Page 51 of Someone Just Like You

“Did you say…separated?” Nicole asked, while Michelle and I froze with our mouths wide open.

Dad paced in front of us as Mom scooched her way between Michelle and me on the burgundy couch. “We wanted to tell you at dinner, but not to an audience of fifty,” she said.

Dad returned to his spot next to Nicole. He patted her thigh. “We’re so sorry. The timing is awful, but who knows when we’d get another chance to have you all together and without your partners?”

On the verge of tears, I stared across the glass table at my dad. After thirty-five years of marriage, my parents were separating again. I pinched myself, but the accompanying sting erased any hope I had of this being a dream/nightmare. I asked the trillion-dollar question. “Why?”

They exchanged a look.

Oh no.I tensed from head to toe.

Nicole’s eyebrows formed a triangle. “Is there another woman?”

I gulped and slid an inch away from Mom. “Or man?” Dad was the goofball. Mom was the flirt.

“No!” they shouted in unison.

In a much softer voice, Mom said, “We grew apart. We got married so young. I was barely your age when I had Michelle,” she said, looking at me, her blue eyes pleading.

I blinked back a tear and squeezed her hand while trying to comprehend what was happening.

“We still love each other,” Dad assured us.

“You just don’tloveeach other,” Nicole whispered.

“Sixty is the new forty,” Mom said. “We both have too much life in us to stay in a marriage that’s become more of a friendship.”

“You’re not getting it done,” Michelle said absently.

I wanted to laugh. Ineededto laugh. But I couldn’t. “So what now?”Please don’t say divorce.A separation could be reversed more easily than a legal divorce.

The word “divorce” was never used, but Dad had moved into a two-bedroom apartment in an over-fifty-five community not too far from their house. “There’s a pool and gym if spending time with your dad isn’t incentive enough.” He smiled wryly, though it was clear this was killing him.

My heart pinched. In an instant, we’d rewound almost twenty years. I was seven years old again, in my childhood house, eavesdropping while my parents complained about how hard it was to raise three girls. I was staring at Dad’s empty chair at the dinner table wondering what I could have done to make their job easier. He’d tried to paint a prettier picture of reality by homing in on there being a pool then, too. But he’d come back and stayed! They’d already had their separation and worked things out. Why was this happening again now, when the hard part—taking care of us and making sure we were fed, clothed, and didn’t end up in prison—was over?

“Do Randy and Laura know?” Michelle asked.

There was a slight hesitation before Mom answered. “They’re our best friends. It would have been impossible to keep it from them even if we wanted to.”

“How awkward sharing an anniversary party with a couple who’s no longer together,” Michelle said.

“When did you move out?” Nicole asked our dad.

“It’s been a month,” he said. “We only waited because we thought an intimate dinner would be the right setting to tell you all at the same time. We had no idea what you’d planned.”

Nicole pushed out her lower lip. “Sorry for throwing you an anniversary party. We won’t do it again!”

Dad chuckled. “There’s my favorite middle child for you. Pouting, throwing tantrums, kicking her feet. Too bad there’s no door to slam.” He gave her a side hug and kissed her cheek. “My Goose.”

We all huffed out a collective humorless laugh before staring at one another in silence. What else was there to say?

A hard lump settled in my gut. Was this the last time we’d sit together, just the five of us? The separation explained the subdued reaction my parents had compared to the Starks when the surprise was revealed, but the explanation sucked big-time.

When we were kids, my dad moving out had fueled the flame of my bitterness toward Jude. His recent rejection of our friendship had meant he wasn’t there for me when I needed a friend. Driving the knife deeper was the reality thatmyparents split up while their best friends,hisparents, were still together. I had been bitter, angry, and jealous.

Tonight, though, I was none of those things. Timothy had been my date for the evening, but I had no interest in seeking his comfort. Chances were, he was balls deep in Charley right now anyway. In a comical twist, the only person whose company I could stomach in this moment, even more than Esther’s, was Jude’s. The strange, exciting, and wildly uncomfortable buzz of electricity between us could no longer be ignored or dismissed as being one-sided. I craved his particular brand of “straight talking” comfort and then some.

It was the “then some” that frightened me the most.

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