Vaughan’s father put his hand on top of his wife’s to stay her response. She was pissed off, that much was clear.

“Kelly wanted it. Wanted kids and picket fences. She wanted welcome mats with dogs in Christmas sweaters on them. I wanted her. But she wanted to be an us.” He put his face in his hands for long moments.

He’d never said any of this out loud. Not even to her on the occasions he’d apologized. It seemed too cruel to say. Too shameful that he’d thrown away a decade because he’d been a dick.

But he’d made a promise to stand up for her and they needed to know everything.

“She caught me in a compromising situation with someone else.”

His mother’s face, if he lived to be a hundred he’d never forget what it felt like to watch her anger fade into disappointment. In him.

“Don’t you sit at this table and use pretty words for what it really was. Tell me what compromising means.” His father’s tone went very sharp and Vaughan winced.

“I cheated on her. She stumbled in on me with a hand that wasn’t my own in my pants.” It was awful, so awful to disappoint them this way. He hadn’t been a good man and then he’d allowed them to think ill of Kelly for years rather than own up to his mistakes.

“‘Stumbled in’ isn’t actually fair. I knew she was coming. She was pregnant with Kensey, had a toddler at home and she came all the way out to see me on tour because I asked her to. Part of me wanted that final push, I guess. That night wasn’t the first time I’d told her to file for divorce if she didn’t like what I did. But she’d always backed down, apologized. But not that time.”

“Obviously not.” His father’s reaction told Vaughan he’d known far more of the truth than he’d let on. Which only made him feel worse.

“I didn’t fight it. I walked away. I love my kids, and I loved them then, too. But she didn’t use them to get money from me and she certainly didn’t steal them from me. Come on, Mom. I left her the work of raising them while I lived my life. If I gave her the apartment in Manhattan and money to finish school it’s because I knew I was wrong. And because she was giving up her career to do my job.” Vaughan scrubbed hands over his face. “In my estimation it was a fair thing to do, even if she did have her own money. You’re going to tell me it’s cheap to raise a kid? Or that it isn’t my responsibility to support them financially? They could be in a place she owned in Manhattan right now. I’d see them three or four times a year. You guys even less. She gave that up to come here and settle. So those girls could see their family more often. She gave up her career and I never even gave throwing money at her a second thought.”

Vaughan wanted to throw up. He’d held all that in for so long and it had weighed his heart.

“I should never have let this go on this long.” His voice caught. Shame burned his cheeks. “I wasn’t a good person. I hurt her and I was selfish and missed out on things I’ll never get back. I make them pancakes before school every Monday. I check homework and listen to a thousand stories about stuff that is incomprehensible to me about dolls and characters and books and singers and games and their friends. I sing with them after dinner and tuck them in every night. I have a family now.”

His father leaned across the table to squeeze Vaughan’s hand. “Shame is an entirely appropriate emotion in this case. I’m disappointed to hear the details. Disappointed in you and your lack of honor. Disappointed you allowed your mother and I to have a very bad opinion of Kelly so all these years there’s been tension. No, you weren’t a good man and I want to kick your behind for what you did to her and to your children.”

Vaughan hadn’t been this close to crying while getting a stern talking-to from his father in a decade or so.

“But,” Michael continued, “you are a good man now. You’re owning up to your mistakes and you’re fighting to get back what you threw away. That I can be proud of.”

It helped a little. Enough that he could continue. “I’m trying. I know I screwed up. A lot. It kills me sometimes when I think about how much. My daughters are getting old enough to know when something is wrong. They see Mary here. They see how much you guys love and support Damien’s family. And you should. It’s important. They’ve come to know Natalie. I expect she’ll be joining our crazy group sooner or later. This is their legacy. All the land we can see from the porch. They love getting dirty and riding out to the fields with Ezra. This is part of them like it’s part of me.”

His mother had remained silent but she was working on something. Vaughan could see the wheels turning and it wasn’t another moment before she finally spoke.

“Then why are you there in Gresham, away from us? If this land is so important, why are you living there instead of here?” she asked.

“Why would I be? Kelly isn’t welcome here.” Vaughan adjusted his tone. He loved his family so much and he wanted things to be better. At the same time, he promised Kelly he’d stand up for her and that’s what needed to happen.

“I’m there and not here because I can’t imagine anything crueler for me to do than to expect her to sit home while everyone else is welcomed here. You both have opened your hearts and the Hurley family to Natalie, Mary and Tuesday. Kelly can see that. It’s not a very nice feeling and I just can’t tolerate it, especially if my daughters could see. They need to see me respecting her and backing her up. That’s what they need in a partner when they’re adults. It’s what you and Dad do.”