“I shouldn’t think there are any high dives,” I said, repressing an inappropriate urge to laugh at Frank’s unkind but accurate assessment of two of Leonard Abernathy’s more outré friends. “Did you know Lenny’s taken to calling himself Muhammad Ishmael Shabazz now?”
“Yes, he told me,” he said shortly, “and I am taking no risk of having my daughter become Mrs. Shabazz.”
“I don’t think Bree feels that way about Lenny,” I assured him, struggling to suppress my irritation.
“She isn’t going to, either. She’s going to England with me.”
“Not if she doesn’t want to,” I said, with great finality.
No doubt feeling that his position put him at a disadvantage, Frank climbed out of bed and began groping for his slippers.
“I don’t need your permission to take my daughter to England,” he said. “And Bree’s still a minor; she’ll go where I say. I’d appreciate it if you’d find her medical records; the new school will need them.”
“Your daughter?” I said again. I vaguely noticed the chill in the room, but was so angry that I felt hot all over. “Bree’s my daughter, and you’ll take her bloody nowhere!”
“You can’t stop me,” he pointed out, with aggravating calmness, picking up his dressing gown from the foot of the bed.
“The hell I can’t,” I said. “You want to divorce me? Fine. Use any grounds you like—with the exception of adultery, which you can’t prove, because it doesn’t exist. But if you try to take Bree away with you, I’ll have a thing or two to say about adultery. Do you want to know how many of your discarded mistresses have come to see me, to ask me to give you up?”
His mouth hung open in shock.
“I told them all that I’d give you up in a minute,” I said, “if you asked.” I folded my arms, tucking my hands into my armpits. I was beginning to feel the chilliness again. “I did wonder why you never asked—but I supposed it was because of Brianna.”
His face had gone quite bloodless now, and showed white as a skull in the dimness on the other side of the bed.
“Well,” he said, with a poor attempt at his usual self-possession, “I shouldn’t have thought you minded. It’s not as though you ever made a move to stop me.”
I stared at him, completely taken aback.
“Stop you?” I said. “What should I have done? Steamed open your mail and waved the letters under your nose? Made a scene at the faculty Christmas party? Complained to the Dean?”
His lips pressed tight together for a moment, then relaxed.
“You might have behaved as though it mattered to you,” he said quietly.
