Tilly didn’t speak, and she turned her gaze toward her own reflection in the window.
“If my leaving did anything positive at all, let it be to show you that a woman doesn’t have to put up with that,” Melanie said quietly. “Never. And you can find a good guy who’s an excellent father and a devoted husband. You can. You just might kiss a few frogs in the process.”
“It sounds very nice,” Tilly said coldly.
“The thing is, if you accept bad behavior from men, it’s all you’ll get,” Melanie said. “If you want a better life than that, you have to find people who are kind to you.”
“Simon’s the father of my baby.” A tear trickled down her cheek.
“I know.” Melanie’s eyes misted in sympathy. “That isn’t going to go away, even if you take a step back so you can think.”
“He’ll dump me,” Tilly said.
“Sweetie, you aren’t going to want to hear this, but good riddance,” Melanie said. “He’s mean to you, and you don’t deserve any of it. He’s narrow-minded, rude, self-centered and frankly, bad for you. Are you happy right now?”
“What?”
“In this moment...for the last long while,” Melanie said. “Are you happy? Have you been happy with him?”
“I don’t know.”
“It would be a good thing to figure out,” Melanie said. “I’m not trying to break you up. I just want to make sure you can stand up for yourself, okay? Your dad is coming tomorrow night to pick you up, and you two can sit down and decide how you want this to go. But you need to choose what your life will look like, Tilly. Not Simon. You.”
“I’m so tired,” Tilly whispered.
Melanie understood. When she’d found out about Adam’s cheating, she’d come to sit in a little diner much like this one. And she’d eaten a piece of cake and had a milkshake to boot, wiping her tears on a napkin as she ate. She’d felt so exhausted, so drained from all the trying and the hard work that hadn’t mattered a bit. All she’d wanted to do was curl up in a cocoon and stay that way, but life seldom allowed that kind of luxury. There were no Miss Havishams outside of literature.
“I know, sweetie,” Melanie said. “If you come back with me, you can get some rest, and then talk to Simon when you’re ready. At least talk to your father face-to-face before you make any big decisions, okay?”
Tilly nodded. “Okay.”
“So you’ll come back with me?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah. But I need to talk to Simon first.”
They finished eating and Melanie paid the check. When they headed back outside, Logan was standing in front of the SUV, leaning against the bumper. He straightened when he saw them come out. Tilly headed back to the hotel room and Logan cast her an inquiring look.
“She needs to talk to him,” Melanie said, and she pulled out her keys. “Do you want to drive on the way back?”
“Are we leaving her?”
“I’m honestly not sure,” Melanie said. “She said she’d come with us, but she might change her mind. She isn’t going to break up with him because I told her to.”
They got back into the SUV, and Melanie leaned her head back, closing her eyes for a moment.
“How did it go with Simon?” she asked, her eyes still shut.
“About the same,” Logan said quietly. “I gave him some really good reasons to smarten up, but I’m not sure how much of a difference that will make.”
When Melanie opened her eyes, she found Logan looking at her, his eyes filled with regret.
“I’m sorry, Mel,” he said. “For everything I did back when I was young and stupid. I was thinking about myself, not about you. I thought it would be easier on me if I didn’t have to see how I broke your heart.”
“You were a jerk,” she said.
“No argument,” he replied.
“But you aren’t anymore.”
“Caroline might have disagreed with that.”
She paused. “What reasons did you give Simon to change?”
“Namely, that he didn’t want to be my age looking back on the way he’d acted as a kid and have regrets,” Logan said.
“Did he care about that?”
“No,” Logan replied. “I think he was more worried about the Me Too movement, to be honest. With his family’s money, who knows? He might want to run for congress or something.”
Melanie laughed at that, then sighed. “I wish she’d just dump him.”
“What did it take for you to leave Adam?” he asked.
“Honestly?” Melanie sighed, her mind going back to that painful day. “I was sitting in a diner much like the one Tilly and I were just at. I wanted some sort of privacy, as well as greasy food, so...” She smiled wanly. “An older woman passed my booth and she gave me this look as if she’d seen this a million times already, and she said, ‘If I was as pretty as you and as young as you, I wouldn’t waste another tear on him. You have a lot of life left.’”
“What did you say?” Logan asked.
“Nothing. She kept moving, and I gave it some thought. I knew women who put up with their husband’s affairs because they had too much to lose, and I had just as much on the table, you know? Adam and the kids were my world. My social networks, the neighborhood I lived in, the comforts I enjoyed were all because of Adam. But I’d lived with a whole lot less, and I could again. Then I thought of the woman I’d become if I stayed...and I didn’t like her. I’d become jealous, bitter, self-centered... So I finished my cake, and I called a divorce attorney.”
“I’m glad you left him,” Logan said softly.
“Me, too. But it was the hardest thing I ever did,” she said. “And it’s not going to be any easier on Tilly to leave Simon. So I don’t know if what I said will
