Yes, I’ve known how he felt my whole life.
“Linda knows that, too. Love was never part of our deal.”
That throws me for a loop. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he approached marriage like a business agreement. Somehow it kinda does.
“So Mom has finally decided to leave you? Why do you care?”
I don’t know why I’m trying to understand. Dad will cut off her access to all other funds, and within a few weeks she’ll most likely come home. This drama played out when I was four, again when I was eight, and for a final time at fifteen. Since then, their marriage has seemed steadier, though not necessarily happier. But after they came through three incidents in roughly ten years, I’d hoped the last eighteen years without separation meant something.
Obviously not.
“I care because it looks bad! She claims that she’s fallen in love with Marco, some asswipe she met on a dating site for the over-fifty crowd. He likes old movies, antiquing, and wine weekends.” My father rolls his eyes. “What kind of pussy does that sound like?”
The explanation that all people are different and each have various likes and dislikes will only be lost on him. I know from experience, so I don’t waste my breath. But Dad’s explanation still manages to shock me.
“Mom is dating someone else?”
“Yeah. She says she’s moving in with him. Apparently she’s been seeing this bastard for almost a year. And fucking him that long, too.”
Good for her, finally getting some on the side. “Did her decision have anything to do with you finding another new mistress?”
“I suppose.” He slumps down on the sofa, almost pouting like an overgrown kid. “I never hid them. Your mother and I had an understanding. I pulled her out of her dirt-poor farming town in Nebraska, and she performed the two wifely duties I outlined. She never liked sex much, so our arrangement worked. She lost her mind when I told her that Amanda was pregnant.”
“Amanda?”
“My most recent mistress.” He sighs. “She’s due in April. I’m too fucking old to be a father again.”
My world has just tilted on its axis. Now I have to sit down, too. “How old is this woman?”
He doesn’t meet my gaze. “Twenty-five.”
I hate to be judgmental…but I’m grossed out. I never imagined that my old man gave up his mistresses, but I’d hoped that they had somewhat aged with him. “She’s Harlow’s age.”
“I don’t think about it like that. Amanda looks fucking hot in Victoria’s Secret. Or she did.”
Now I’m even more grossed out. “How did you not take precautions to ensure that Amanda didn’t get pregnant?”
“She said she was on the pill. Hell, I’ve seen her prescription since I spent half my nights at her apartment in the city.”
“You could have gotten a vasectomy years ago. You should have if you didn’t want more kids.”
He rears back and stares at me like I’m stupid. I know that look well since I’ve seen it all my life. I actually know what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth.
“No one is cutting off my balls. Besides, Amanda conceiving was a fluke. She seemed equally mortified when the doctor confirmed that she was knocked up. But she refused to have a damn abortion, even when I offered to pay for it.” He waves his hands at me. “Before you unleash whatever blah blah bullshit I see all over your face, she and I are over now.” He shudders. “Never could stand fucking a pregnant woman. Big bellies and leaking tits… Ugh.”
I try not to roll my eyes. The universe has always revolved around him—at least in his mind. Why shouldn’t a woman growing another human being in her womb keep her pre-pregnancy shape for dear old Dad?
“So, you two broke up. Has she asked you for child support?”
“You know she has.” He sounds cynical and pissed off. “I’ll be DNA testing that kid the minute he pops out—it’s another boy. If he’s not mine, I’m going to rip Amanda a new asshole.”
Because that’s what every new mother needs. Why can’t he just thank his lucky stars and move on since he doesn’t want the baby, anyway?
I shake my head at him because I really don’t know what to say. “And if it is yours, now you’ll have four kids.”
“Six,” he grumbles.
“What?” I stare at him like I don’t even know who he is. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t be shocked but I can’t seem to help it. “I have two other half-siblings?”
Dad hems and haws and does his best impression of a bobblehead while stalling. Finally, he sighs. “I have a daughter named Bethany who’s six months younger than Griff. Evan, my other son, was born three days before Harlow. Both kids have different mothers. But I’ve paid for everything—”
“So what? They grew up without a father. God, you’re a selfish bastard. Forking over some cash doesn’t excuse you from being an absent parent. You had a responsibility to those kids.” And to the ones my mother gave him.
When I stare at him, he’s wearing his I-don’t-give-a-fuck expression. “A father’s responsibility is to provide. I think I’ve done that handsomely. What good would I have done by being a more involved father?”
Actually, he’s right. He would only have warped us kids more. Mom was unhappy and worn down by life, but she at least tried to be kind and occasionally affectionate. Dad made her too brittle to love us, I think. She tried her best, but he mentally belittled her and beat her down, just like he has everyone else in his life.
I, too, know exactly what it’s like to feel small and inconsequential after a chat with him. In fact, I feel like that after virtually every conversation we share.
“So what’s your next move?” I ask. “Are you actually getting divorced this time?”
He raises a brow. “I hear she’s trying to serve me with papers. I am not giving that bitch fifty percent of everything I’ve broken my back to earn. She took half the money in our checking account. Fine. It’s a pittance. But my portfolio is substantial. I’m not giving her a penny of that.”
Mom deserves it. Hazard pay for putting up with him for so many years—the mental abuse, the infidelity, the single parenting and corporate bullshit. But I’m keeping my opinion to myself. It’s not worth the argument. He’s not worth it. I can’t change the fact that this small-minded, bitter man is my father. He’s right that he gave me life and one hell of an expensive education. But I learned by his example, and I’m not proud of it. He also gave me anger and baggage and years of misplaced indifference toward most everyone around me.