Read Online The Secret Life of Prince Charming by Deb Caletti - Free Book Online

against him, it seemed I had felt that fabric for years.
    He told me then, Sprout and me, and Brie, too, who sat and held his hand in her lap, that he never wanted to stop seeing us. He never wanted this separation. That it had just gotten too hard, there was too much fighting. It had been the best thing for us, for him to back out. Did we remember coming over to Abigail’s house every weekend? The back and forth? We had had some great times, he said. I had nodded and smiled but didn’t really remember the great times. Weirdly, I remembered only the feeling of a strange place, my father in a strange place, and signs of Abigail Renfrew. Red geraniums, when my mother hated red geraniums (she said they stank); Abigail Renfrew’s personal items on the bathroom counter (a blue box of Tampax, a pink bottle of Nair), when Mom kept hers tucked in drawers and used a razor. Watching a National Geographic movie about tornados while sitting on Abigail Renfrew’s woven couch with cat hair on it, and Abigail Renfrew asking if we’d enjoyed it as much as she had. The way Abigail Renfrew’s name felt when my Mom said it when we were back home again. As if it were something you’d pick up off the floor using a Kleenex.
    Brie’s eyes had been shiny with tears. She patted the place next to her own on Dad’s leather couch there, in the house on the river, and Sprout sat beside her and looked up at her white-gold hair. Dad had given up because he had thought it was best for us, he’d said, and I believed him. Dad even had a term for what had happened: “Parental alienation.”
    “Parental alienation” meant that Mom had turned us againsthim, and not that he had turned us against him. It was a campaign, he had said. He didn’t want to say anything bad about Mom, but it got so relentless that one time Sprout wouldn’t even get in the car to go over. She had clung to Mom like Dad was some Nazi ax murderer—did we remember that?
    Brie shook her head in that way people do when something is sad, sad. A shame. Something preventable, if not for the poor behavior of human beings. But the truth rises, Dad had said. See? The truth rises. He had pulled me close. He told us how perfect and special and wanted we were. Wanted—I felt it, too. He started to cry. Brie got up and made tea. She delivered him a cup and kissed the top of his head. The kiss was like a period at the end of a sentence. A paragraph completed, or a story. A good ending.
    I watched Dad and the reporter, Hannah, outside. Dad leaned in toward her, on his elbows. She was teasing him, it looked like; she waggled her finger in his direction as if he were a naughty child. He grabbed her finger, pretended he was going to take a big bite. He raised his voice dramatically, “What big teeth you have, Grandmother,” he said, and they both laughed.
    “What big boobs you have, Little Red Riding Hood,” Sprout said.
    “You’re the worst,” I said.
    “She’ll be picking us up at the train station next week,” Sprout said.
    “Impossible. She doesn’t have her driver’s license yet,” I said.
    “Good one,” Sprout said.
    “Her mom could pick us all up,” I said. I don’t know why, but I was suddenly feeling on Sprout’s side. My inner evil twin again. Anyway, we were insulting Hannah Reporter, not Dad.
    “She could drive us in her Fisher Price Cozy Coupe.”
    “We could all make it move with our feet,” I said. “Wait, here they come. Pretend we weren’t just talking about them.”
    Dad had his hand at the small of Hannah Reporter’s back, guiding her into the living room as if she might otherwise get lost.
    “What are you working on?” she asked Sprout.
    “A story,” Sprout said.
    “Charles is a wonderful writer,” Dad said. “I’m also working on a novel.”
    “Really?” Hannah said, but she didn’t write this down. “What’s your story about, sweetie?” she asked Sprout.
    “It’s about a girl spawned from the devil,” Sprout said.
    Hannah’s