Complicated

“She left me,” my father said to his mother and his brother and to his sister.
I saw her the morning before she took their son to her sister’s house. They had not yet returned when my father and I got back. My father poured himself a cognac over ice; I mixed some vodka and soda. We drank in liquid peace until she came home, without the baby, bangs matted over her face, spilling out of her plunging dress.
And he helped her walk to the bedroom and they didn’t come out all night.
The next morning he comes out and I ask
“Why are you telling everyone she left?”
“Because it’s easier,” he replies, “because people don’t ask anymore questions after that.”
He sets his pistol on the counter next to the potato chips.
“I just want her to come with us this afternoon, so we can take her car,” he says, “it has air conditioning.”
How complicated love can be.