Off The Record
After My Graduation, I Thought Dad Was Cheating On Mom — The Truth I Discovered Left Me In Tears
After graduating, Chloe saw all the indications of betrayal in her father’s odd conduct. Late nights, covert phone conversations, and visits to the divorced mother of her best buddy. However, it wasn’t an affair at all when the truth came out. What did he actually conceal?
It was meant to be the ideal graduation night.
There, on the third row, were my parents. When they called my name, Mom started crying, and Dad gave the biggest applause when I walked across the stage. Later, with my tassel twisted and their arms around me as if I were still five, we took pictures under the fairy lights.
“You did it, kiddo,” Dad said in my ear as he gave me a hard hug. “Your mother and I am incredibly proud of you.”
Our family got along well. The kind that still gets together for dinner on weeknights and jokes about who can burn toast the worst. We all knew the truth, but Dad always claimed Mom did. On Sunday mornings, we would chuckle about it while eating scrambled eggs, and everything seemed just fine.
However, soon following that night, I became aware of a difference.
I initially tried to ignore the minor issues. Dad began staring at his phone throughout breakfast, checking it more frequently.
To answer calls, he would go outdoors and speak in a low voice that I could barely hear through the window. His face would change when he returned inside after the 10 or fifteen minutes of the chats.
He once gave me this clumsy smile and said, “Just work stuff, sweetheart,” when I asked who it was. There’s nothing to be concerned about.
His work as an oncologist is demanding. I knew that. Emergencies occur, and patients call at strange hours. However, something about this felt different.
He appeared anxious, as if he had a burden he didn’t want to reveal.
The strange inquiries that followed made my stomach turn.
As he was brewing coffee one morning, he said in an almost casual manner, “Hey, honey, what’s her name again, your friend Lily’s mom?” “The green-dressed blonde at graduation?”
“Melissa,” I remarked as I filled my bowl with cereal. “Why are you asking?”
He took a drink of his coffee and shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Oh, not much at all. Somehow, she just had a familiar appearance. I thought I might have seen her previously.”
At the time, I didn’t give it any thought and resumed browsing my phone. However, it felt weird when he brought her up again a few days later. He pretended to read the newspaper while we were at the kitchen table, but I could tell he was getting ready for something.
He glanced at me and folded the paper down just enough to inquire, “She’s divorced, right?”
I raised an eyebrow and looked up. Indeed, she has been for the past two years or so. How are you even aware of that?
He grinned once more, with that apprehensive half smile he wears when he’s trying to hide something. “I believe you mentioned it once. I was just wondering.”
However, I hadn’t brought it up. I didn’t believe I had, however.
And why would he remember even if I did? Why would he be interested in the marital status of my friend’s mother from high school?
The alterations continued to accumulate like unwelcome proof, and it didn’t end there.
He began working late more frequently, informing Mom via text that he would return home at approximately 10 p.m. On certain evenings, he would return beyond 11 p.m. He also resumed using cologne. It’s the same spicy, woodsy perfume he wore when he first dated my mom, the one that she said made her fall in love with him years ago.
When he passed me in the hallway, I would smell it, and it made my chest tense with apprehension.
I was positive that the faint scent of floral perfume clinging to his shirt collar was not my mother’s when I once gave him a good-night embrace. This one was sharper and more costly than hers, which typically smells like warm vanilla.
My heart skipped a beat. Was he? Did he have a romantic partner?
At that moment, I wanted to ask him about it, but the words were stuck in my throat. What if he was lying? What if he was honest with me? Which would hurt more? I couldn’t tell.
After that day, I began to keep a closer eye on him, hoping to spot any warning signals. The way his phone made him smile. The manner in which he would exit the room upon receiving a text message. The fact that Mom didn’t appear to notice—or perhaps she did and was merely acting as though nothing was wrong.
On most evenings, I was unable to sleep. I used to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling while I dreamed about futures and talks I didn’t want to have. Did families break up like this? Calmly, slowly, with perfume and cologne and covert phone calls?
Then, one night, things became worse. When I heard him on the phone, I was passing his study when I noticed something about his voice. He seemed to be attempting to be kind to someone he truly cared about, but it was too soft.
Silently, “Yes, I understand,” he murmured. “I’ll come by tomorrow then.”
I pressed myself against the wall and held my breath during the interval.
He went on, “No, don’t thank me,” “Just take care of yourself, okay?”
A beat skipped in my chest. You shouldn’t have spoken to a patient that way. You spoke to someone you cared about in that manner. Someone significant.
I sobbed into my pillow that night till my throat ached and my face was swollen. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I still wanted to think that my dad was the man who loved Mom without conditions.
He declared he was taking a little business trip a few days later. Over supper, he said it nonchalantly, as if it were unimportant.
“Where to?” I inquired.
He responded, “Just a medical conference a few towns over,” without raising his gaze from his plate. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
Mom smiled at him and nodded as if nothing had happened. As if nothing were wrong with our world.
But I was at my breaking point. I have to be aware.
After waiting for him to leave the home the following morning, I took Mom’s car keys off the hanger beside the door. I started the engine with trembling hands. The whole time, I kept two cars behind him.
There was no conference center he drove to. He didn’t take a car to the downtown medical facility or hospital. He crossed town to a peaceful district with tidy tiny houses with flower boxes in the windows and lanes lined with trees.
I recognized it instantly as he pulled up in front of a light yellow house with white shutters. It was the home of Lily’s mother. In high school, I had visited that place a dozen times.
From the other side of the street, I saw him from his vehicle, adjust his shirt, and approach the front door.
She opened the bell seconds after he rang it. Melissa. Her blonde hair was put back in a ponytail, and she wore trousers and a soft pink sweater.
When she saw him, she grinned and gave him a quick hug. The hug didn’t look welcoming. It was one of those close ones that drags on for too long. He put his hand on her back and she put her arms around his shoulders.
My vision became so blurry from crying that I could hardly see.
Could he? How could he harm Mom in this way? To us?
I was so angry and confused that I drove home before he could see me.
I immediately went to my room after returning and locked the door. I was unable to face Mom. I couldn’t act as though everything was fine when it was obviously not.
The next night he returned as if nothing had happened. He was telling Mom that he was exhausted from the conference when I heard him in the kitchen.
All I wanted to do was dash downstairs and inform Mom. What would I say, though? That I went after him? That like a paranoid detective, I spied on him?
I stayed away from him for two days.
I had dinner after he retired to his studies and breakfast before he woke up. I gave him one-word responses and walked out of the room when he tried to speak. I didn’t care that I could see the bewilderment in his eyes.
At last, one afternoon while Mom was out grocery shopping, he cornered me in the kitchen. He was waiting in the doorway, preventing me from leaving, while I was brewing tea.
He said softly, “Chloe, what’s going on?” “You’ve been avoiding me.”
I held my mug so tightly that my knuckles went white. “Dad, are you seeing someone else?”
His face turned white. “What?”
When I said, “I saw you,” “At Lily’s residence. with her mother. I witnessed it all when I followed you. Don’t tell me lies.”
He seemed to be struggling to find the appropriate words as he looked at me for several minutes.
At last, he whispered, “Chloe, you don’t understand what you saw.”
“Then explain it to me!” With tears now flowing down my cheeks, I yelled. “Tell me why you’re skulking to visit her. Describe the falsehoods, the covert phone calls, and the perfume on your clothing.”
I resisted his attempt to grab my arm. “Sweetheart, please, just let me tell you—”
I blurted out, “I don’t want to hear it,” and sprinted past him in the direction of the stairs. “I can’t believe you’d do this to Mom.”
I shut myself in my room and cried till my eyes were dry. His footsteps slowly faded down the hallway, but for a while I could hear him standing outside my door.
The front door was knocked on the following afternoon. Dad spent a few hours at the hospital, and Mom had gone to her book club. I thought about not responding, but the knocking continued, softly yet firmly.
I was immobile when I eventually opened the door.
Melissa’s eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been sobbing, and she was holding a wicker basket of muffins. There was something frail about her that hadn’t been there before, and she appeared thinner than I remembered.
Her voice shook a little as she said, “Is your dad home?”
Despite my trembling palms, I tried to look tough by folding my arms across my chest. “Why do you need him?”
She gave a small smile. “Because I owe him my life.”
I questioned, “What are you talking about?”
She inhaled shakily, and I saw that her hands were shaking as well. “Your dad noticed a mole on my back at your graduation. Remember that green dress with no straps? Later, he stated it didn’t look right and pulled me away. To be honest, I felt he was being strange. Even a bit out of place.”
She used the back of her palm to dab at her eyes. However, he suggested that I had a dermatologist examine it. I was afraid of how serious he was about it. Therefore, despite my belief that he was exaggerating, I scheduled an appointment.
My heart began to race, but now it was for a totally different cause.
She went on, “It turned out to be melanoma,” her voice cracking. Skin cancer. Phase two. It might have spread if I had waited even a few more months. “It probably saved my life to catch it when we did,” the doctors stated.
Oh my… It pondered. You, Dad
There was nothing I could say.
“Your dad accompanied me to every single appointment,” she remarked, her eyes now streaming down her face. “Every consultation, every biopsy, and every session for treatment planning. I had no one else, and I was terrified. Lily is away at college, and my ex-husband wasn’t present. I was alone myself when your father suddenly appeared. When I was scared, he held my hand. He gave me an understandable explanation of all the other physicians mentioned.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He did attend a conference that morning, even though you didn’t think he did. However, he came to see me before he left town to make sure I was well enough to begin therapy. He then proceeded directly to the conference. I wouldn’t be standing here today if it weren’t for him.”
I heard Dad’s car arrive into the driveway at that very time. His face instantly softened as he approached and saw Melissa standing there with me.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You didn’t have to come all this way.”
Through her tears, she chuckled. “Yes, I did. Your daughter needed to understand her father’s character.”
I was at my breaking point. Dad put his arms around me and held me close as I sobbed into his shoulder as I started crying out there on the porch.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeatedly said in a whisper. “Dad, I really apologize. I believed you to be—”
He caressed my hair and whispered, “It’s okay, sweetheart,” “I understand. You were defending your mother. I really adore that about you. You defend those you care about, and you’re fierce and faithful.”
I sobbed as I told Mom everything after Melissa departed. She took my hands in hers, set me down on the couch, and grinned a calm, knowing smile.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “Your father informed me right away. He simply didn’t want to disturb Melissa’s privacy or frighten people until we were certain she would be alright.”
Did she know? I pondered.
I was extremely appreciative, but I also felt like a fool.
Melissa sent us a thank-you note with a picture inside a month later. She was seen giggling at something off-camera with my dad at the hospital. She appeared worn out yet optimistic, with a bright scarf wrapped around her head.
“To the doctor who noticed what everyone else missed,” was the straightforward message written inside. Always appreciative.
When my dad taught me how to ride a bike, helped me with my schoolwork, and made me feel protected, I thought he was my hero.
As it happens, he is a hero to everyone. Being his daughter had never made me feel more proud.
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