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New School, New Life

Part of my father's job is on-campus recruiting, so when it was time for him to spend a week at the university where I was enrolled for the following fall, we decided that I should go with him and familiarize myself with the campus.

We left on a Friday morning to ensure I'd have a full week on campus. We've always been close, and have enough in common to talk easily -- and Dad sure loved to talk -- but as we drove south, Dad was unusually quiet.

Finally I broke the silence: "What's going on, Dad?"

"Oh, nothing..."

"What do you mean 'nothing'? You haven't gone this long without saying anything in years!"

It took some time to break him down, but finally he admitted, "I think your Mom's planning to leave me."

"What? You're the perfect couple? Why would she leave you?"

Slowly the story came out. They hadn't had sex in years -- which made no sense to me: Dad was still in every way the man I'd always hoped I'd be: tall, dark and athletic, with a ready wit and enough charm to be able to sell refrigerators to Eskimos, while I took after my Mom. I mean, my Mom's gorgeous, but I've often had her friends tell me that from a distance they thought I was her -- and what nineteen year-old boy wants to hear that? I was under five and a half-feet, blond, with small feet and girlish hips. I suppose I didn't help myself by wearing my hair fairly long. Anyway, Dad had done something (he wouldn't say what, but I was guessing he'd had an affair; certainly I'd seen women throw themselves at him) and Mom had been giving him the cold shoulder for two years. Now he was sure that she was just waiting for me to move out to make the break official.

I was stunned -- how could I not have seen this coming? How did they hide it from me? The last two hours of the trip were, if anything, quieter than the first two as I turned it all over in my mind.

At the hotel, we checked in and unloaded the car. I noted that the room had just a single queen-sized bed, but that was no big deal -- we'd shared a bed before.

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