Love, Like Father Like Son novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: Saturday
On Saturday night, twelve people sat down at my mother's table, and a lawyer sat among them with a folder.
My father was in his chair at the head.
My mother had let him keep it, which was somehow worse.
Russell sat at her right hand in a dark blue suit.
Chet sat across from me.
He had not looked at me since the garage, and I had not looked at him.
The soup came, and the fish came, and nobody tasted anything.
My mother waited until the plates were cleared.
Then she tapped her glass with a spoon.
"Thank you all for coming," she said. "I've asked you here because I believe in honesty among friends."
My father folded his napkin.
"Davis and I have been married thirty years. It has been a good marriage in many ways." She lifted her chin. "But I have changed. I have discovered what I want at this stage of my life, and it isn't what I have."
"Helen," my father said, mildly.
"Let me finish."
"I'd like you to."
"I am asking for a divorce."
The table made no sound.
The lawyer slid a folder down the white cloth until it stopped in front of my father's plate.
My father looked at it for a moment.
Then he took his glasses off and wiped them on his napkin and put them on again.
"May I have a pen?" he said.
"Dad."
"It's all right, June."
"Dad, don't."
"Sweetheart." He smiled at me, and his eyes were wet. "She asked me nicely."
He signed.
He signed all seven places, quickly, in the neat slanted hand he used on his lab reports.
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