Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105825 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
I looked at the chair, steeling myself. I didn’t want to, but I had to.
I took a deep breath…and sat down. And suddenly it was real: I was here and he wasn’t. I rocked forward, doubling over as if I’d been punched in the gut, and sat there with silent tears rolling down my cheeks for several minutes.
When I had myself under control, I pulled open the top drawer of his desk. God, he hadn’t cleared this thing out in decades. I put my hand to my mouth as I pulled out a sketch, drawn on a beer mat, of a building that would now never get built. Further down, I found a poem by Miles, about a troll who floated around in a hot air balloon. Then a crayon drawing by me, of my dad on his boat. I bit my lip, feeling my eyes going hot again. He kept all this stuff?
I rooted deeper in the drawer. And right at the back, my fingers touched something that didn’t match the rest, something stiff and glossy.
I frowned as I pulled out a photo. A woman, sitting on a couch with her legs tucked up beside her. I didn’t recognize her. Some obscure relative I’d never met? But she didn’t look anything like my dad. She had long, straight black hair and high cheekbones. And she was smiling at the camera in a way that said put that thing down and get over here. I flipped the photo over. Three kisses in blue ballpoint pen, together with a name: Maria.
A lover? My dad had had plenty, over the last few years.
Except…the photo was faded and old.
My heart jumped into my throat. I shoved the photo back where I’d found it and slammed the drawer. Tomorrow was my first day as CEO and I had to give a speech. I have to get some sleep.
But when I lay down in bed, my mind wouldn’t stop spinning. There was the creeping, sick fear that someone was going to hurt Cody, or kill me and leave him without a mom. There was the stress of becoming responsible for billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. But now there was something new. I felt like everything solid, everything I’d thought I could rely on, had crumbled beneath me and I was plunging into darkness.
Maybe she was an old girlfriend. Someone he knew before he met mom.
Maybe.
Or maybe my dad had had an affair.
And the guy I’d hero-worshipped my whole life wasn’t the man I thought he was.
18
JD
The next morning I woke, turned sideways to get up, and grunted in pain. The muscles in my lower back had chosen to rebel again, knotting and twisting like angry serpents. I flopped onto my stomach and lay there cursing into my pillow for a full minute before I dared to move again. The pain died away but my back was going to be throbbing all day, now.
I took a shower, threw on some clothes, and went in search of coffee. The kitchen was enormous, with granite countertops loaded with more fresh vegetables than my place saw in a month. There was a big, vintage coffee machine covered in dials and buttons that I knew I’d have no hope of figuring out. Then I turned and saw something that stopped me dead.
The refrigerator. The refrigerator was covered in things, flyers for swim meets and permission slips for school trips and post-it notes, so many post-it notes, grocery items and little jokes and a picture Cody had drawn and—
I’d forgotten what a family home looked like. I’d avoided being in one, ever since it happened. My apartment in Mount Mercy was military-basic, with nothing on the walls, and I’d distanced myself from any old army buddies who had kids. But now, seeing this…aw crap. I could see it right now, our big, red, dented refrigerator. Red because the store had been selling it cheap: no one else wanted a bright red refrigerator. Dented because the thing had toppled over as I tried to squeeze it through the door. It had made me mad but Jillian had said it made it ours. I could see the clay model of a cow Max had made, sitting on top: it had a few too many legs, but we loved it anyway. And the photo of the three of us dressed up for Halloween as Superman, Bo Peep, and a pumpkin, which kept falling off the door so the joke was that it was haunted…
I braced myself against the refrigerator, breathing hard. That life, with all its laughs and love and tears, had been so important, and the universe had snuffed it out like it was nothing. Now it only existed in my head and when I went, it would be gone forever.
Footsteps in the hallway. A woman’s footsteps. Get it together, JD. But there was no time. Every breath made the pain in my chest worse, like I was inhaling toxic gas.