I know that I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist. I read it. It was from a woman saying that she couldn't wait for their next meeting and it ended with two crosses, xx. That scared me a lot. A few of my friends' parents had been through divorce or were going that way, but I never had any sense that mine were anything but happy. I wasn't sure what to do at first. I couldn't really tell anyone, could I? After all, I had been snooping. I decided to keep an eye on the phone and see if any more messages arrived in the next few days. More importantly, I watched Pa for any signs of infidelity or changes in behaviour, even though I wasn't really sure what to look for. Several weeks passed, but I found nothing. There were no more messages, Pa didn't go anywhere and he and my mother seemed the same as ever.

Maybe the message had been a wrong number? It was possible, but why would Pa have a second phone when he hated the things? It was so confusing because it made no sense to me. I was worried at first, but as the weeks went by and nothing happened, I put it out of my mind and my world slowly returned to normal. I even managed to keep joking about the floozies, although I felt almost angry when I mentioned them. That was when I invented the new floozie, the one with a child.

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