I felt my face growing hot. “Dad, he was abusive—”
“Did he hit you?” Dad asked. “Call you names?”
A lump was forming in my throat. “No—”
“Did that man ever lay a finger on you?”
I felt tears welling in my eyes. “No.” I swallowed. “He was mean, Dad. He’s still mean. He acts differently when you’re not there—”
“He’s probably just frustrated with you, and frankly I don’t blame him. Honestly, I don’t know what we did to deserve children like this. I really don’t.”
Mom was rubbing his shoulder. “Let’s just calm down—”
“We coddled them, Jennifer. They’ve never had to work for anything. Lazy.”
My mouth fell open. “I was valedictorian. I graduated first of my class at Stanford. I’ve worked my ass off to get—”
Dad jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t you dare take that language with me, young lady. I have had about enough of this back talk from you. So help me, Alexis, I will cut you off like I’ve cut off your brother. I have zero tolerance for this disrespect.”
I blinked at him. “What do you mean you’ve cut off my brother…”
“Your brother has made his choice,” Dad said. “He’s not welcome in our home until he’s rid himself of this woman he’s run off with.”
I gaped at him. “That woman is his wife!”
Dad’s nostrils flared. “That’s no daughter-in-law of mine. And you’ll be careful to remember that. This family isn’t some greasy diner that you can stumble into with some tattooed junkie you’ve picked up. I will not have our name associated with—whatever the hell she is.”
Mom couldn’t even look me in the eye.
I shook my head, incredulous. “You’re disowning your own son because you don’t like his wife,” I said slowly. “Who you’ve never even met.”
He leaned forward. “I don’t need to meet her. Her reputation precedes her. She has a goddamn sex tape, for Christ’s sake.”
The unfairness of this made my jaw go tight. Lola Simone’s sex tape was no different than the pictures Daniel and I had just sent to each other.
“She trusted someone, and they betrayed her,” I said. “That’s not her fault.”
“I would rather go to my grave never breathing another word to your brother than acknowledge the embarrassment he’s invited into this family. He owes every single one of us an apology. Marriage should be dignified. Neil is dignified. You may not have been married to him legally, but you were married to him in practice and you better damn well start to act like it.”
The server came to the table with our food, and Dad stopped talking and sat back in his seat with a clenched jaw. We sat there, silent, as plates were placed in front of us.
When the server was gone, Dad began eating, cutting his steak angrily, like he’d given up getting through to me and just wanted to get dinner over with so he could leave.
It took everything I had in me to muscle down the urge to cry.
Mom picked up a fork and just hovered it over her plate, staring at it. I recognized that look. I’d worn it myself. It’s the look you have when you’re too tired to carry on the fight.
It’s the way you feel before you accept the quiche.
I got up and fled to the bathroom. A few moments later Mom came in behind me.
I went into a stall and ripped a piece of toilet paper off the roll. “How could you let him do this to Derek?” I wiped at my eyes. “That’s your son.”
“And what could I do about it, Alexis?” She threw up her hands. “Your father is your father. I’d have more luck moving mountains than moving that man. And your brother knew exactly what he was doing. He knew your father would never approve, that’s why he got married in secret. You can blame me all you want, but your brother is a grown man, and he made his own choices knowing very well what the consequences would be.”
Mom turned slowly and dropped onto a tufted chair in the corner of the bathroom like her body weighed a million pounds.
“I am a seventy-three-year-old woman, and I am tired. I love your father. He is brilliant and wonderful in so many ways, but he is a difficult man, and that’s never going to change. You take him as he is, or you get nothing at all. Your brother picked nothing—but he did pick.”
I sniffed and looked away from her.
“Alexis, your father has lost everything that matters to him in the last two months,” she said. “His career is done, and his vision is going. The future of the legacy is uncertain, Derek is gone, you left Neil. He’s almost eighty years old, and his entire life is out of his control.”