“No,” Daddy replied, smiling. “Cindy’s ex-husband is Cuban. They named her after his mother. Mercedes is from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary, Maria de las Mercedes, which means Mary of Mercies. I didn’t know all that before I met Cindy,” he added, looking back at us, still with a smile.
“Where did you meet her?” I asked.
“On a job. She works for a company we’re going to buy,” he said.
“Then she’ll work for you,” Haylee said.
“I guess. If she continues. So tell me about your party. Where was it?”
“At someone’s house,” Haylee said. She nudged me. “We watched a movie you might know.”
“What movie?”
“What was it, Kaylee?”
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” I said.
“Great movie. Did you read the book? Is that part of the curriculum?”
“The what?” Haylee asked.
“The course,” I said. “What we have to read in literature class. It’s one of the optional titles. We have to do book reports and can choose it.”
“Even though you saw the film, I’d say read the book.”
“We will.”
“It’s optional,” Haylee said. “I might choose something else.”
Daddy started to tell us about the books he enjoyed reading in high school and college. For the remainder of the ride to the restaurant, it felt almost like nothing was different. I even could imagine Mother sitting up front with him. When would it really start feeling strange? I wondered.
The answer came to me after we had been seated at our table. As usual, people were gawking at us because of how identical we were and how identically dressed. For as long as I could remember, when we went to formal restaurants, especially places where we sat in plain sight of practically every patron, Mother was there to smile back at people or reply to comments made about us. She was always very proud of us. Not that Daddy wasn’t; he was just more subdued about it. He was that way now, and he was also nervous and a bit awkward. It was almost as if he hadn’t known us very long.
“So what do you like?” he asked a few moments after we had our menus. He had ordered himself a Scotch and soda, and we had iced teas. Mother was right about the restaurant. It was the most expensive we had been to.
“Do we like shrimp scampi?” Haylee asked me.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She folded her menu.
I smiled at her and shook my head. She thought she was ordering for me, too. “I’ll have the veal osso buco,” I said.
“We like that?” Haylee asked.
“We never had it, but I know what it is and always wanted to try it,” I said.
“Then I should.”
“You don’t have to eat the same thing your sister does when you’re with me,” Daddy told her. “I never saw you as duplicates, even though that was a sin in our house.”
And so it’s starting, I thought.
“I continually tried to persuade your mother to let you become individuals, your own persons, but she had her theories and research.” He smiled, which took me by surprise. “It was like talking to a religious zealot who would keep referring to the Bible. I’m sorry,” he said, after the waiter took our orders. “Sorry I gave up.”
“Is that the reason you had an affair?” I asked.
He looked from Haylee to me, deciding how much to tell us, how grown-up and ready for such talk we were. “Not entirely, no. A man and a woman have needs, and getting married doesn’t change that. What it means is that you’re going to satisfy those needs with only one person. That’s being faithful, loving.”