Chapter 46: Is It Over?: Tony

Tony sighed as he tried to come up with the right words to answer Katie's question and explain to Sam and Jonathan just what had happened with Kathleen. He glanced up at Angela and saw that she was deep in thought. He knew she didn't necessarily need to hear what he had to say because it wouldn't be anything that they hadn't already discussed.

"Kathleen was…" Tony said, trying to pick his words carefully before giving up and just going with the truth. "Kathleen was a convenient out. You all know, more so than ever now, how complicated things were between me and Angela back then. I thought I was ready for us to take that next step, but what happened with Kathleen showed me, at first, I wasn't before ultimately showing me I was."

"Dad, that doesn't make any sense," Sam said, her brow furrowed. "How can both be true? And more to the point, after everything you and Angela have just described to us about what went on between you two over those first six years, how could you do that to Angela? To our family?"

Tony shot Angela another glance just to see that she was still far away. So, this was going to be on him to explain to the kids. Fitting, he thought, considering the blame for the whole situation fell squarely on his shoulders.

His thoughts immediately went back to that night in the motel room. With everything that was going on between him and Angela, he'd never paid that much attention to Kathleen, other than finding her way of going about studying for their Art History final annoying, just like the rest of the study group. But, that night, as the group studied, he had a chance to really observe her, and somehow, he started to feel sorry for her when the others ganged up on her a few times. She was smart, and he had to admit, quite pretty. And then, after the rest of the group left and they actually started talking, he realized they really did have a lot in common, and he started to feel drawn to her.

Maybe if the lights hadn't been turned down or if they weren't in a motel room…Tony shook his head to himself because he knew those were just excuses. He had started to feel some kind of simple attraction to Kathleen, and if not then, he knew something would have happened relatively soon after since she was obviously attracted to him.

As he had tried to explain to Angela much later, at that moment, with the stress of finals, Sam getting ready to leave for college and, yes, his complicated feelings for her, he suddenly craved something simple and with no strings attached. Of course, that all changed the next morning when he and Kathleen woke up together in the motel room, and she started telling him how excited she was to have finally met someone who was her age, responsible, and understood what it was like to be in college at an older age. She looked so happy that Tony didn't have the heart to break it to her that he wasn't envisioning an actual relationship. However, the more she talked, and the more he thought about it, it seemed like he needed to give a relationship a chance. He had been so wrapped up in his feelings for Angela for so long, and their relationship was so complicated that maybe it was just too much to expect that they could actually make a romantic relationship work. Of course, he knew he was rationalizing, but as Tony thought back now, it made sense to him at the time. In the end, though, it was his relationship with Kathleen that reinforced to him that it was Angela who was his future.

He would never forget though the look on her face when she realized what was going on between him and Kathleen. Even now, he had trouble thinking about their painful conversations that followed, first in the kitchen and then in her study. He would also never forget the look she gave him after she asked such a simple but loaded question, "Is it over?" and he couldn't reply, "Yes". He felt completely torn in half and, at that moment, understood that he was risking his entire relationship with Angela. He knew, though, that even with everything that had happened between them, they truly valued and were extremely protective of their friendship, and he clung to the belief that would be enough to get them through whatever was next.

Then later in her study, admitting to Angela that they knew more about each other than most married people and that he didn't want to lose that, and hearing the heartbreak in her voice when she responded that she didn't want to either, nearly destroyed him. He was eaten up by guilt but listening to Angela say that this is maybe something they had to go through soothed his raw nerves a little. She admitted to him much later that she was just searching for something, anything, to justify what had happened, which in turn made his heart break all over again for the pain he had caused her. He also still wondered what he would have said to her if she'd heard him call her name before she walked out the front door with Peter.

His conversation in the kitchen with Mona had broken him a little bit too. Instead of the guilt trip that he was sure she was going to lay on him, knowing she wanted nothing more than for him and Angela to get together, she took a practical approach pointing out that there obviously was some ambiguity still in his and Angela's relationship, since they hadn't been able to take that final step. "A blind nun, driving with a flat, taking the scenic route," Tony thought to himself ruefully. He knew it had to be hard for Mona to look at the situation objectively because of how protective she could be of Angela, hell of him too, and their whole little family. However, she also was always good at seeing a situation for what it was and what it wasn't.

"Geez, Dad, you were really willing to risk your entire relationship with Mom?" Katie asked sadly while also noting to herself that the name Kathleen had reminded her that she still needed to talk to her parents about finding a night for all of them to have dinner with her roommate and her roommate's mom.

"I'm not proud of it, Katieface," Tony said softly. "But, in the end, it was what cemented for me that my future was with Angela," he finished as he squeezed Angela's thigh.

"Did you know all this was going on?" Katie asked, looking over at Sam and Jonathan.

"You could say that," Sam said, a hint of sadness in her voice. "It definitely caused a rift in our family that summer…"