She nodded. "Yes, why?"
"Doesn't matter." He put his hand on the doorknob, flashing back to another door twelve years earlier. He should have stopped when he heard the sound of laughter. Or, at the very least, he should have knocked. But he hadn't. And his life had turned upside down.
Today, he would turn it right side up.
He opened the door and entered his dad's office, which was spacious and well-decorated, befitting the head of the hospital. His father sat behind a large desk, a computer to his left, a stack of charts to his right. Behind him was a window with a fantastic view of the mountains. The walls on either side of the room were filled with medical books, and a couch and two chairs in a seating area completed the space.
His father stood up, giving him a wary look.
He closed the door behind him before moving farther into the room.
His father came around the front of his desk, his arms crossed in front of him. His dad seemed to take that hostile but defensive posture every time they crossed paths.
"Why are you here, Jake?"
"We need to talk."
"About what?"
"You know what."
At his pointed words, his dad frowned. "Jake, please, that was a long time ago. Why do we need to discuss anything?"
"Because we do. I need to talk, and you need to listen."
His father stared back at him. "All right. Maybe it is time to get all this out in the open."
"It's past time. Twelve years ago, you made me promise to keep a secret. You made a compelling argument about protecting my mother and my brother," he said bitterly. "But you shouldn't have asked me to do that. You shouldn't have put that burden on me."
His father paled, his dark gaze narrowing in anger and guilt. "You're right, Jake."
He'd been prepared for a counterattack, not for an agreement. "Yes, I am right," he said forcefully.
"What I did was wrong. And it put a wedge between us."
"A wedge? That's an incredible understatement. You destroyed our relationship. You put me in the middle of a situation I never should have been in."
"I didn't know you were going to walk in on Louise and me."
He hated hearing that woman's name on his father's lips. Louise had been one of his father's nurses. She'd left town a few weeks after he'd interrupted their afternoon office affair, and his dad had assured him that it was a one-time thing, that it was a mistake, and it was over. As far as he knew, Louise had never come back, but whether or not his father had made the same mistake with someone else was something he didn't want to know.
"You can't tell your mother now," his father continued. "It would kill her, and what would be the point? I have been faithful to her ever since that day. Seeing the pain in your eyes, hearing the accusation in your voice, I knew I'd made a horrible mistake. And all my excuses for doing what I did were worth nothing. It didn't matter that your mom had been obsessed with Paul's care and couldn't have a conversation with me that didn't require my medical knowledge. It didn't matter that I felt helpless because I couldn't cure my youngest son."
"You can't blame Paul's illness for your infidelity."
"I know. I realized that after I'd crossed a line I never should have crossed. I made a vow then to be a better husband. Your mother and I worked on our marriage. We rebuilt it. We came back together, and we became stronger than we were. You just weren't around to see that part."
"I couldn't be around. I didn't want to look at you. I didn't want to watch you deceive my mother."
"It wasn't like that, Jake," his father said, shaking his head. "I've always loved your mother. I just made some horrible decisions. The cheating was bad enough but bringing you in on it was even worse."
"Making that promise to you drove me to make my own mistake. That night I bailed on Hannah. I abandoned her on the night of the prom. I got drunk and had sex with another girl and everyone knew. I hurt and humiliated Hannah because I was so caught up in a world of pain and I couldn't tell anyone."
"She told me that you'd cheated on her," his father said slowly. "But I didn't know it was that same night."
"I was out of my mind, and I wanted to escape. That decision ended Hannah and me."
"Maybe she would have forgiven you if you'd stuck around."
"If I'd stayed, I would have told her your secret, because I told her everything. I couldn't have kept it from her. I had to leave."
"But now you want to tell her," his father said heavily. "You want to get back together, isn't that right?"
"Yes," he admitted. "Hannah knows I've been holding something back all this time. And she can't trust me if I don't open up to her. I'm not going to tell Mom; I'm just going to tell Hannah. But I won't ask her to keep it a secret. I don't know if she'll tell Mom or if she'll want to protect you. I suspect she'll probably choose the latter, because you're her mentor, and she has tremendous respect and loyalty for you."
"I doubt that will continue after she hears what you have to say."
"Maybe not, but I've kept your secret long enough. If you've truly rebuilt your marriage with Mom, then you should tell her. And you should tell Paul."
"It would destroy them."
"I guess it's always been easier just to destroy me."
His father sucked in a quick breath as the knife went deep. "It has never been easy. You probably don't believe that, but it's true. I am sorry, Jake."
"Are you? I've never seen any evidence of that."
"I didn't know how to fix it. You were gone before I could figure that out, and you stayed away for a long time. I
