"We had the London broil yesterday," Mildred said. "If you like that, they do a very good job with it here."
"You were here yesterday?" I asked quickly, my insides twisting with surprise and disappointment.
"Oh . . ." She looked at Daddy.
"Yes, Leigh. We've been back a little over a week, but I didn't want to call you until I could spend time with you. We've had so much to do."
I didn't know what to say. How could he have been here so long and not called me? What about all those words he wrote in his letters, at least the earlier ones, telling me how much he missed me. What happened to the promises and pledges of love? I didn't even try to hide my look of hurt. They looked at each other again.
"I was a bit overwhelmed with work," Daddy continued. "I have a new and wonderful cruise planned. Actually," he said turning to Mildred and taking her hand, "it was Mildred's idea, a wonderful idea." He turned back to me. "We're going to have cruises to Alaska. To Alaska! I know you think people won't want to go there because everyone thinks it's freezing there, but the summers in Alaska are probably the most beautiful summers in the world. Mildred has been there then!" he exclaimed, "She can tell you."
"I don't care about Alaska," I said sharply. The tears were stinging behind my eyes, but I kept them trapped.
"Now Leigh, that's not very polite."
"It's all right, Cleave. I understand how Leigh feels. You should tell her all of it," she said, her face tight and serious.
"All of it?" I looked at my father. He sat up straight.
"It wasn't all business that occupied us since our return from Europe," he said. "Two days ago Mildred and I got married."
I wanted to get up and run out of the restaurant and the hotel. I wanted to run and run until I collapsed. My stomach felt as if it had dropped to my feet, My heart seemed to shrink in my chest and my chest become an empty chamber echoing with the tiny beats. Daddy was holding Mildred's hand to his lips and looking at her so lovingly. Then he turned back to me.
"We thought it would be best for everyone if we just went out and did it ourselves, no public ceremony, no receptions, no extravagant affair. Mildred is so practical when it comes to things like that, and in that way, she is a lot like me," my father said. With every word he seemed to drift farther and farther away from me, like a leaf being carried away in the wind, rising and falling on an invisible sea and drawn toward the horizon until it was barely visible, a dot against the gray sky.
"We haven't even told my children yet," Mildred explained. I imagined that was supposed to make me feel more important. I had learned about their marriage before her children had learned about it; but I didn't care.
"We're off to Maine tomorrow," my father said. "Maine? Tomorrow?" The words bounced around in my head. They seemed unreal.
"That's where Mildred's children live. We're just going to surprise them with the news."
"Like you surprised me," I said bitterly. Daddy blinked. "I wrote you letters," he said softly. "You must have had some idea."
I did, I thought, but I wouldn't admit it to myself. I refused to see it, hoping for another world, a world that just included Daddy and me, a world in which I was the most important thing in his life, a world like the happy one I once knew. But that thin d
ream had burst. It fell out of the air like a single tear.
"I know it's hard for you, dear," Mildred said. She reached across the table to put her hand on mine. "You've been through quite an upheaval, but I assure you, I will do anything I can to help make your life easier and more pleasant. In time I hope you will think of me as a second mother, someone to whom you can come for advice and comfort."
I looked into the eyes of this stranger, a woman so unlike my real mother. She seemed so hard and so stern. Even her smile was an efficient little movement in her face. Confide in her: the woman who had stolen my father from me, the woman who was going to take him to another family? Which children would he care more about now? With whom would he spend more time?
"And that's one thing Mildred's good at," Daddy said turning to her again, "giving advice. She's given- me some wonderful advice these last few months. To tell you the truth, I don't know what I would have done without her."
But why didn't you feel that way about me, Daddy? I wondered. Why didn't you ever say you wouldn't know what to do without me? Why did you let me go so easily?
"Mildred has planned everything out carefully and wisely," Daddy continued. "So you need not worry about me any longer."
Worry about you? Why aren't you worrying about me? I cried silently.
"After we go to see her children, we're going to honeymoon in Alaska as a way to plan the cruise and enjoy ourselves. Isn't that efficient? Then we'll be doing some traveling again. Off to Europe on business and back to Boston just before the winter. But we won't be staying in Boston all winter. Some of it we'll spend in the Caribbean. In the spring we'll vacation in Maine with Mildred's family and then next summer . . ."
"But what about me?" I finally cried.
"Oh, we'll see you whenever we can," Daddy said. "Mildred will plan that out, too."
Mildred will plan that out? Why had my father permitted this woman to take his life over completely?
"That's right, dear;" she said. "I'm working on when we can take you along with us on a trip and when you can come stay with us. We would take you to Maine with us tomorrow, but . ."