All Chapters of My Boyfriend's Dad?: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

LauraThe house was empty.Not the way it used to be. Not the hollow, echoing emptiness of a man who had lived alone for too long. A different kind of empty. The kind that comes after a storm. After the rain has stopped and the wind has died and you are left standing in the quiet, looking at the damage, wondering what comes next.Matthew and Priya had been gone for three hours.I had spent those three hours doing nothing. Sitting on the bench in the garden. Watching the roses. Listening to the birds. Pretending I was not waiting for something to happen.Damon was inside. On the phone. With Matthew. Making sure they made it home safe.I could hear his voice through the open window. Low. Careful. The voice he used when he was trying not to feel too much."Yes. Good. I am glad. Okay. Talk to you soon."Then silence.Then footsteps.Then he was standing in the garden. Looking at me."He made it home," he said."I know.""How did you know.""Because you are not crying.""I do not cry.""Yo

DamonThe oak tree changed things.Not in a big way. Not in a way anyone else would notice. But I noticed. Every morning, I walked to the garden and looked at it. Small. Unimpressive. Bare branches reaching for the sky. And every morning, I thought about Sam.I had never met him. He died six years before I met Laura. But I knew him. Through her. Through the way she talked about him when she thought I was not listening. Through the way she planted the tree and watered it and talked to it like it could hear her.She thought I did not know about the talking.I knew.I knew everything.That was my curse. That was my gift.---Fall deepened.The roses lost their petals. The leaves turned orange and red and brown. The air got cold. The sky got grey.Laura started wearing my sweaters.Not because hers were not warm enough. Because she liked the way they smelled. Like me. Like coffee and soil and something she could not name.I found her in the garden one morning. Sitting on the bench. My swe

DamonJanuary was cruel.Not in a dramatic way. Not in the way of storms or floods or disasters that made the news. It was cruel in the small ways. The way the light never quite arrived. The way the cold seeped through the windows no matter how high I turned the heat. The way the garden stayed brown and dead and the oak tree stood bare and the roses did not bloom.Laura noticed.She noticed everything.She started wearing two sweaters. One of hers. One of mine. She walked around the house looking like a child playing dress-up. I did not tell her that. I just watched her. And handed her coffee. And tried not to think about how young she was.She was nineteen now.Her birthday had come and gone in December. A small party. Cake. Candles. Rick and Chloe and Matthew and Priya on video call. She had blown out the candles and made a wish and would not tell me what it was.That was fine.I did not need to know.I just needed her to stay.---The board meeting was at 10 AM.I had been dreading

DamonThe summer that followed was the hottest I could remember.Not because of the temperature. Because of the way the sun seemed to press down on everything. The roses wilted in the afternoon heat. The oak tree drooped. The grass turned brown no matter how much I watered it.Laura did not seem to notice.She spent her days in the garden. Reading. Studying. Writing in a journal she kept hidden under the bench. I did not ask what was in it. I was learning not to ask questions that did not have answers.She was nineteen now. Almost twenty. The months were slipping through my fingers like water.---July 4th came.Rick came over. Chloe came over. Matthew and Priya flew in from Seattle. The house was full for the first time since Christmas.Laura made lemonade. Not from a mix. From actual lemons. She was proud of herself. She did not say it, but I could tell. The way she set the pitcher on the table. The way she looked at it like it was a trophy."This is good," Rick said."Thank you," L

DamonDecember arrived like a thief.Quiet. Cold. Unannounced. One morning I woke up and the garden was covered in frost and the oak tree was bare and the roses had finally stopped blooming. Laura was still asleep. Her back against my chest. Her hair spread across the pillow.I watched her for a while.Then I got up.Made coffee.Stood at the window.---The box was still on the coffee table.The memoir. Two hundred pages of my life. It had been sitting there for two months. Laura had read it. I had read it. No one else.I walked to the table. Picked up the box. Carried it to the study. Put it on the shelf. Between the law books and the biographies. Somewhere safe. Somewhere I could see it but did not have to touch it.Laura appeared in the doorway."You moved the box," she said."Yes.""Why now.""Because I am tired of looking at it.""Are you going to publish it.""No.""Why not.""Because it is not for anyone else. It is for you. And for me. And for the people I hurt. That is enoug