatedly, “you had a good upbringing. You never wanted for anything. It was adult business. I don’t know what you’re so upset about.”

“Oh, I don’t know, the fact that my father lied to me every day of my life? The fact that I can’t trust another living soul because of the decisions you made to lie and cheat on your family?”

“Your mother knew everything.”

“We didn’t.”

“You were children.”

“You don’t think we deserved an honest man for a father? One who modeled how to tell the truth? How to be a faithful husband? You don’t think this has anything to do with us?”

“You’re being oversimplistic about the entire thing. You weren’t an adult at the time, so you can’t understand why I made the decisions I made.”

“So explain it to me,” I say. “I’m here, standing in front of you as an adult, asking you why?”

He shakes his head, sighing, like I’m exasperating. Me. When all I’ve done is worship the man in front of me. And all along, patterns have been set in my head, pushing me toward men just like him—men who didn’t live in the same city as me. Men who weren’t as into me as I was into them. Men who wanted the best of both worlds—being single and being in a relationship.

“It wasn’t planned, Sophia. Rita was neversupposedto get pregnant.” He pushes a hand through his thinning hair as my blood turns ever icier at the mention of her name.

I know it wasn’t just her—my dad was the cheater. He had the family and children. But did she know he was married when they started their affair? Did she not care?

“That’s what happens when you fuck women who aren’t your wife.”

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