Big Fat Disaster (5 page)

As we left Dad’s campaign office, the three black SUVs and two police cars were turning into the parking lot. They parked beside the stage that my parents were dancing on a few hours ago.

When we arrived home, our house was a wreck. All of my dresser drawers were dumped out on my bed, including my personal snack stash, which occupies the bottom right drawer. Ding Dongs, Pop Tarts, and candy bars covered my bedspread; it looked like a vending machine had exploded. All that was left of my laptop was my iPod cord. In fact, the agents took all of our laptops and the hard drive of the desktop computer in the family room.

Mom kept herself together long enough to use her bright, happy voice when she phoned her best friend, Brenda, who she used to teach with before being a Senate candidate’s wife was her full-time job. She asked if Drew could spend the night at Brenda’s house with her daughter, Charlotte.

Mom can do that with Brenda—tell her that she’s got stuff to do and Drew’s driving her crazy being bored—because Mom says Brenda lets her be a regular person instead of a politician’s wife, which is like being on display 24/7. Mom complains sometimes, but I know she secretly enjoys being in the spotlight.

Drew was super upset about her room being invaded. She thought we’d been robbed, and she only calmed down when she realized that the “robbers” didn’t steal her boy band CDs. I
really
hope she has no idea that Dad doesn’t love Mom anymore. I wish
I
didn’t know.

I don’t know how Mom faked everything being normal, but she did for Drew’s sake. She told her that Dad had a headache and was taking a nap, and she convinced Drew that the people who came into our house and turned it upside down had lost something and accidentally looked in the wrong place for it.

Drew put her hands on her hips and announced, “Well, they should have cleaned up their mess and left an ‘I’m sorry’ note!”

My little sister is
so
naive.

If Drew asked once, she asked a hundred times: “Is this about Colby and the calendar?”

Mom ignored her and rushed around gathering up Drew’s clothes and toothbrush, shoving them into her backpack.

“No, honey, Daddy and I just have some meetings at the office, and I thought you’d have more fun at Charlotte’s house.”

Not that she tried to anyway, but Mom couldn’t ship
me
off to a friend’s house; I don’t exactly have anyone I’m close to. I have friends, of course, but there’s no one special. Mom says Rachel and Drew are “social butterflies,” but she uses words like “quirky” and “bookworm” to describe me. She says I take after Dad in that way, too.

Speaking of
The Man of the Hour
, he disappeared into their bedroom shortly after we arrived home. It’s amazing that he even came home with us, because he sure didn’t want to. Mom had to badger him into leaving the campaign headquarters.

My mom is a lot of things, but more than anything else, she’s one tough bitch when she’s hurt, and it’s easy for her to cut off anyone she feels wronged by. Dad told me that it’s because she grew up in a girls’ home and always had to look out for herself. Mom’s public image is like she’s this warm, friendly,
You’d Love to Have Me as Your Best Friend
person. But she doesn’t trust people further than she can throw them, and once that trust is violated, the violator might as well be dead.

When they finally came out of Dad’s office after he told Mom that he doesn’t love her anymore, he headed for the media center sofa and curled up on it. She stomped right in there after him and didn’t even bother with the
You’re Being Unreasonable
voice or the soothing one, either. Nope; Mom went straight to
Bitch
: “Oh, no.
No, you don’t.
I am
not
going to face what’s at home by myself, so you get your ass off that couch and get in the car.
Now
.”

When he didn’t move, she threatened to take pictures of him with her phone and text them to the news stations. That got him up.

The moment Brenda pulled up and honked, Mom rushed Drew outside, then stood in the front yard and waved until the car was out of sight.

I went to my room, changed clothes, and lay face-down on the floor between my bed and the wall. I wanted to hide under my bed like I did when I was younger, but my bed’s not on stilts. I sensed Mom in my doorway before she spoke. “Do you have the photograph, Colby?”

I nodded into my carpet.

She sounded choked. “Why…did you take it from your dad’s office?”

I sat up and tried to look at her, but I couldn’t. “I…didn’t want anyone else to know about it.”

Her voice was sharp. “You were going to
keep it
from me?”

I tried to swallow but my throat was so tight that I choked on my spit. “Uh—no, Mom. I had to think. I mean, it just happened a little while ago. I didn’t know what to—”

She cut me off. “I’d like to see it, please.”

I reached into my shirt and withdrew the photo from my bra. I glanced at it, hoping that, by some miracle, I was wrong about what I’d seen before.

I wasn’t.

Mom met me where I was and took the photo from my hand. The look on her face nearly killed me. I babbled, “I’m sorry. I…didn’t know what to do with it. I—”

She held up her hand to silence me. I followed her to the family room and watched as she sat on the sofa beneath the framed news clipping of Dad receiving the
Father of the Year
award from the City of Northside. She stared at the photo of him making out with that woman, then closed her eyes, lowered her head, and her tough bitch self melted away as she slid onto the floor, curled into herself, and sobbed.

I knelt beside her with my hand on her arm. She pulled into herself even tighter and turned her face into the carpet. Every once in a while I whispered, “It’ll be okay, Mom,” even though I didn’t believe myself.

I sat up when I heard my parents’ bedroom door open. Dad carried two suitcases and a duffle bag into the family room, stepping carefully around a messy pile of board games that the F.B.I. agents pulled out of the hall closet and left on the floor.

“You okay, Colby?” he whispered. Did he think Mom couldn’t hear him?

I
didn’t whisper. “Dad…why? How could you tell Mom that you don’t love her anymore? What about my sisters and me? Do you still love us?”

His voice was flat, and he was no longer the freaked-out person he was in his campaign office. Instead, he was hyper-controlled and seemed to be wearing his
Debate Self
: the one he uses when he’s facing off with an opponent and doesn’t want to give anything away. He seemed to be looking at me, but it felt as if he was looking
through
me. “Of course I still love you girls, and I
do
still love your mother, Colby; just not in the same way. We will always have a very special connection,
because
of you and your sisters.”

Mom wailed into the carpet and her shoulders shook with a new round of sobs.

Dad bit his lower lip and stared at his feet until Mom quieted down. When he spoke again, his voice was a little tighter. “Your mom and I have had our problems, but they have nothing to do with you. This…situation…is about me and my need for something more.”

I rose up on my knees and tried to stand, but I was shaking too hard. I choked out, “Please, Dad, don’t go.
Don’t leave us.
Wh-who is that lady? How can you love her?”

Dad squared his shoulders and stood up straighter. “Colby, you’re a child, and you can’t understand what it’s like for me to have feelings for another person that I never thought I would have again. Your mother is a wonderful person, and you and your sisters are everything to me. But none of you know what I have been through in the last year. You have no idea what it’s like to be in my position. There’s just so much pressure to be all things to all people.”

I started to cry. “I’m
not
a child! You’re just making excuses!
Why
did you hide that photo behind ours? Is everything a big lie?”

He fished his keys out of the bowl by the front door. “Sweetheart, I never planned on you finding out this way, but my relationship with Marcy is the real thing. My only regret is the way I’ve hurt you all, and for that, I am truly sorry.” He shook his head and shrugged. “This is about me, not you.”

He said it in the same tone of voice he’d use to tell a telemarketer that he’s not interested in what she’s selling.

“Well, how
were
we supposed to find out?”

He stared at his keys. “I hadn’t figured that out yet.”

“B-but what about—all that stuff you say in your speeches about how much you love Mom and how when you met her, you won the ‘Wife Lottery’?”

He looked up as if the answer was written on the ceiling. “This feeling is not about our family. What I have found with Marcy has nothing to do with any of you. She understands that people expect me to be a certain way, and I…have to
be
that person. But not with her. I don’t have to pretend to be anyone else when I’m with her.” He set the luggage down but immediately retrieved it, then started to leave but looked back at me.

I wanted to ask him if we’re still “a package deal,” but I knew what the answer would be. “Where are you going, Dad?”

“I’ve got some thinking to do, and I need to be somewhere else to do it.”

I went to the bathroom after Dad left and when I came out, Mom had gone to their bedroom and locked the door.