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“Sounds like she cared more about making him pay for his infidelity than she cared about you, Erin. Is that how it was?” Peter asked sympathetically.

She shrugged, her mind instinctively sheering away from the lonely steps of learning how to cope by herself, preferring not to ask anything of her parents than suffer more rejection from her father or a harangue from her mother about how difficult it was, being a single parent.

“I guess I learnt to detach myself from both of them. I think a lot of children become victims of the emotional crossfire that divorce invariably triggers.” She heaved another sigh, which drifted into an appreciative smile for his concern.

“I hope Thomas gets to feel good with his father. And I hope his mother comes around to understanding that he needs both parents to love him.”

“I hope so, too.”

“So what about you, Peter ?”

The question caught him by surprise. She could see he was still sifting through her personal experience of divorce, perhaps applying it to h