No, he said they met by accident. Maybe they did. But even so… how do you fall in love with the daughter of the man you blame for your father’s death? How do you marry her? Live under the same roof? Look that man in the eye every day?
I kept hearing what he’d said: “I’m stuck between hate and love.” That had to be its own kind of hell. I tried to imagine myself in his place.
If someone had killed my father, and years later I met his daughter and fell in love with her… could I have done what Mike did? I doubt it. I probably would’ve run. Or lashed out. Or both.
But Mike stayed. He suffered through it for Katie. And then I thought about my daughter. My Katie. She knew nothing.
She’d married this man, brought him into our home, built a life with him, while he carried all that pain and all that anger. Susan knew. Now I knew. But Katie didn’t. Were we protecting her—or lying to her in the worst possible way?
I finished the cigarette, ground it out, almost lit another, then thought better of it and went home. The house was quiet. Susan was washing dishes in the kitchen. Mike was in his room.
I went into the bedroom, lay down on top of the covers, and stared at the ceiling. I heard Susan finish up, walk down the hall, pause in the doorway. “Victor, you coming to bed?”
“In a minute,” I muttered. She stood there a second, then shut the door.
I was alone with the question I couldn’t answer. Do I tell Katie?
If I did, everything would blow apart. She’d learn her father was responsible for her husband’s father dying. She’d never look at me the same way again. And how could she stay married to Mike after that? Their marriage might not survive it.
So what then? Keep quiet and live with the lie? Pretend everything was fine? That night, when Susan fell asleep, I stayed awake again.
Waiting. 2:30 came. She stirred—but didn’t get up. Just lay there.
I turned toward her. “Susan, you awake?” She flinched. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. Come to the kitchen. We need to talk.” We got up and went into the kitchen. I turned on the light and put the kettle on. Susan sat at the table, watching me carefully.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked. I sat down across from her and took her hand. “I know about Mike. I know who he is. And I know you’ve been helping him.”
“How did you find out?” “I put it together. Name, age, the story. And I talked to him today. He told me everything.”
Susan covered her face with both hands. Her shoulders shook. She was crying quietly, almost soundlessly. I stood up and put my arms around her. “Hey. Don’t cry. I’m not angry. I understand why you kept it from me.”
She looked up, face wet. “I didn’t know what to do, Victor. I was in shock. I realized it really was your fault, and that you’d hidden it all these years.”
“But I couldn’t throw him out. I couldn’t tell Katie. It would’ve destroyed everything. So I tried to help him. To keep him from falling apart. To keep this family from coming apart with him.” “You did the right thing,” I said quietly.
“You’ve been holding all of us together. Thank you.” She looked at me with fear in her eyes. “What are you going to do now? Are you going to tell Katie?”
I sat there a long moment. The kettle clicked off. I got up, poured us both tea, came back, and sat down. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to tell her. To confess everything. To finally own it.”
“But another part of me sees Katie. And Mike. And you. So no—I don’t know.” Susan wrapped both hands around her mug and stared into it.
“Mike begged me not to tell you,” she said. “He was afraid you’d throw him out. Or start a war. Or worse—tell Katie yourself.” “I’m not throwing him out. And I’m not telling Katie. Not now.”
“But I have to figure out some way to make this right.” “Make it right?” she said softly. “You can’t make it right.”
“Maybe not. But I can try. I owe that young man. I owe his mother. I owe his father. I have to do something.”
I didn’t know what that something was. But I knew that just going on as if nothing had happened would be the same cowardice that made me stay silent 28 years ago. And I’d had enough of that…
