Chapter 9: What Was Left to Say
The petition was filed on Wednesday.
Diane was served on Thursday afternoon, at the house, while I was at work.
She called me four times.
I let the calls go to voicemail.
Then I texted: *Please speak with your attorney.
Mine is handling all communication from here.*
She texted back: *Ray please come home so we can talk.*
Then: *This is not who we are.*
Then: *I know I made mistakes.
Please don't throw everything away.*
Then, forty minutes later, nothing.
I came home that evening because Kayla was there and I wasn't going to leave her alone in the middle of this.
Diane was in the living room when I walked in.
She looked like she hadn't slept.
Her eyes were red.
The performance of warmth was gone, and what was left underneath it was something smaller and more human — a woman who had run a plan she thought was clever and found out the hard way that the other person had been paying attention.
I almost felt something like pity.
Then I remembered nineteen thousand dollars.
"Kayla's upstairs," Diane said.
"I know.
I texted her."
"She won't talk to me."
I set my keys on the counter.
"Give her time."
"Ray." She stood up.
"Whatever you have on paper — whatever your attorney put together — I want you to know I never meant for it to go this far.
I was scared.
I was scared you were going to leave and I'd have nothing."
"So you decided to build a case to take everything before I could?"
Her face twisted.
"It wasn't like that."
"It was exactly like that.
You have the texts."
She pressed her hands to her eyes.
"I know."
A long silence.
The refrigerator hummed.
The branch tapped the east window.
"I want to talk to Kayla," she said.
"I want to explain."
"That's between you and Kayla.
I'm not in the middle of that."
"She won't listen to me."
"She'll listen when she's ready." I looked at her steadily.
"Diane.
Whatever happens between the two of us legally — she's your daughter.
She loves you.
She's angry right now, and she has the right to be.
But she'll come back around.
Don't push it."
Diane looked at me for a long moment.
Whatever she was looking for in my face, she didn't seem to find it.
"You're very calm," she said.
It sounded almost like an accusation.
"I've had a week to get here."
"How?" Her voice was genuinely confused.
"How are you this calm?"
"Because I'm not the one who has to explain what I did," I said.
"That's not a small thing, Diane.
That's an enormous thing."
She sat back down.
I went upstairs and knocked on Kayla's door.
"Come in," she said.
She was at her desk, textbook open, headphones around her neck.
She looked up when I walked in.
Her eyes were dry.
She had been crying earlier — I could tell — but she was done with it for now.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey." I leaned against the doorframe.
"You okay?"
"Getting there." She turned in her chair to face me.
"She got served today."
"I know."
"She knocked on my door after.
She was crying."
"Yeah."
Kayla looked at her textbook for a moment.
"I didn't open the door."
"That was your call to make."
"I know." She looked up.
"Was that wrong?"
I thought about it.
"No," I said.
"Not yet.
Give yourself some time.
Then decide what you want to say to her."
She nodded slowly.
Then: "Where are you going to go?
When the house—"
"I'll find something.
Don't worry about that."
"I do worry about it."
"I know.
That's what you do." I pushed off the doorframe.
"Get your homework done.
I'm making dinner in about an hour."
She almost smiled.
"You're going to make dinner.
Tonight."
"Pasta.
Nothing fancy."
She turned back to her desk.
"Okay, Dad."
I pulled her door mostly closed and stood in the hallway for a moment.
The house was the same.
Same walls.
Same carpet.
Same creak from the second stair when I stepped on it on the way back down.
Everything the same.
But lighter, somehow.
As if something that had been pressing down for a long time had finally been named, and named things are smaller than unnamed ones.
I started the water for pasta.
Diane stayed in the living room.
At some point she went upstairs.
I didn't hear her knock on Kayla's door again.
Kayla came down at seven and sat at the kitchen table and did the last of her homework while I cooked.
May you like
It was a quiet evening.
It was the best evening we'd had in a long time.
