Page 86 of Clinically Bewitched
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Because you’ve been very quiet and usually when you’re quiet, it means you’re either planning something very precise or having an existential crisis, and I can’t always tell which.”
“I’m not having a crisis.”
“Oh. Good. That’s good. Because I know tonight was a lot and my parents can be intense when they’re defending me, and I’m sorry if they embarrassed you or made things worse with your parents.”
“They didn’t embarrass me.”
She blinked. “They didn’t?”
“No.” I pulled into my building’s parking garage, finding my assigned spot with the muscle memory of someone who had parked there a thousand times. “They were magnificent.”
“Magnificent?”
I turned off the engine.
Turned to look at her.
“Your father,” I said carefully, “is a billionaire who dresses like a hippie and talks about vision quests. Your mother holds three doctorates yet practices energy healing. They’re brilliant, accomplished, successful people who have chosen to live authentically instead of performing for society’s approval.”
“Yes?”
“And my parents,” I continued, “are miserable, judgmental people who’ve spent their entire lives caring more about appearances than substance. More about status than connection. More about beingrightthan beinghappy.”
Athena’s eyes were wide.
“Your parents humiliated mine tonight,” I said. “And they deserved every second of it.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m done.” My words came out steady. Certain. “I’m done fighting this. Fighting you. Fighting the universe or destiny or whatever cosmic force brought you into my life.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She smiled then, that brilliant, unguarded smile that made something in my chest crack open.
“So what does that mean?” she asked softly.
I unbuckled my seatbelt.
Leaned across the center console.
Cupped her face in my hands.
“It means,” I said, my voice low, “that I’m going to take my wife upstairs and stop pretending I don’t want her.”
Her breath caught.
“Oh.”
“Is that acceptable to you?”
