Chapter 5
On Monday morning, my father asked why Kellan had not come to help carry Mom's flowers out of the church.
We were standing in Dad's kitchen. Her yellow mug was still beside the sink with a faint lipstick mark on the rim.
I could not make myself wash it. I could not tell him everything either.
"Kellan lied to me about where he was Saturday," I said. "We're separating."
Dad sank into a chair.
"Because he missed the funeral?"
"Because the funeral was where I caught him."
He looked toward the empty doorway as if Mom might come in and translate.
"Did she know?"
"No."
That mattered to him. It mattered to me too. Mom had died believing the man at her bedside would take care of us.
I left Dad with Quentin and drove to an attorney's office above a pharmacy in downtown Marlowe.
The lawyer's name was Merritt Rowe. She wore red reading glasses and interrupted me the third time I apologized for crying.
"Mrs. Mercer, people cry in this chair. It has survived worse."
That almost made me laugh.
She explained that I could ask Kellan to stay elsewhere, but I could not simply bar him from a jointly owned home without an agreement or safety issue. The money in our accounts was marital money. Kellan remained Hadley's legal father because he had adopted her; discovering a biological son changed none of that.
"Has he threatened you?" she asked.
"No. He explains me."
Merritt waited.
"He tells people what I feel before I say it. He told our daughter I was too fragile for the truth. He told another woman our marriage was over. He told a child I hated him. By the time I enter the room, everybody has already met his version of me."
"Then stop arguing with his version. Document facts. Set short boundaries. Do not use either child to carry messages."
The advice was plain enough to hold onto.
I paid the retainer from the savings account I had built from small design jobs before Mom became too sick for me to work. The amount on the receipt made my stomach drop.
That money had been Hadley's first college deposit, a new furnace, six months of emergencies.
Now it bought me someone who knew how to say no in a language Kellan could not soften.
My first act of freedom came with a four-figure charge.
The retainer cleaned out the account I had kept separate for Hadley's first college deposit. Merritt's assistant warned me that the first hearing might not be scheduled for weeks, that Kellan could ask for a continuance, and that the court would not care which of us had cried at a funeral.
I would also have to pay for service of process, and if Kellan refused to sign the temporary agreement, the sheriff's fee would come out of the same account.
I sat in the car afterward and cried until a pharmacy delivery driver tapped the window to ask if I needed help.
"I'm okay," I said automatically.
Then I lowered the glass.
"Actually, no. But I can drive."
He nodded as if that answer made sense.
Kellan was waiting in our living room when I got home. He had used his key. His jacket lay over the chair, and for one disorienting second the house looked normal.
Then I saw the folder on the coffee table.
Marlowe School District had given him a personal day after the funeral. He had spent it printing his Redfern job application and the listing for a four-bedroom rental.
"I came to explain before Hadley gets home," he said.
"You came because Ainsley told you she called me."
He did not deny it.
I set my purse down but kept my coat on.
"Did you take Tobin inside that house?"
"No. We drove past."
"Did you tell him which bedroom would be his?"
"I said there was room for everyone."
"Everyone except the people whose lives you were moving."
Kellan pressed both hands together. "Your father has talked about selling for years. Hadley will graduate next spring. Redfern pays more, and Tobin needs consistency. I was looking at options."
"You applied for a job."
"An application is not a decision."
"It became a promise when you told a twelve-year-old he might live with you."
"I wanted him to know I saw a future with him."
"So you spent ours."
His mouth tightened.
"Merritt Rowe called me."
I had not expected the attorney to move that quickly.
"Good."
"You hired a divorce lawyer two days after your mother died."
"I hired one six months after you started another family. I was simply the last person to receive the date."
He stood.
"Stop calling it another family. Tobin is my child, not my affair."
"And Hadley is your child, not an obstacle you relocate after graduation."
The front door opened. Hadley came in wearing her school hoodie and froze when she saw him.
"Why are you here?"
"I wanted to talk to your mother."
Her eyes landed on the rental listing.
She picked it up before either of us could stop her.
"Four bedrooms."
"Hadley—"
"Which one was mine?"
"We never went inside."
"Did you tell Tobin I would live there?"
"I said all of us might. Someday."
She tore the listing in half.
Kellan grabbed her wrist.
It lasted less than a second. He released her immediately, horrified by himself.
But I had already moved between them.
"Touch her like that again and the next conversation happens through Merritt."
"I wasn't hurting her."
"I know," Hadley said. Her voice had gone small. "You were just stopping me from ruining your plan."
Kellan looked as if she had struck him.
He took his coat and left without the folder.
At six-thirty, Hadley and I were eating grilled cheese because neither of us could face another condolence casserole.
The doorbell rang.
Kellan stood on the porch.
Beside him was Tobin Keene, wearing a red backpack and gripping the straps with both hands.
His eyes moved from me to the hallway behind me.
"Ainsley got called into the hospital," Kellan said. "Her backup canceled, and Tobin's spare inhaler is in my work bag here. He needs to stay with me tonight."
"You don't live here tonight."
Tobin's face changed.
He looked up at Kellan, then back at me.
"Dad said this was going to be my home too."