“I’m sorry. I know this is early, but could we have breakfast?”

“Come on over.”

“Okay. I’ll drop Sara at school and be right there.”

I pulled out frozen ginger muffins and brewed coffee. Wrapped myself in my lavender bathrobe. It was early fall and the flowers had faded. Only the chrysanthemums bloomed yellow and purple. Their brightness was softened by a silvery rain while the birds warned of winter right around the corner.

Jeannie wore a cap pulled over her hair, a sure sign it was in need of washing. Her eyes were puffy.

“Here’s some coffee.” I set a mug before her on the coffee table.

She pulled a box of Kleenex from her purse and sat there looking as if she didn’t know where to begin. Disney lay on the floor beside her, watching her with sorrowful eyes, his monkey dropped at Jeannie’s feet.

I pushed the muffins across to her and sat cross-legged on the other end of the sofa.

“What happened?”

“Sue’s having an affair with my father. She’s fucking my father.”

“What?” I reached for her hands, but she slid one away, grabbed a Kleenex, and blew her nose.

“She says Dad’s going to leave Mom.”

“Sue told you this?”

Jeannie shook her head and sniffed. “I found out about the affair and called Rosie. ‘What’s going on with Sue and my dad and don’t fucking tell me work.’” Jeannie put her head in her hands. “Rosie was finally straight with me. ‘I can’t lie to you,’ she said. After acting as though everything is hunky-dory.” Jeannie lifted her head and choked out the words. “For two years, they were behind my back knowing that Sue was having an affair with my father and Sue being so friendly, so perky, so cute Sue.”

“Jeannie.” I hugged her and now she cried into my bathrobe, my shoulder.

“How could they do that to me? My father? My friends? All of them. Lie to me? Betray me? How could my best friend fuck my father? Take him from my mom? How could my other best friend keep this secret from me? For at least two years they’ve been together. Maybe more. How long has she worked for him? Four? Who knows exactly when it started. Rosie is just as much to blame.” Jeannie’s sobs muffled her words.

“Rosie? I don’t understand.”

“She knew for two years. Sue and my dad have an apartment together where they meet. I’ve been living a lie. Thinking they’re my friends when all this was happening behind my back.”

I placed my fingers over my eyes, trying to grapple with the story.

“Ohmigod,” she wailed. “One fucking my father. One conspiring to keep me from finding out.”

“Tell me from the beginning.”