The Loop by Nicholas Evans

only for the sake of their children.
    Celia had behaved perfectly, as Celia always had and always would. She wept and went and hugged them both, which made them both weep, while Helen looked on in amazement. Her father had reached out and tried to rope her in as well so they could all weep together in some ghastly communal act of absolution. She dashed his hand away and screamed, ‘No!’ And when he begged her, she screamed even louder, ‘No! Fuck you! Fuck both of you!’ and stormed out of the house.
    At the time, it had seemed a reasonable response.
    Her parents appeared to believe that not getting divorced earlier constituted a permanent, indestructible gift to their children, and that the illusion of having had a happy childhood was as good as the real thing. Their true gift was a starker and more durable thing by far.
    For Helen had never since been able to rid herself of the notion that she was to blame for all the mutual pain her parents had endured. It couldn’t be more clear. Had it not been for her (and Celia, of course, but since Celia didn’t much go in for guilt, Helen had to generate enough for both of them), her parents could have ‘gone their separate ways’ years ago.
    Their divorce confirmed her long-held suspicion that animals were infinitely more reliable than people. And, on reflection, it seemed no coincidence that around that time she had begun to develop a passionate interest in wolves. With their devotion and loyalty to each other, the way they cared for their young, they seemed superior to human beings in almost every respect.
    Ten years had allowed her feelings about the divorce, if not to mellow, then at least to mingle with all the other doubts and disappointments with which Helen had since managed to fill her life. And except on rare, uncharitable days, when the world itself seemed swept by a bleak, recriminating wind, she was pleased her parents had at last found happiness.
    Her mother had remarried immediately after the divorce came through and now lived a life of golf, bridge and apparently galvanic sex with a short, bald and hugely attentive real estate agent called Ralphie.
    It turned out Ralphie had been her Someone Else for six years. Her father’s Someone Else didn’t see out six months and had since been superseded, over the years, by a string of Other Someone Elses, each younger than the last. His work as a financial consultant (what exactly that meant, Helen had never managed to figure out) had taken him from Chicago to Cincinnati to Houston and from there, last year, to New York City where, this summer, he had met Courtney Dasilva.
    And this was the other main factor that had helped render Helen’s mood today less than ebullient. Because this coming Christmas, Howard and Courtney Dasilva were to be married. Helen was about to meet her for the first time.
    Her stepmother-to-be, so her father had told her on the phone last week when he’d broken the news, worked for one of the biggest banks in America. She was also, he said, a Stanford psychology major and the most drop-dead gorgeous human being he had ever laid eyes on.
    ‘Daddy, it’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you,’ Helen had said, trying to mean it.
    ‘Isn’t it? Baby, I feel so . . . oh, God, so alive . I’m dying for you two to meet. You’ll adore her.’
    ‘Me too. I mean, meet her.’
    ‘Is it okay if she joins us for lunch?’
    ‘Of course! That’d be . . . wonderful.’
    There was a short silence and she heard him clear his throat.
    ‘Helen, there’s just one thing I ought to tell you.’ The voice was suddenly confiding, a little tentative.
    ‘She’s twenty-five years old.’
    And there she was, a block away, locked onto his arm, her great mane of black hair bouncing and shining in the sun as she strode beside him. She was talking and laughing, a talent which Helen had never mastered, while her dad just beamed like a king and subtly scanned the faces of passing males for any trace of envy. He