“I’ll come up. Just as soon as I can. But . . . I don’t know if I can do this whole dating thing right now. Not because I want Josh back or anything, but— I don’t know, I’m just not really interested.”
“So don’t. You don’t have anything to prove. Just focus on yourself for a while. Figure out who you are and what you really want—not what you thought you were supposed to want. You’re only twenty-three, girl. You have plenty of time to find a man when and if you want one. There are, as they like to say, plenty of fish in the sea.”
Sara
When I come into the kitchen Monday morning for that all-important first cup of coffee, Dorothy is already at the kitchen table frowning down at her phone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask over my shoulder as I brew my K-Cup.
“It’s this dating app. The SilverSingles thing.”
“What’s the problem? Do you need help setting it up?” I ask, carrying my coffee to the table and hoping Saturday’s Dating 101 session was enough to help me help her figure it out.
“No. I think it’s working. But now that I have it, I feel like I have to use it. I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of: that no one will be interested in me or that someone will.”
I understand this completely. Not having to put myself out there and find out if strangers consider me attractive may be the only upside to my current still-married status.
“No one is going to force you to do this,” I point out as I add cream and sugar.
“I know.” She takes a long sip of coffee. “Only, I promised Annell.”
“Yeah.” I join her at the table. “I still can’t believe I’ve known her all this time and never had any idea that she’d been married.”
“We all have our secrets,” Dorothy replies sagely. “Some are more benign than others.” She looks down at the tabletop, then up at me. “I should have told Mitch the truth about his father a long time ago. I . . . shouldn’t have babied him all those years, excused the weakness I saw.” Her face and voice are tinged with regret.
“You did what you thought was right, Dorothy. He’s an adult. And he needs to accept responsibility for his actions.” It’s my turn to look away, gather my thoughts. “He was lucky to have someone who loved him and who was always in his corner. Even if it wasn’t perfect. I would have given anything for that.” My hands wrap around the coffee mug, cupping its warmth.
“You haven’t mentioned where things stand. And Mitch doesn’t want to talk about it,” Dorothy says. “He seems to be living in some fantasy world where everything works out exactly the way he wants it to. Are things moving forward?”
I study my mother-in-law’s face and think about Bonnie’s warning about not sharing with the enemy. But as far as I’m concerned, avoiding the truth, as Mitch has done over and over, is the same as lying. It’s a breach of trust. And this woman is as close to a mother as I’m ever likely to get.
“Well, the paperwork has been filed. We hired a forensic accountant at $300 an hour, and it seems that after Mitch ran through everything that should have gone toward paying your mortgage, he began depositing a portion of each paycheck into an account at a bank in Birmingham. He then took out a credit card on that account and used it to pay the rent on Margot’s apartment, her monthly allowance, which he classified as ‘domestic help,’ and their son’s private preschool tuition.” I take a deep breath because somehow the idea of Mitch paying for private school tuition while I earn a public school teacher’s salary feels horribly personal.
I close my eyes. When I open them, Dorothy is waiting quietly for my answer.
“So the bright side, if there is one,” I continue, “is that I’m not on that card and shouldn’t be responsible for half of that debt. Because having to pay for his other life—well, that would be about way more than money.” I take another deep breath and force myself to say out loud the thing that keeps me up at night. “But the house—well, unless the miracle I’m praying for occurs, this house will be sold, and all I’ll have left is half of whatever we get for it minus the payback on the mortgage.”
“Oh, Sara.” The words are filled with apology.
“But Mitch is cooperating, and his attorney’s responsive, so Bonnie is certain we’ll ultimately reach a settlement. And once that happens, I’ll be free, and as she keeps reminding me, that’s what this is really about. The opportunity to move on and . . . live whatever life I choose. Maybe even meet someone else one day.” That thought seems so far out of the realm of possibility that it brings tears to my eyes. I spent my childhood trying and failing to make strangers love me. Now that the one person who ever loved me has betrayed me, how could I ever trust anyone again?
I’m blinking back tears when Dorothy’s phone pings. Once. Then twice. She glances down. An odd look steals over her face.
“What is it?”
“It’s . . . I . . . it’s the dating app. I’m sure it’s not important.” She begins to push the phone away. “I’ll look at it later.”
But I’d way rather focus on someone else’s life than think about mine, so I reach for her phone and glance down at the screen. “Oh my gosh! You have four smiles. That’s . . . that’s men reaching out to you.” I tap and scroll. “Here are their pictures.” I angle the phone so that we can both see the screen. The first man is balding with shaggy white eyebrows and a beak of a nose. The next two are moderately attractive in a silver-haired, well-groomed way. The last stands out from the others, though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. He has a square jaw, straight nose, and wide-set green eyes that look straight into the camera lens and thus into ours. His iron-gray hair makes him look older than his seventy-three years, but his smile is the eager, friendly one of a golden retriever. He looks like someone you’d want to share a lifeboat with if your cruise ship went down.
His name is Dean Francis. According to his profile, he’s a widower and father of two grown children who’s looking for a woman who can “help him find love again.” He was an investment banker before retiring to manage his own portfolio.
I tap on the screen to read more. Dorothy leans closer. “Oh, look,” she says. “He majored in finance at NYU, then got his MBA at Harvard.”
“Impressive,” I agree. “The app said that eighty percent of the people on this site have university degrees. But these aren’t just any universities.”
Another ding. I attempt to hand her the phone. “Dean is chatting with you. He wants to know whether you’re interested in meeting for coffee sometime next week.”
She looks at me, panic flashing in her eyes. “But . . .”