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Neil knew he could joke off the question. However, if Isobel had wanted to ask it and was too shy to, he might as well give her the answer. “I was married once, but traveling was hard on the relationship.”
“That’s why you split?” John pressed.
“Not entirely. But it was a major stumbling block. My ex- wife and I were naive to think we would stay close when we were miles apart most of the week.”
Isobel’s father finished another roll of pizza and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Naive… Or maybe the two of you didn’t want to be close.”
“All right, Dad.” Isobel stood. “Meg, Johnny, if you’re finished playing with each other’s pizza, why don’t you wash up? We could set out the dominoes on the coffee table and we’ll all play a game.” She looked at Neil. “Unless you need to leave.”
He was still trying to digest the fact that Isobel’s father had gotten to the bottom of the problem with his marriage with such clarity. “No, I don’t have to leave yet.” Then he turned to John. “How long were you married?”
“When Brenna died, we’d been married forty-one years. We weren’t apart even one night, not even when she had our babies. I remember they tried to keep me out of the labor room with Isobel, but I wouldn’t let them. I told them Brenna was my wife and I was staying. When she got sick—” He shook his head as if the memories hurt him deeply to remember. “I stayed in that hospital room every night. My doctor got me special permission because he understood. When you love someone, you walk through hell for them. Getting a crick in my neck sleeping on one of those hospital chairs was nothing compared to the comfort of holding her hand.” He sighed. “But I don’t think young people understand that kind of love anymore.”
“You and Mom had something special. Jacob, Deb and I knew that,” Isobel remarked in a quiet voice.
“Then why can’t the three of you find it?” her father demanded. “Jacob runs off here and there as if he’s searching for something and he doesn’t even know what it is. Debbie…Debbie divorced her husband after his affair. They didn’t even try to work it out.”
“Dad, you don’t know—”
“What else Ron did to her,” he finished as if he’d heard it all before. “Maybe I don’t. She won’t talk about it with me. And then there’s you. You work, work, work. I think that’s the reason you and Tim broke up, though you’ll never tell me the truth about that, either.”
The tension and strain of having dirty laundry shaken out in front of Neil made Isobel’s body taut. Beside her, Neil could feel it. Then she took a very big breath, seemed to somehow relax her muscles, and said to her father without any anger at all, “I know you must have a good reason for wanting to talk about all this in front of Neil, but it’s making me uncomfortable and it’s probably making him uncomfortable, too. Can we just relax the rest of the night? Play a little dominoes and talk about anything that isn’t serious?”
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