Living in Threes by Judith Tarr Page B

he was drop-dead cute about halfway made up for it.
    The table he took us to had someone sitting at it. She was tall and narrow like Dad, with short blonde hair and serious cheekbones.
    I’d kill for those cheekbones. I could see her in a long white dress and a parasol, though what she had on was a light green sundress and clunky sandals.
    The sandals made me like her in spite of the cheekbones. “Meredith,” Dad said with a funny little upward tilt in his voice, “this is Kelly.”
    I’d expected her to be called Ute or Gretchen. She stood up and shook my hand and said in perfectly normal American, “Hello, Meredith. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
    I couldn’t say the same. I smiled and said polite things, and waited for Dad to explain.
    Dad didn’t take off because he was sick of Mom. He just couldn’t stay in one place for more than a few months at a time before his feet got so itchy he couldn’t stand it. It was Mom who filed for divorce.
    I’d been expecting him to show up with someone else eventually, but it never quite got around to happening, and I’d got used to things being the way they were. This caught me completely off guard. I sat down because it was better than falling down, and ordered something, I hardly noticed what.
    Dad and Kelly were sitting carefully apart, not holding hands or kissing or doing anything that might be expected to upset me. It was too careful; they would barely even look at each other. They were trying too hard. That just made it more awkward.
    The explanation was no surprise. “We met on the Greenpeace cruise,” Kelly said, “then we took off on our own for an eco-tour of the Indian Ocean. Now I’m headed back to Chicago, and Mark’s decided to come with me.”
    She smiled at him, not sappy at all, and then turned back to me. She had a way of looking at a person straight on that made me feel as if I really did matter to her—not because she felt obligated to be nice to the boyfriend’s kid, but because I was a human being, and she was interested in who and what I was.
    She was good. She didn’t even make me want to hate her.
    I could see why Dad liked her so much. What I couldn’t see was him going anywhere for someone else. “Chicago?” I said.
    I must have sounded totally shocked, because Dad laughed. “Why not?” he said. “It’s a great city. Lots going on. Plenty of water, even, in Lake Michigan, if I get the urge to go out in a boat again.”
    “What will you do?” I asked.
    “I’ve got a job doing tech support for the main office of the eco-tours company,” he said. “It’s right near the hospital where Kelly is finishing up her residency, so it’s all working out.”
    My eyebrows went up. “You’re a doctor?” I said.
    Kelly nodded. “One more year,” she said, “then I’m loose upon the world.”
    “Let me guess,” I said. “Doctors Without Borders.”
    She had a great smile, wide and a little crooked. “Eventually. There’s so much work to do inside the country, right in Chicago. I’ll start there and see where it takes me.”
    It’s hard to know what to say when you’re a normal selfish human and the person you’re talking to is a saint. Lucky for me, our salads came right then, and we were too busy eating to talk much.
    Dad dropped the other half of the bomb in the middle of dessert. “We’ll be here for a few days,” he said, “then we’re off to Florida.”
    I sat with my spoonful of crème brûlée halfway to my mouth. “I thought you said Chicago.”
    “We’ll end up in Chicago,” he said. “We’re stopping to see your mother first.”
    I lowered the spoon into the bowl. “Does she know that?”
    “I talked to her,” said Dad. “I told her about Kelly; they’re anxious to meet each other.”
    “When did you do that?”
    “A couple of days ago,” Dad said.
    I bit my lip. Mom hadn’t told Dad about the cancer. She didn’t want him fluttering around her, as she put it. Now she was in remission, I guess