Chapter Twenty
“I’m not sure about this,” Madison told Ellie while she was waking up their father’s computer.
“We’re only looking at pictures.” And maybe his search engine.
Shortly after their father had arrived home from his cruise, he’d flashed a few pictures to prove that he’d had fun. Nothing in the photographs suggested a relationship.
And their mom was clueless. Or at least hid any knowledge well.
That was the problem when your divorced parents got along, they weren’t easily persuaded to give away the indiscretions of the other.
“Maybe we should just ask him.”
Ellie sat in her father’s desk chair and clicked around his main screen before opening up his photographs.
“If we get caught, we tell him that I was looking for a picture he took of me at one of my games. It’s not a big deal.” It was a huge deal. They were invading their father’s privacy, but . . . okay, no buts. Ellie knew this was wrong, but she couldn’t stop herself.
When their father had announced that he had a business trip and suggested they stay with their mom, they seized the opportunity to snoop.
His photographs popped up, and Ellie started to scroll.
She spun past work pictures.
Cranes and hoses. Construction sites and screenshots of parts.
In short, not what they were looking for.
They jumped to blue waters and bright lights.
A few pictures of the ship and inside his cabin. He’d shown them those.
Then there was one at a casino.
Ellie was pretty sure that she’d seen that one.
A petite woman, olive skin, dark hair.
Another one with the same petite woman, this time with a taller woman.
“Didn’t he show us something at a waterfall?”
Ellie found it. He was standing on what looked like a cliff in one frame, then coming up out of the water in the next.
Once again, he had his picture taken with a few more women. “Are these the same women as these?” Ellie asked her sister.
Madison screwed up her face. “Maybe. Hard to tell at that angle.”
She kept going.
They recognized Summer.
Another group photo.
And another one.
“Dad’s gone for ten days and took, like, twenty pictures. How is that possible?”
Madison stood back.
Ellie kept scrolling. Flipping back and forth, impatience nipped at her fingertips.
Her eyes drifted to the green thought bubble where his text messages lived.
“We can look at his texts. If there is anyone . . .”
Madison cringed. “We will be so dead if he finds out.”
“How will he find out?”
“I don’t know.”
Ellie hovered the pointer over the icon.
Her heart raced in her chest, and her foot tapped on the floor.
Should I?
Shouldn’t I?
She clicked and said, “Oops. My finger slipped.”
Despite her sister’s resistance, Madison leaned in.
Every person their father had sent a message to in the past few days was there.
One name stuck out.
“Who is Mari?” And there was a picture beside the name, but the thumbnail was too small to see any detail.
“We’ve already gotten this far . . .” Madison said.
When Mari’s text message thread opened up, both of them were glued to the exchange like they were reading the final book in a six-book series. Only they read from the last page to the first.
Mari: Safe flight.
Dad: I’ll call you tonight.
Mari: You’ll survive.
Dad: I can’t believe I have to wait until Tuesday to see you.
Dad: You did. Okay, I need to go, we’re about to take off.
Mari: I warned you.
Dad: Someone kept me up late talking last night.
Mari: Give yourself more time.
Dad: It’s not bad, but I had to hustle to my gate. Traffic was heavier than normal.
Mari: Leo woke me up. Thirty minutes isn’t bad. Good morning.
Dad: I hope I didn’t wake you. I just realized how early it is.
Dad: Since when is this airport lined up out the door? It took me thirty minutes with precheck.
Mari: Good night.
Dad: Okay, I’m going. Good night, beautiful.
Mari: Get some sleep. You have an early flight tomorrow.
Ellie stopped reading and turned to look at her sister. “Holy shit.”
“He called her beautiful.”
“Scroll down and see if they sent any pictures to each other.”
“Good idea.”
Their messages back and forth went on and on until . . .
“What the . . .”
Their dad was hanging on to a woman in a bright pink jacket, their father wore a white T-shirt, and the people around them were dressed up like it was the 1950s.
Madison pointed at the screen. “That’s the same woman from the casino.”
Ellie pulled up the photos again, found the image in question, and compared. “It is.”
She started to copy the image to send it to herself.
Madison screamed, “Stop! He will see that.”
Ellie dropped the mouse, startled. “Shit.”
Madison took a picture of the screen with her phone.
Ellie slowly backed her way out of the computer and shut it down.
“Dad has a girlfriend.”
They were both smiling. “Why didn’t he tell us?” Madison asked.
“No idea.”
They were quiet for a minute. Ellie kicked around various reasons for the secrecy.
“Wait . . . what if she’s married?”
Madison’s jaw dropped. “No. He wouldn’t . . .”
“Why the secret, then? We wanted Dad to date. I think he would brag about that.” Ellie clicked the mouse to wake up the computer again.
It didn’t.
“Shit. I logged out,” Ellie said.
“Do you think he’ll notice?”
Ellie shrugged. “We’ll say the power blipped.”
“He’s going to find out.”
Madison was the nervous one. Always playing by the rules. “If Dad is having an affair with a married woman, we need to stop him.”
“There is no way. If she’s married, how can she be talking to him late at night?”
Ellie stood and left the office. “I don’t know. Maybe the husband works late. Didn’t she say something about a Leo?” She’d skimmed the text so fast she didn’t remember all the details.
“Leo could be a dog, for all we know,” Madison offered.
“We should have read more.”
“What if they started talking dirty?”
“Cringe,” Ellie said.
“So gross.”
“He’s hiding something. He flat out told us that no one special was on his vacation. And now he’s in dance lessons? That sounds special to me.”
They both walked into the den and flopped on the sofa.
“What do we do now? If we ask him about her, he’ll know we spied on him.”
“That’s exactly what we do. We spy on him. We find her by going to the dance lesson.”
“He hasn’t told us where they are,” Madison pointed out. “If we start asking questions, he’ll get suspicious.”
“How hard can that be to find out? San Diego isn’t that big of a city.”
Turned out, San Diego was that big of a city.
There were at least a dozen dance studios. Not all had great websites and required phone calls to learn about their classes.
Thankfully, only one had just started a beginner class that took place on Tuesday nights.
Now all Ellie and Madison needed to do was wait until Tuesday.
And get one of their friends to drive them. Their father would recognize their cars a mile away.
And turn off their phones.
Not that he’d notice if he was flirting with a woman.
God, I hope he isn’t having an affair.
Once Ellie’s mind grabbed on to that possibility, nothing else made sense.
And Tuesday was a long time away.
“How are the dance lessons?”
Rain was in the forecast, so instead of having their Sunday meal on the terrace, they gathered around the dining room in Mari’s apartments. On occasion, they would take up space in the restaurant’s grotto, but the room had been reserved before the threat of rain hit the radar.
Mari sat at the head of her table, Luca on the other end.
And Chloe was asking questions about Mari’s Tuesdays.
“I really enjoy them,” Mari told her daughter.
“What about you, Rosa?” Salena asked.
“They’re okay.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing,” Luca said.
I want to have dance lessons, Franny interjected completely in Italian.
Mari responded in Italian. These are for adults.
Leo sat in a high chair; his chubby hands playfully pounded on the tray.
“It would be better with a partner,” Rosa said.
Mari shot her friend a look.
“How do they deal with that? Are there enough men in the class to even things out, or are you two dancing with each other?” Brooke asked.
“There are a few men in the class. And the instructor,” Mari said. “It works out.”
“I think it’s great that the two of you are trying new things,” Salena said.
“Mama needs more grandchildren to keep her busy,” Luca said between bites.
Every eye at the table turned to look at him.
“I think Mama should keep busy with what she likes doing.” Chloe glared at her brother.
“You like watching over Franny and Leo, right?”
“Of course, but—”
“You do know how sexist that sounds.” Brooke placed her fork down to stare at her husband.
“Cara, you know that isn’t how I meant that.”
“No. I don’t know that isn’t what you meant,” she said. “Babies keep a woman busy?”
“I’d say the same thing if Papa was still alive. Grandparents help with grandchildren. It’s just how it’s done.”
The voices at the table started to elevate.
“Mama already raised her children. We’re good.” Chloe turned to Mari. “You take all the dance classes you want. You earned it.”
Considering the only other man at the table was a toddler, Mari felt the need to come to her son’s rescue. “Rest assured, Luca, my grandchildren will always come first.”
“Mama! We can take care of our own kids,” Chloe said.
Mari let her gaze drop to her daughter’s waist. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
Chloe slapped a hand to her stomach. “No, no . . . not us, not yet. I just think it’s time for you to live your life.”
“What is it I’ve been doing if not living?”
Chloe looked at Salena. “Help me out here.”
Salena picked up her wineglass and waved it toward Mari and Rosa. “I see two single, beautiful women who have dedicated their lives to caring for their families. Both of you did that alone.”
“I wouldn’t have changed a thing,” Rosa said.
“Me either,” Mari added.
“There is more to life than raising kids. Like cruises and dance classes.” Salena looked at Chloe. “And romance.”
James’s image swam in her head. Mari did everything in her power to keep her face from exposing her thoughts.