Chapter 1

I was 14 years old. It was a day I’ll never forget. I had gone into my parents’ bedroom to look for something. I don’t remember what I was looking for, but I remember what I found.

There was a wooden box in the bottom drawer of my mother’s vanity, hidden under some of her things. Inside there was a packet of letters tied with a pink ribbon.

Curiosity got the better of me and I pulled the letters out of the hiding spot and examined them. There were thirteen letters, most of them just one page. Some of them were just short notes.

As soon as I began to read, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were love letters. They were full of passion, and sentiment. And they had been written to my mother!

The letters were signed by some guy called Andy. I didn’t know anyone with that name.

My mother had a lover!

I put the first letter back in the envelope and opened another.

The first lines I read shocked me: “My beloved Ginger, I wish I could have you here with me in my bed and hold you tight in my arms like I did yesterday...” and so it continued, full of romantic and passionate words, nothing too graphic, thank God. Most of the lines were bad attempts at poetry and lyrics stolen from country love songs.

I had never imagined my mother could do something like this. I began skimming through the rest of the letters, nervously opening them all.

I stood there taking in what I had just discovered; it certainly wasn’t easy to learn about the existence of a lover in my mother’s life.

I decided to show the letters to my dad, so I ran to the barn.

“Dad! Dad! Dad! Look! Look!”

I stopped to catch my breath and handed him the packet of letters.

“What is it, Red?”

I was named Marion Robert after Dad’s favorite actor, but since I was a redhead like my mom everybody called me ‘Red’. In a weird way, I ended being a combination of Dad’s favorite Hollywood couple.

“Look Dad, I found these letters in Mom’s drawer. They are love letters, Dad! This guy, Andy says naughty things about him and mom! Read them!”

He frowned and looked at the letters as if they were a rattlesnake. He reached for one, and read it for himself in silence. The expression in his face changed as he went on. His big hands curled into white-knuckled fists by his side, yet he spoke calmly.

“You are no longer a boy that needs to be shielded from certain facts in life. You know what these letters mean?

I gulped and moved my head up and down. “Mom is cheating on you.”

My father was my best friend, my hero. He was doing his best to hide his anger and his pain behind a mask of seriousness.

Though he desired to contradict me, he truthfully could not.

“It seems so. This is my problem not yours, Red,” he said. He placed the letters aside and wearily sat down on a bale of hay. “Pack some things. Make it quick. I want you out of here before your mother comes back. I’ll take you to Gramps. You’re going to stay there for some time till I come to fetch you.”

“What about school?”

“I’ll talk with your teachers after I talk with my lawyer.”

“Are you going to divorce Mom?” I swallowed hard, dreading his answer.

“Yes, son, I am, and I don’t want you in the middle of this mess.”

I could see he was suffering but there was also pride. A couple of tears fell down his cheeks.

I have never seen my dad cry until that day.