Told You So_A Saratoga Falls Love Story

by Lindsey Pogue

  I’m in the laundry room, sorting through the spray tan and hand towels, when I hear the front door ding. Knowing Anna Marie is out there, I leave it to her to deal with the next wave of clients.

  I have no idea what exactly my mom wants to talk to me about. It could be anything from coordinating Jesse’s schedule to asking me to move all of my things out of the house this week, if she’s so inclined. And, as much as I don’t want to have a face-to-face conversation with her tonight, I also wish it was over with already.

  There’s a creak in the floor as Anna comes into the room. “I’m almost finished,” I tell her and glance over my shoulder. But it’s Nick who’s standing there. His hands are in his pockets and an uncertain expression creases his face.

  “Hey,” he says. His eyes are shadowed and his brow is deeply furrowed. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him so drained of everything that makes him Nick, and my heart hurts that it’s because of me.

  “Hey.” I set the towels aside.

  “I know you said we’d talk later, but I couldn’t wait.” He’s more solemn than I’ve ever seen him. “I hope I won’t get you in trouble being here.”

  “Ha. Are you kidding, Anna’s in the hallway listening, I’m almost certain.” It’s a joke, but Nick doesn’t smile.

  I swallow thickly. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner, it’s just—it seemed like too important a conversation to have than a quick check-in between clients, you know?”

  “Well . . . I’m impatient.” He says it lightly, but it’s not the same Nick-ness I’m used to.

  “Nick, I—”

  “I’m sorry,” he says urgently and takes a step closer. He runs his fingers through his hair. “You were right about Savannah, I should’ve told her. Mac painted a very vivid picture for me, and I nearly lost my shit.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “If you kept talking to a guy—if you were friends, especially with an ex”—he shakes his head—“I don’t know if I could do it. I just—I wasn’t thinking about it like that. All I could hear was you comparing me to him, and I hate that you’d think for a single minute that I’d ever hurt you the way he did.”

  I take Nick’s hands in mine, squeezing them as I will him to hear me and understand. “I don’t think that. I know you aren’t like Mike, trust me. I tell myself that all the time. Sometimes it’s just hard not to get lost in the what ifs, you know?”

  He tugs me closer, his eyes searching mine, earnest. “I told Savannah,” he says. “I wanted you to know. I should’ve done it from the beginning, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, because I do still worry about her.”

  I take a deep breath and nod. “I know you told her.”

  His brow furrows again. “You do?”

  “She was here.”

  “Savannah was? Why?” He looks almost frightened.

  “Because she cares about you,” I tell him reassuringly. “She wants you to be happy. And she wanted to tell me not to fuck things up.”

  Amusement pulls at his lips, but he doesn’t smile.

  Rising to my tiptoes, I wrap my arms around his neck for a hug, because it feels like it’s overdue. He’s solid and warm and all-consuming as he squeezes me against his body. His strength is soothing and I soak it up for later tonight when I’ll need him, even if he can’t be there with me.

  Like he can feel my anxiety, he leans back and brushes a stray hair from my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks softly and rests his forehead against mine.

  “I have to stop by my parents after work,” I explain. “My mom wants to talk.”

  He looks at me for a moment, like he’s trying to decide what to say. “Do you want me to take you? I could wait outside.”

  Knowing I have to do this on my own, I shake my head.

  “Beth—”

  “Really it’s fine.”

  “I don’t want—”

  Before he can argue, I press a kiss to his lips. I’m not sure if it’s him or me that whimpers, but everything falls away as his palm finds the side of my face, his thumb stroking my cheek as he kisses me fervently. “You’re trying to distract me,” he breathes.

  “Is it working?” I press my lips to his again, softly and letting them linger.

  Nick smiles against my mouth. “Yes.”

  With a contented sigh, I rest the side of my face against his chest. “Let’s not fight anymore, okay?”

  “Sounds easy enough. But you know, if we were to fight again—which I’m sure will never happen,” he says playfully. “I accept pickles as recompense.”

  I try and fail not to laugh. “Of course you do.”

  Fifty

  Bethany

  I sit outside my parents’ house for a few minutes before I can bring myself to go inside. Seeing Nick has put my mind at ease in a strange way, and although I don’t want to have this argument with my mom, whatever it may be, I don’t think it will affect me as much as it might have any day before today. Whether it’s my parents cutting me off or telling me to move my things, I feel like I’m ready for it. I’ll figure it out without them.

  Jesse’s bedroom light is on, flickering behind his drawn drapes. He’s already gone through his nightly routine of reorganizing his special toy piles and brushing his teeth. He’s playing his video game before he goes to bed, until he’s so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. At least he’s still got those small routines to comfort him, and knowing that makes me feel better, too. Being away from him is difficult, but the longer I’m away, the more I know it’s for the best.

  I walk toward the house, expecting it to be locked like it usually is, but it’s not. When I open the door, the house is quiet, and only a side table lamp glows in the living room. A light over the oven illuminates the kitchen and my mother’s outline at the center island.

  She sets a glass of wine down on the counter and looks at me. I rarely see her drink, so I’m surprised to see a bottle on the counter, half empty.

  “You came,” she says in a whisper, so quiet I almost don’t hear her.

  I set my purse down on the couch. “I told you I would.”

  Slowly, she lowers her feet onto the plush rug, covering the hardwood floor, and walks over to the light switch. She eases the soft glow of the dimmer up so I can see her more clearly.

  Her yoga pants and loose sweater are a surprise. Her hair is in a messy ponytail, her eyes red and puffy. I can’t remember the last time I saw her like this, a normal mother, mussed and real and beautiful in her own way. Gone is the perfectly groomed Laura Fairchild who has a different skirt and pantsuit for each day of the week.

  “Please,” she says, “sit down.” She walks over to the sink and pours herself a glass of water from the filter. “Can I get you something?”

  “Um, yeah, water would be great. Thanks.”

  I claim a barstool across the island from her, noticing my journal on the marble top. My stomach flip-flops.

  When she turns around, she catches me eyeing it. “Please, take it,” she says, nodding to the leather-bound book as she slides me a water glass, more than half full. “Part of me . . .” She sighs. “Part of me thought I shouldn’t read it, even though you wanted me to. Another part of me couldn’t resist.” She stares at the book, like it holds some powerful memory. “You’re right. I feel like I saw you for the first time.” Her eyes shift to mine, shimmering in the low light. “Saw myself, actually.”

  My grip tightens on the glass of water. “Is that why you wanted me to come over?” I ask, trying to move this awkward and unwanted conversation along. “To talk about my journal?”

  She glances at it again. “I’m not quite sure.” Her voice is distant, and her uncertainty confuses me.

  “Mom, is everything okay?”

  Her face hardens with a frown. “No, Bethany, everything is not okay. This,” she says, gesturing between us, “is far from okay.”

  “Well,” I bite back, “it’s been like this for years, so I’m not sure what you expect me to sa
y.”

  “Nothing,” she says more quietly this time. “You don’t have to say anything. But I would like you to listen.”

  As always, my gaze shifts to the stairs, checking for prying eyes and ears. Jesse’s door is shut, and the neon light of the television illuminates that part of the dark hallway.

  “He misses you,” she says suddenly. She laughs to herself and wipes beneath her eyes. “I know you’ve seen him every day, but it’s different, you not being here.” She sits back down at the island. “Things haven’t always been this hard,” she says. “Not between us. I can see how you might remember it that way, but for a time, things were different.”

  She fingers the stem of her wine glass, eyes fixed on the beaded charm marker as her thoughts take her somewhere far away. “I’ve been trying to think back and remember at which point I started to forget what it meant to be a mother. Things have gotten so complicated over the years . . . I wish it was easier to explain it all to you.”

  She pauses, thinking. I feel like I should say something to fill the void, but I’m not sure what.

  “When you were a baby, you were my pride and joy. That’s all I’d wanted, after I married your father. He was the prom king, I the queen. It made sense back then. He was prominent in the town and had high hopes and vast dreams. He inspired me.” Her eyes shift from a memory in space to me. “I thought that everything would be better between us when I had you. That a child would add a layer of additional love and connection to our marriage.”

  “But it didn’t,” I hear myself say. Something stirs inside of me that I haven’t felt in a long time—affection for her, I think, and curiosity.

  “What they say is true—you can’t fix a marriage by adding a room to the house or a child to the mix. And I made far more mistakes than that.”

  Running my finger over the condensation on the glass, I try to imagine my parents’ lives before I was born—how lonely it might’ve been—and I wait for her to continue.

  “There’s something you should know, Bethany. I swore I would never tell you, but I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t, and it’s not fair to your father—for you to hate him and not know the whole story.”

  Her words surprise me, intrigue me, even, like the past twenty-three years are only a version of him and I might finally get a glimpse at who he might’ve been a long time ago.

  “He’s not a loving man, I know that, but he’s not heartless, even if he seems like it at times. We’d tried to have another child many times after you were born and it didn’t happen. It’s part of the reason your father and I grew apart. So, I did something I’m not proud of, my deepest shame and darkest secret. He’s a better man than you realize, if for no other reason than he didn’t turn me and Jesse away after your brother was born.”

  “What a saint,” I mutter. “He didn’t turn his own child and wife away simply because he had a broken son.”

  She eyes me without response, as if she’s waiting for me to understand. Her words are muddled in my head, and when they don’t register, I frown. “What do you mean, he didn’t turn you away?”

  She peers into my eyes, only blinking as she inhales a deep breath. “Jesse is not your father’s son.”

  “What?” I lean onto the counter, gaze unwavering.

  “I had an affair.”

  “What?” I repeat. “And you’ve been judging me, acting like I’m such a disappointment?”

  “I didn’t want you to follow down the same path—I was scared.” Expression unchanged, tears well in her eyes as she sits there, prepared for a verbal lashing, but I can’t speak.

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I’m hurt or surprised or simply confused. “Who is Jesse’s father?” I whisper and glance up at his closed bedroom door.

  She shakes her head. “One of your father’s old clients,” she whispers and tears stream silently down her cheeks. “I wasn’t going to tell your father that I was pregnant. I was going to leave him, but I was frightened. I didn’t have a job then. I was home with you at the time and when you father found out—well, the rest is history.”

  “You cheated on Dad,” I say again.

  “He tried to forgive me, and that’s the man you know today. Angry. Betrayed. Maybe even heartbroken.”

  The sudden sympathy and respect that swells inside me for my dad is strange and overwhelming.

  “He resents Jesse, but not only for the reasons you think he does. There’s so much more behind it.”

  “But—why are you guys still together if you’re both so unhappy?”

  “I started working my ass off to have a stable career so that I could start a new life for us, but it’s been so long, I’ve lost sight of why I was doing it to begin with.”

  The late nights in her office, the weekend meetings . . . This whole time there was a haunting shadow following her—a drive in her I didn’t understand. I didn’t realize how little I know my mother, until now.

  A tear trickles down my cheek, for Jesse and my dad, and I wipe it away. Looking at her, I don’t know what I feel, but I see her through a lens I never have before.

  “I hate myself for what I’ve done,” she admits. “I’ve hated myself for it since the day Jesse was born, and even more when I realized Charles would never forgive me. There has always been a life-sucking secret between us instead. I ruined us, and I’ve turned this family into something so far gone, I don’t know if I can turn it around again . . . but I’d like to try.” Even in her most revealing moments, she’s so much in control it almost hurts me to watch.

  “I’m going to talk to your father about a divorce when he gets back from his trip. I can go part-time at the firm. I’d like to spend more time with Jesse before I lose him, like I’ve lost you.”

  This time, I wipe tears away for me and the mom I never had. For the woman in front of me who’s more broken than I ever could’ve imagined. The mother I’m seeing for the first time.

  “I understand if you don’t want to stay here any longer, but you will always have a home here, if you decide you want to come back.” She eyes my journal again. “I know things are difficult right now for you, that you’re worried about school and Jesse, and I don’t want you to struggle needlessly about a place to live. I will help you with your graduate program—your father will help you, too, no matter what he says. He’s too good not to, even if you’ve never seen that side of him before.”

  I nod, unable to formulate any words. In the past few minutes, I’ve learned that my parents are nothing like I’d always known—or thought I knew. That my brother truly is a black sheep in my father’s eyes, but not for the reasons I’ve always assumed. I’ve learned the true depths of my parents’ unhappiness, and I swallow a sob in my throat.

  My mom takes a sip of her wine and folds her arms over her chest again. “I know I’ve been absent from your life for years now, Bethany, but as your mother, no matter how much you hate me—”

  “I don’t hate you,” I hear myself say.

  Her face softens a little. “I’d like to request one thing.” She leans forward and rests her elbows on the countertop. “I’d like you to take that dyslexia screening—I want you to get help, for yourself. Not for me or your father.”

  I feel the creases in my brow deepen.

  “Let Mrs. Turner help you. She’s a good woman, and she’s better at the nurturing stuff than I am.” It’s a self-deprecating joke, but I can tell she’s trying.

  “I will,” I promise.

  She nods and takes another sip of her wine. A pause turns into a few breathes, and I wonder what she’s thinking as the silence stretches between us. The clock ticks. The laundry machine beeps in the other room, and a dog barks outside the house as we’re wrapped in shadows and darkness.

  “Now what?” I finally ask, wiping the moisture from my cheeks.

  “Well, I suppose I should let you get back to, whatever it is you do on a Tuesday night.”

  “Homework,” I tell her, and I step down from my stool.
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  She stands up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Bethany,” she says, almost urgently. “I know what I’ve told you doesn’t fix anything. I know it might even make everything worse, but knowing what I do now . . . You deserve the truth.”

  It’s the longest, most honest conversation I’ve ever had with my mom, and it means more to me that she could ever know. “Thank you.”

  She nods, and I wonder when the last time was my mom had any physical contact. I walk over and wrap my arms around her. She’s rigid and unyielding at first, but only for a second before her arms wrap around me.

  “I love you,” she rasps.

  “I love you too.”

  She cries into my hair and squeezes me tighter.

  Her vulnerability speaks volumes, and for the first time in my life, I have hope that things between all of us might actually get better.

  Fifty-One

  Nick

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Murray drones on with his condescending niceties, but I tune him out. Bethany isn’t in class today. She didn’t even text me, and I’m worried about what happened last night with her mom and that her absence has something to do with it.

  “—projects due in just under a week, but I’m certain you’re all quite prepared for that,” he says sarcastically. “Because we have a few more weeks until the end of the semester, I figured, why not cram in the Victorian Revival period and an exam before the semester is finished. Some of you will be graduating, after all. Consider this my parting gift to you.” His eyes meet mine, only briefly, and all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. This guy needs to get laid.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out, anxious to see if it’s Bethany. I smile.

  Bethany: Sorry I didn’t make it to class. It’s a long story. Meet me outside after.

  I text her back, relieved.

  Me: With bells on.

  “Mr. Turner,” Professor Murray says. “Is there something more interesting than my lecture?”