The Good Father

“That we need help. She wanted to go to counseling. I told her I didn’t think we needed it. I mean...our marriage...from what I hear at the office, Chloe and I are tighter than most. We have our ups and downs, but we’re friends. We like each other, you know?”

“Maybe she needs the counseling and wanted you to go with her. Maybe if you say you’ll go, she’ll come home.”

“Been there, done that. The day she left, I came home from work and she wasn’t here. I called her. She told me she has to go away for a while. Just like that. Packed some bags, took our son and cleared out. I told her then, and several times since she left, that I’d go to counseling with her. She says maybe that would be good. In the future.”

“Did she take much with her?”

“As much as when we went to the mountains for a month last summer.”

“She intends to be gone for a while.”

“God, I hope not.”

“How long’s it been?” Another question he knew the answer to. But one that might stand out in its absence if he didn’t ask.

“A week and two days.”

“Has she given any indication as to when she might return?”

“None.” There was no anger, no bitterness in Jeff’s tone. Only confusion. As if he was lost.

And still in love with the wi

fe who’d left him.

Brett was hard-pressed not to get a little angry at Chloe himself. What was she thinking? Jeff was one of the good ones.

“Did you have a fight that morning? Or the night before?”

Finishing up his breakfast, Jeff gathered Brett’s empty plate and carried their dishes to the sink. “Yeah. And I’ve apologized for it. Several times.”

Turning, Brett studied his friend. “Apologized for what?”

“My bad temper,” Jeff said. “She told me about something Cody did at the park that day, and I snapped at her. Told her I needed a few minutes of peace when I get home before she starts bombarding me with her crap.” He turned from the sink. “I didn’t mean it, Brett. She knows that. But I just keep hearing those words over and over. Wishing like hell I could take them back. To the point of choking myself on them. I’d had a call on the way home, a stock we’d all expected to go public didn’t. I had several portfolios all set to move, had taken money from other markets, which meant a hell of a lot of scrambling, praying and luck or I was going to be calling some important clients with bad news.”

There was no doubting Jeff’s sincerity.

“That was all there was to the fight? Those words?”

“I wanted to take them back the second I said them. The look in her eye...you’d think I’d killed her puppy or something.”

“And that was it?”

“That was it. She was standing in the doorway.” He motioned to a door that led out to a hallway and into another branch of the rambling ranch home. “I pushed past her, went to our room and showered, and when I came back out she’d left a note telling me there were leftovers in the fridge and that she’d taken Cody out for ice cream. She brought some back for me, with my favorite mix-ins, and we watched television until bed.

“I told her I was sorry when I got in bed. Tried to kiss her good-night, and she just rolled over. The next day she was gone.”

“What did you do when she rolled over?”

“Nothing. I lay there in the dark until I could tell she was asleep, and then I went to sleep. I figured, hell, she was in the bed with me, it couldn’t be all that bad. I figured it would blow over by morning.”

Brett was standing now, too. In the kitchen with his helmet under his arm.

“Couples fight,” Jeff said. “It’s not right. It’s not okay. But it’s...normal.”

Nodding, Brett remembered a particular fight he’d had with Ella. He’d told her that he’d never wanted a child of his own. That he’d only agreed to try because of her. He’d rejected his own baby while it was still in her womb.

Because once that child had been a reality, it had hit him that he’d never be able to guarantee that he wasn’t his father. Ella was a strong woman. She could get out if he ever developed violent tendencies. But a child...someone who was forever biologically bound to him...a vulnerable, needy human being who couldn’t make that choice...