“It’s hard under the best of circumstances. My parents really tried to shield me, but their hostility toward one another was palpable whenever my dad picked me up for weekends. It got easier after my mom remarried; they became a little more civil. But I don’t think there’s ever going to be any love lost between them. It hurts….” She shrugged. “But you move on. You get past it. You realize that your parents can make mistakes and still be good people. I don’t think Tandy ever got past that. She still talks about her parents’ divorce as if it happened last year instead of years ago.”

“Did she talk about her parents’ faults specifically?”

“Yes. She kept repeating that her mother was a stage-mom bitch and her father was a pathetic Lothario who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. She was happy to stop seeing him in the summers because he was getting real desperate as he aged—the students getting younger and him getting older.”

“He was a college professor?”

“Yep. English literature, I think. Geoffrey Roberts. Geoffrey with a G. Tandy said even the spelling of his name was affected. He didn’t have a drop of English blood in him. He was Hispanic. His parents were refugees from Cuba. That’s why Tandy’s so dark. Her mom’s the prototypical WASP, and her dad was a WASP wannabe. So he changed his surname to Roberts and got educated. Must have been a smart fellow. From what Tandy said, he just really got carried away with this professor/student thing.”

Cindy noticed she was biting her nails and folded them in her lap.

“There are a couple of those at Columbia. We snicker at them behind their backs. I know it isn’t nice, but it’s such a cliché, Marge. It must be really embarrassing to see your father making a fool out of himself. At least my dad was always a dad. Even after he got divorced, he didn’t go through that juvenile stage. You know, picking up younger women and flirting with your friends. At least if he did, I never saw it. Dad’s always been a good guy. And my mom is a good woman, too.”

Cindy laughed.

“But God, they were just terrible together.”

Marge patted Cindy’s hand. “You’re a good kid. I’m sorry if I came down hard on you.”

“I’m sorry if I screwed up your investigation.”

“You didn’t screw anything up, Cindy. You almost did, but you didn’t.”