by Jen Malone
Drew smiles. “Let’s get this show on the road; we have a hospital to get to.” He unties the cleat hitch keeping us tethered to Reality Bytes and calls over to Christian. “All clear.”
Reluctantly, I let go of Jonah so he can help, but he tightens his grasp on me and speaks to Drew over my shoulder. “Christian already has the coordinates in his GPS, so we’ll stick close to him. It’s calm enough tonight for him to handle the yacht on his own, so I can stay with you guys. Can you radio to Amy and Miranda that they should take their time if they’d rather stay under sail and meet up with us there? I’ll get our course set and the autopilot on and then I want to talk to your sister for a second, okay?”
Drew clearly gets the message to make himself scarce, because he replies “Sure” and heads downstairs to the VHF. As soon as he’s out of sight, Jonah turns to me again. He hasn’t released me from his grip and he dips his head to look in my eyes.
“Don’t. Move. I’ll be right back.”
He works efficiently. In less than five minutes we’re under way, trailing a hundred yards off Reality Bytes’ stern, and Jonah has his arms around me once more.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “For what happened to your mom and—”
I cut him off. “You don’t have to apologize for that. It wasn’t your fault.”
He removes one hand from my back, the fingers on his other splaying widely to keep me in place. He tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear and sighs. “You didn’t let me finish. I was about to add that I’m sorry for everything I said this morning too, although I probably should have started with that. See? Further proof I’m an idiot.”
His eyes are filled with his apology, and even if I had been able to summon anger at him in the face of everything that’s happened since our fight, his sincerity would be melting it away now.
He takes another deep breath. “I honestly believed what I was saying could help you, Cass, I swear. I only said what I did because I wanted you to see things the way I saw them, because then maybe you could find a way past everything and you could be happy again. You deserve to be happy.”
More tears threaten. I’ve been acting like such a brat for so long, and seeing Mom passed out on the deck made me painfully aware of what’s really important. She could have died. I’d have had to go the whole rest of my life never getting the chance to even try to work things out with us. She hasn’t been the perfect mother lately, but I can admit I haven’t exactly been the model daughter either.
“I don’t know what I deserve anymore,” I murmur.
“Everything,” Jonah answers immediately. “You deserve everything.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a nice person.”
“Sprite,” he groans. “Of course you are. People who aren’t nice don’t care that they’re not nice. You’re dealing with a ton all at once, and anyone would have a hard time handling it all. I should have been more sympathetic to that. I should have thought about how what I was saying would sound from your point of view—I should have had your back one hundred percent. If either of us is the jerk here, it’s me.”
His words are so heartfelt that I melt even more. I tilt my chin to see his face.
“Yeah, but do you care that you’re a jerk?” I ask, smiling to show I’m teasing and that he’s forgiven.
His shoulders relax, but his eyes are intense as they hold mine. “I care about a lot of things,” he whispers.
An acrobat inside my belly executes a few aerial moves and I swallow. “Me too.”
We stare at each other for a few long seconds, then I raise up on tiptoes to give him a soft kiss on the lips.
His hand at my back tightens. “See? Told you you’re a nice person. A very very nice person.”
He bends his head to kiss me again and I sink into it. It’s innocent and sweet and full of promise and hope. It floods me with relief that at least one thing in my life is back in place. When we break apart, we’re both smiling.
It’s quiet for a long minute, and then I ask, “You know how you just mentioned point of view?” He nods and I continue, “Did you happen to know many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view?”
Jonah sputters, and his eyes grow so wide I’m worried for them. “Are you quoting Yoda to me? Because damn, Sprite, that is seriously hot. I know maybe this isn’t the time or place to say something like that, but . . .”
Before I can answer beyond a laugh, Drew reappears at the top of the steps and coughs. It’s an “Am I interrupting?” cough rather than the “I feel like crap” one I’ve heard so much of tonight.
I roll my eyes and smile. “What, are you conditioned to appear whenever Star Wars is referenced?”
Drew’s eyebrows rise. “Huh? No. You were talking about Star Wars?” He pauses, and then his eyes narrow. “What if I sensed it? I told you the Force was strong within me!”
Jonah laughs, and I giggle too. As much as I know, on an intellectual level, that I can never truly be sure of how things will turn out, right now things feel hopeful.
Which I’ll take.
Sometimes it feels good to believe just for the sake of believing.
33
“If you’re feeling up to it, I think I’m ready to have those fifteen or sixteen hundred talks you wanted to schedule,” I say, entering Mom’s hospital room and sitting gingerly on the edge of her bed.
It’s been a long two days, but she’s doing much better.
Turns out Mom was not a worst-case scenario after all. Her CAT scan looked good and she’s now acting completely like herself—no more gibberish. She had a minor concussion, but she’ll be released later today. Drew is off getting something to eat with my grandparents, who drove up from San Diego, but I didn’t want to leave Mom here alone. Besides, this moment has been a long time coming. Like, seven months long.
I’ve had a lot of waiting-around time to think these last couple of days, and it’s possible Jonah might have been right about some of what he said.
I have been afraid.
But I don’t think I’ve been afraid that hearing Mom’s side will mean I have to forgive her and accept that it’s time to move on. I think my bigger fear has been: What if I hear all the gory details and I can’t forgive her, because they’re too terrible and I won’t ever be able to reconcile the person who could act like she did with the mother I thought I knew so completely?
I’m afraid I’ll lose my mom for good.
Except, on the boat, I almost did lose her for good, in a very real way. And imagining what it would have felt like to never be able to have this conversation made me realize deep down that I need to be brave. I need to hear it and deal with this, no matter how bad it is, because I’m not getting anywhere with the way I’ve been handling things this year.
I’ve been complaining about not having any control over my own life, but what exactly have I done to fix that . . . to take ownership back? Nothing. I needed Drew to tell me what to do with the whole rescue effort. I refused to learn how to help get us from anchorage to anchorage until Jonah conned me into it.
I’ve been the sails, filling and deflating, as someone else turned me into and out of the wind.
I think I might finally, finally be ready to be the one steering the ship.
And since my relationship with Mom is the thing that makes me feel most helpless of all, I’m starting here.
“You want all fifteen hundred talks at once?” My mother’s lips curl into a smile, followed by a wince. She touches the bandage wrapped around her head. “Ouch! Remind me not to smile ever again.”
“Okay.” I answer with a grin of my own, then let it fade. “Maybe not all of the talks at once. Maybe just the big one. Is your brain working enough to handle it?”
She motions for me to help prop her up. I get her situated with a pile of pillows behind her back and move into the chair next to her bed. She wiggles her shoulders to settle in better, then says softly, “Okay, ask away.”
Here we go.
&nb
sp; I take the deepest breath I can manage. “What happened?”
I know it’s not a very specific question, but I think she’ll know what I mean. And what I mean is . . . all of it.
My mother tilts her head slightly. “I’ve tried to talk to you about this, you know. It just seemed like every time I wanted to broach the subject, I couldn’t make it past the walls you had up.”
We’re two seconds into this conversation and my eyes are already hot with tears.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She reaches for my hand and I give it to her. “I’m sorry too, baby. That’s the biggest thing I want to say to you. Your dad and I weren’t trying to hurt you.” She takes a shaky breath and I bite my lip. “Sweet Cassie. It’s my job to take care of you, and I should have known how all this would affect you.”
A few tears spill over and trickle down my face. Mom releases my hand to wipe them away with her thumb.
I notice she said “your dad and I.” I want to push back on how she’s lumped him into it when really the divorce is on her. I promised myself before coming in here that I wouldn’t dance around the issue of her cheating, but I’m not ready yet. It’s something I need to work up to.
Instead I say, “It came out of the blue for me. Not just the divorce. I mean, my reaction to all of it too. I . . . I’m so angry all the time that I don’t really recognize myself anymore.”
“But I should have predicted it.” She sighs and catches my eye. “Did I ever tell you what happened when Drew was born?”
I shake my head.
Mom smiles. “Well, you and I were quite the team, even back then. You used to insist on sleeping next to me, between Dad and me, almost every night.”
I half laugh, half hiccup through the remains of my tears. “I guess it’s a miracle you managed to conceive Drew, then.”
Mom laughs, then winces again. “Oh god. I told you not to let me do that again.”
“Technically you said not to let you smile. You didn’t say anything about laughing.”
“Touché,” Mom responds. “Just for that I should go into specific details about Drew’s conception.” At my horrified look she starts to laugh again, then claps a hand over her mouth. But her eyes still dance.
This is how we used to joke with each other and my heart loves it, but I’m still bracing myself for what’s to come.
Mom continues. “I knew it was going to be a problem when Drew’s arrival intruded, but I never expected you to be so furious. Man, Cassie, you were a little demon. Never with Drew—you were sweet as can be with him. But with me? You let me have it.”
“How?”
She looks over my shoulder, remembering. “Mainly you peed, like a cat upset with its owner. Mostly in your bed at night, so that we had no choice but to either get up and change the sheets or to make room for you in our bed. Which was exactly what you wanted, of course. You’d been potty-trained for over a year by that point, so I knew you were doing it intentionally. I really had to give you credit for being a very intelligent and crafty kid. I knew back then I’d be in real trouble when it came to your teen years.” She pauses, her eyes filling with sadness. “I just didn’t expect any of this to be going on when we got here.”
I cringe. “Sorry on behalf of three-year-old me. What finally ended it? I mean, obviously at some point I started sleeping in my bed.”
“Oh, you did. The very moment I moved Drew into his crib and told you that you were welcome to come back into our bed if you wanted. You just looked at me, calm as could be, and said ‘No, thank you’ and we never heard from you again between bedtime and morning.”
“What? What the hell!”
Mom manages a smirk without an accompanying wince. “It wasn’t the bed you wanted. It was the choice. You wanted to be the one to set the terms and make the decision for yourself.”
I hang my head. “Oh.”
“I wish I’d remembered that story when Dad and I were talking things through last winter. Drew’s like a pincushion—he takes all the needles and then smooths right out again, so I knew he’d be fine. Somehow I deluded myself into believing that you and I could talk our way through it. You’re older now, and I guess I stupidly thought we could just sit down and have a heart-to-heart like adults, and I could share all our reasons with you. That . . . didn’t exactly go according to plan.”
I stand suddenly and face the window. The shades are drawn, but I move them aside to stare out over the city. It’s strange to see buildings shimmering in the sun, instead of water. “Now you’re making me feel like the one who’s stupid, because you’re basically telling me I wasn’t mature enough to talk it out with you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, honey. I’m trying to say I was naive for not realizing that seventeen isn’t old enough to handle that kind of reasoning.”
“That still sounds like an insult wrapped in an apology.” Despite all my hopes for this conversation, the cloak of anger that’s kept me warm all year threatens to settle back around my shoulders.
“Cassie, stop!” my mother barks, and it surprises me into turning around to face her. She gestures to the chair I vacated. “Please. Please sit back down.”
I hesitate, but I follow her orders. The agitation is fizzing just underneath the surface though, ready to come back the second I need it. I both hate and love that it’s there for me.
“Remember when Nana kept forgetting things this spring and everyone thought it might be the start of Alzheimer’s, before we realized she’d been having ministrokes?”
I nod and she continues. “Well, the thought of her not being able to recognize me made me realize that no one is ever too old to need their mom, no matter how mature that person is. I should have focused more on being your mother and less on trying to treat you like a girlfriend.”
I swallow. “I didn’t even realize you were doing that.”
Mom seems surprised. “The spa day I booked that you refused to attend? The dinner I tried for just the two of us? You barely said three words to me between appetizers and dessert.”
“Oh. That’s what those were all about?”
Mom nods gingerly. She looks at the clock on the wall. “When am I due for more Tylenol?”
I glance at it. “Twenty, twenty-five more minutes. Do you want me to get the nurse now instead?”
Mom moves her head, nearly imperceptibly, side to side. “Nope, I can hold out till then.”
My chair is one of those reclining ones, and I fiddle absentmindedly with the handle. “What would you have said if I had gone on the spa day?”
My mother is quiet for a beat, and her voice is soft when she answers. “I guess I would have told you that your dad and I had been coasting for a long time.”
“What does that mean—coasting?”
She sighs. “Things were fine.”
Yeah, they were. Things were so fine I certainly never saw the split coming.
“What’s wrong with fine?” I ask.
When I steal a peek at her, she has her eyes closed. Even with her tan that matches the ones we’ve all gotten, she looks pale, lying tucked among a sea of pillows.
“Nothing’s wrong with fine. But nothing’s great about fine either. It’s just . . . fine. And for a long time, your dad and I had a perfectly companionable relationship, but at a certain point, that’s not really enough.”
This is it. This is the opening I need, if I can just find the courage. I take a deep breath . . . and waver. They’re such ugly words to say out loud. Especially to your own mother.
But I have to know this time. I have to.
“So that’s why you cheated?” I ask, so quietly I almost can’t make out my own voice.
Mom must though, because her eyes snap open and they’re full of shock. Mine are too. I can’t quite believe I just spoke those words to her, after so many months of forcing them in.
“What?” she asks. “Cass—what—”
I keep my eyes on my lap, squeezing and releasing the chair’s leve
r in my hand. “I overheard you and Dad fighting that last night he was home. He said if you hadn’t cheated, you wouldn’t be divorcing. I’ve known this whole time.”
“I—good god.”
For a long time after that she’s quiet, and so am I. Neither of us is looking at the other. Finally, she draws a ragged breath and says, “I didn’t cheat, Cass. Not exactly.”
34
How does one “not exactly cheat”? I shake my head incredulously.
She exhales and waits for me to look at her before asking, “Remember when I told you about crewing on charter trips in the Caribbean during breaks in grad school?”
I nod.
“Well, I kind of left off the part where I got pregnant my last summer.”
The words hang in the air.
“I lost the baby. I was three months along and I had a miscarriage.”
I stare at my hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” she answers softly.
“I don’t understand how this connects to Dad and you. Was it his?”
Mom shakes her head. “No. But bear with me and I’ll explain. The father—sorry, I know it’s weird to think of me with someone else besides your dad, but he’s part of the story—he . . . wasn’t very supportive when I told him. He worked for the charter company too and he was the very definition of a ‘grotty yachty.’ Told you I was projecting.”
She offers me a small smile and I return it.
“He said he had a good thing going that he didn’t want to mess up and basically told me if I went through with having the baby, I should lose his number.”
“Charming,” I murmur.
“Ha! Maybe now you can understand why I had a little bias against Jonah when we first met?”
I bring my eyes to hers and she smiles. “Don’t worry, honey, Jonah is nothing like Matteo. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonah doesn’t actually need all that long in Mexico to figure out what he wants for his future.”
She meets my surprised eyes and winks again. “Especially not with someone so special waiting for him stateside.”