Page 47 of Too Good to Be True

I was too.

“Why?” I asked her, because the reason she was couldn’t be the same as mine.

“Because now it’s icky that you’ll be dating him.”

“I won’t be dating him.”

She turned her head my way. “He’s into you.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“You’re into him.”

“I’ll get over it too.”

“Not everyone is François,” she said softly.

“Yes, they are, honey. Every man is François. All ego, all pride, all cock.”

And if you haven’t learned that yet, God help you, I did not say.

“You’re too young not to reach for happiness, lovey,” she said.

And what was your happiness? My father’s utter devotion that came only when you blatantly showed him yours when he was dying? And then he was dead? Is that what I get? Proving myself time and again, earning their love, but giving it as it’s supposed to be given, freely, without expecting anything in return…except to be honored with the same, but never having a chance at that unless forced by happenstance into some heroic display of undying devotion?

“Did you know,” I started carefully, “it’s a little-known fact, quite a number of husbands leave their wives when they get a terminal disease?”

“Yes. I also know the numbers are not the same the other way around. That’s love, Daphne. For all of us. We decide what to give. What to take. What boundaries to build. When to stay. When to let go. Do you think for a second your father didn’t know at first I married him for his money?”

I wasn’t comfortable talking about this.

“Lou—”

“Answer me.”

I was getting angry. “So you’re telling me he bought your devotion in the end? You may be dealing with some guilt now he’s gone, but I know you better than that.”

“I’m telling you there are ebbs and flows in all relationships. Power shifts. You must know that with how much you love your sister, and how much you put up with from her. You’re in this bed, aren’t you? You didn’t get in your car to drive to London to tell her off or just to go home and let her make her own bed with Daniel.”

“So are you saying I should have forgiven François?”

“No,” she spat. “He was a piece of shit.”

I smiled.

“Why do you think I was saying that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Because I put up with your father cheating on me?”

Oh God.

I really was not comfortable talking about this.

“Lou,” I groaned.

“That was my bed. And his. And I only mention it because you have to let me lie in it. He was funny. He made me laugh. And oh, how he thought I was beautiful. He’d look at me and convince me I was the most exquisite creature on the planet. Good or bad, right or wrong, that meant something to me. And he gave it to me. In our way, we worked. No one can say whether the way something works is right, or wrong, except the person living it. Just as no one can say when a thing isn’t working, and it should end, except the person ending it.”

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