Read Online An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) by Rachel Schurig - Free Book Online Page B

watched, horrified, as he buried his head in his hands.
    “Daddy?” I whispered.
    “She’s gone, Ash,” he said, his voice a low rasp that sent shivers down my arms.
    “What do you mean?” I asked, not understanding. I sat on the couch next to him, wishing he would look up at me. “Who’s gone?”
    “Your mother,” he whispered. Then he raised his head, and I realized it had been better, much better when I couldn’t see his eyes. “Your mother left me.”
    * * *
    Half an hour later, my father was sitting in his recliner, a large brandy in his hand, staring lifelessly at the hockey game on TV while Chris and I huddled over the sink in the kitchen.
    “I can’t believe this,” I said, for at least the tenth time. “I just can’t believe it.”
    Chris looked about as shocked as I felt. “Didn’t you see her last week? You didn’t have any idea?”
    “Of course not,” I snapped, then immediately felt bad. Chris had been amazing since my dad told us the news. To my horror, my dad had started sobbing, something I hadn’t seen him do ever in my life, not even when I was a teenager and my grandmother, his mom, had died. I could do nothing but stare at him in horror, too shocked and disbelieving to even hug him. Chris had totally taken charge, coming to sit on my dad’s other side on the couch, rubbing his arm and offering tissues, urging my father to relax. He poured him a drink, got him settled in his favorite chair with some sports for distraction, and then got me to help him start cleaning up. We were nearly finished with the dishes now.
    “Sorry,” I said, looking down at the soapy water. “I don’t mean to snap…”
    “Ash, it’s fine,” he said firmly. “You don’t need to worry about being polite right now, okay?”
    I managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”
    Chris took the last glass from my hands and dried it, setting it carefully in its spot in my mother’s top-of-the-line, glass-fronted cabinets. She had just had the kitchen remodeled that summer. I had sat through countless phone calls where all she wanted to talk about were her granite choices and the pros and cons of a stainless steel gas range. Now her perfect kitchen looked cold, somehow, and impersonal.
    I leaned into the counter. “I just don’t understand how this could have happened. I thought they were happy.”
    “You should probably go talk to him,” Chris said, glancing down the hall. “He seems to have calmed down now. Maybe he can tell you what happened.”
    I dried my hands on the dishtowel he offered and headed back out to the living room, perching on the couch across from my dad. He looked up at me and gave me a weak smile. “Sorry, Ash, to lose it like that,” he said. He looked much more like himself now, though still pale. The desolate look was still in his eyes, but not quite so pronounced as it had been. “I’m just so worried, I guess. And shocked.”
    “It’s okay, Daddy,” I told him. “Do you think you feel up to telling me what happened now?”
    He sighed and set his glass on the end table beside his recliner. “When I got home from my trip Friday, she had a suitcase by the door. She told me she was tired of her life, of our life, and she needed some space.” He flinched as he said it, and I felt a rush of sympathy for him.
    “She didn’t give you any other reason?”
    He shook his head. “She wouldn’t even talk to me. She won’t answer my calls. She hasn’t been back. I just…I just don’t know what to do.”
    “I’ll call her,” I said. “I’ll call her right now.”
    “Will you?” he asked, his face lighting up in a way that broke my heart. “I’m sure she’ll answer the phone for you.”
    I got up and walked over to the entryway where I had dropped my purse, rooting around in it until I found my cell phone. My mother’s cell was the first one on my speed dial. She picked up on the third ring. “Ashley,” she said, sounding happy, normal. “Sweetie, how are you?”
    I felt a