My mother dropped her knife and fork and it clattered onto her plate. “Like you and Tristan! It started off as a fake marriage but it seems to me like it turned real.”
I gave my mother a half-hearted laugh.
“Your father’s head of the bank now,” my mother said, “because he stuck around and faked it until he made it. You need to stick with it with Tristan. Look where you could end up.”
My father winked at me. “Just in case you didn’t figure out my point.”
I had hoped something real had come out of what had started off fake between Tristan and me. But if it had been real, he wouldn’t have given up at the first hurdle. We’d have gotten through the obstacles. If we were down and out after just a few months of marriage, then we couldn’t have a future.
“Relationships aren’t like work,” I said. I wished it was as easy as they were both making out. “And when you’ve lost trust in someone, what’s left?”
“You mean relationships are work,” my mother corrected me. “I get it, you’re annoyed at Tristan. I understand he breached your trust, but you’re a smart woman, Parker. Tristan isn’t Mike.”
“How do I know? I didn’t think Mike would turn out to be a criminal.”
“You know because you’re different. You’ve met Tristan’s friends and family. You know who he is through the eyes of the people who love him as well as your own. How often did you meet Mike’s family?” She knew the answer to that was never. He’d always said his parents lived in Hong Kong, and although he’d been to visit them a couple of times while we were together, I could never join him because of my work. “But it’s not even that. You know because you’re not a twenty-two-year-old who doesn’t know any better. What Mike did was awful. He’s a terrible person. But being with him gave you life experience—valuable life experience. It honed your gut instinct. You’ve seen what’s bad so you can now recognize what’s good.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t like this was all my decision. “He’s hardly breaking down the door, trying to win me back.”
“Have you reached out to him?” she asked.
“No, but . . .”
“So you read a book that told you that he should be the one to reach out?” she asked. “Or maybe there’s a law somewhere I don’t know about.” She raised her eyebrows in that you-know-I’m-right way. “Don’t let your pride get in the way of your happiness. Your father and I decided when we first got married that however successful he got, however many people bowed and scraped to him at the bank, as soon as he walked through the front door, he wasn’t a CEO, he was a husband and father. We knew we wanted to stay married. You need to figure out if you do too, Parker.”
That’s why my father had just always been “dad” to me. It was why I found it so difficult that people always treated me differently because of who my father was. But that had been a conscious decision by both of them. And I was thankful for it.
Mum was right. Only pride had stopped me from picking up the phone to Tristan. I could invite him over to talk rationally about how I felt, and he could explain to me what was going through his head and why he hadn’t been in contact. We could pretend we were functioning adults and have a conversation. What we had was worth that at least, wasn’t it?
“You’re the best mum and dad I could ever wish for,” I said. “And Dad, you make fantastic roast lamb.”
“I did the mint sauce,” my mum added. “Which I think makes the whole dish.”
“Wouldn’t be roast lamb without mint sauce,” my dad said and leaned over to give my mum a kiss.
I might be an adult, but my parents still had a lot to teach me.
Thirty-Five
Parker
Despite being resolved to call Tristan, it took me twenty-four hours before I summoned the courage to send him a message asking him if he wanted to go to lunch. I hit send and threw my phone on the sofa like it was on fire. Immediately it started to ring. I grabbed it and Tristan’s name was flashing on the screen.
My heart squeezed in excitement but I wasn’t prepared to speak to him. Maybe he was calling to tell me no—to say he wanted to break all ties forever.
If I didn’t answer, I’d never know. I swiped up.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey,” he said. “I thought I’d call.”
“I see that.”
“Thanks for the message,” he said.
“Thanks for calling,” I replied. This was awkward and weird and I wanted to race back to sitting opposite him at his dining room table, sharing a bottle of wine.