On Halloween, My Husband Kissed Another Woman in Front of Our Daughter, So We Left novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Sorry

In the kitchen Brad refuses to be sorry to Junie, and Lana stops translating for him; as Mona leaves she asks him whether the arrangement for Monday is still on.

Junie stared at Eli.

"What do you mean, Daddy said we weren't coming?"

Eli twisted the end of the sash between his fingers. "He said you probably wouldn't. So he asked us to practice with him on Wednesday."

Brad came out of the gym behind him, still in the captain's coat.

He put his left hand on top of Eli's head without looking down. "Go find your mom, buddy."

Mona stepped into the hallway. "I'm right here."

She rested a hand on her son's shoulder and gave me a pained, helpless look.

Junie looked up at her father. "You said you were working on Wednesday."

"Eli didn't want to be the only boy in the family parade without a dad," Brad said. "I was trying to help."

"So you gave him my family?"

"It was one performance, Junie."

She waited.

Brad looked at me. He wanted me to soften it for him.

I had done it for years. Daddy only wanted to help a sad little boy. Daddy didn't know how much it would hurt. Daddy loves you more than anything.

I said nothing.

"Lana, say something."

"Junie asked you a question."

His mouth went flat. "Your mother was upset with me," he told Junie. "I thought you two might not come."

"You didn't ask us," I said. "You gave our places away."

Mona drew Eli against her side. "He only didn't want my son to stand there with no family at all."

At the words no family, something crossed Junie's face.

I took her hand. "We're leaving."

"You're too upset to drive," Brad said.

"I'm not getting in a car with you."

In the parking lot I buckled Junie into the back seat.

She pulled the red coat closed around her and said nothing until we reached the stop sign at the end of our street.

"Mommy, why did Daddy tell them we weren't coming?"

I wanted to give her an answer she could sleep on.

I wanted to say he had panicked, or misunderstood, or made one stupid choice in a noisy room.

But he had known the new start time. He had rehearsed.

"Ask Daddy when he gets home," I said.

Her eyes filled. "You always tell me what he means."

I stopped the car and turned around and held her face in both my hands.

"Tonight he has to tell you himself."

He came home forty minutes later, and he brought Mona and Eli with him.

Junie sat at the kitchen table in her pajamas with a glass of milk and her folded drawing.

Eli set the sash and the brass compass in front of her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you weren't coming."

Junie looked at him for a while.

Then she looked at her father.

"Wednesday is bedtime-story night."

Brad put the costume bag on a chair.

The refrigerator hummed. Nobody spoke.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"The school needed the pirate number rehearsed."

Junie's fingers closed around the compass. "You practiced my show with Eli, and I wasn't even asked."

"It isn't that simple. Eli's dad is gone. Sometimes he needs me."

"I need you too."

Brad crouched beside her chair. "You have me every day."

"No, I don't."

He flinched.

For a moment I thought he finally understood.

Junie rubbed her thumb over the scratched brass lid.

"Are you sorry?"

He took her hand, and she let him.

"I'm sorry you got hurt, sweetheart."

She looked up. "Are you sorry you gave Eli my part?"

That was the second chance she gave him.

He could have said yes. He could have said that helping one child never meant replacing his own.

Instead he sighed. "When you're older, you'll understand that families have to help people who have less."

Junie pulled her hand back. "But it was my family."

"Nobody took your family."

She started to cry. It was quiet, her shoulders folding in, both hands over her face.

I lifted her out of the chair.

"Lana." Brad stood. "Don't carry her off every time she hears something she doesn't like."

I looked at my husband.

"She heard you choose not to be sorry."

I carried her upstairs.

When she finally fell asleep, the house had gone quiet.

I came halfway down the stairs and saw Mona and Eli by the front door.

Brad was holding Mona's coat open for her. She slid her arms in, turned, and laid her hand on his chest.

"I never wanted to come between you and Lana," she murmured.

"You haven't."

Her eyes lifted and found me on the stairs.

She left her hand where it was.

Then she looked back at my husband.

"Is the arrangement for Monday still the same?"

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