As I was looking through paperwork in the bedroom, I came across my birthday board, which Clara and I worked on the night before Chris died. I never put it back where I usually keep them because the next day altered everything. It somehow ended up under my bed. It reminded me that we still need to do Clara’s. I know she probably doesn’t feel like it, but it’s tradition, so when I hear her up and showering, I pull out the craft supplies and set them on the table. I make a charcuterie board and set it on the table next to her birthday board because I doubt she’ll feel like eating much, but she needs to eat something.
When she finally walks out of her room, I’m at the table on my laptop. She stares at her birthday board. I close my laptop, and surprisingly, she walks to the table and takes a seat without a fuss. She pops a grape into her mouth. We make eye contact, but neither of us speaks. She grabs a blue marker, and I grab a purple one.
She stares at her board—at all the things we’ve put on it over the years. I like it because her handwriting has evolved throughout the years. Her first goal was written in green crayon, spelled wrong. “Americun Gurl dol.” It was a want rather than a goal, but she was young. She eventually learned the difference over time.
Clara begins to write something. It’s not just one thing. It’s several things. When she’s finished, I lean forward and read the list.
I want my mother to see my boyfriend for who he really is.
I want my mother to be honest with me, and I want to be honest with her.
I want to be an actress, and I want my mother to support that dream.
Clara puts the lid back on her marker, pops another grape in her mouth, and walks into the kitchen to get a drink.
Her goals make me sigh. I can tackle the first one. I can pretend to tackle the second one. But the third one is tough for me. Maybe I’m too realistic. Too practical.
I follow her into the kitchen, and she’s pouring herself a glass of ice water. She pops two aspirin and swallows. “I know you want me to major in something more practical, but at least I’m not running off to Los Angeles without getting a degree first,” she says. “And I need to start looking at schools soon. I need to know what we can afford now that Dad is gone.”
“What if we compromise? What if you get a degree in something more realistic, like psychology or accounting, and then after you graduate, you can move to Los Angeles and audition for roles while holding a real job.”
“Acting is a real job,” she says. She walks back to the table and takes a seat, selecting a piece of cheese to eat. She talks while she chews. “The way I see it, my life is going to go one of three ways.”
“Which are?”
She holds up a finger. “I get a BFA in acting from the University of Texas. I try to become an actress. I succeed.” She holds up another finger. “Or, I get a BFA in acting from the University of Texas. I try to become an actress. I fail. But at least I followed my dreams and can figure out where to go from there.” She holds up a third finger. “Or. I follow your dreams, major in something I am absolutely not interested in, and spend the rest of my life blaming you for not encouraging me to follow my dreams.”
She drops her hand and leans back in her chair. I stare at her a moment, soaking in everything she just said. I realize as I’m looking at her that something happened. I don’t know when or if it was gradual or overnight, but something has changed in her significantly.
Or maybe something has changed in me.
But she’s right. The dreams I have for her life aren’t nearly as important as the dreams she has for herself. I grab my marker and pull her birthday board toward me. I write, “My dreams for Clara < Clara’s dreams for herself.”
Clara reads it, and it makes her smile. She takes another bite of cheese and starts to get up from the table, but I don’t want to be done yet. I feel like I may not get another opportunity to talk like this with her for a while.
“Clara, wait. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
She doesn’t take her seat. She grips the back of the chair—an indication she doesn’t want this conversation to last long.
“Last night, you said something to me, and I want to know what you meant. It might have been the alcohol talking, but . . . you blamed yourself. You said the wreck was your fault.” I shake my head in confusion. “Why would you think that?”
I see her swallow. “I said that?”
“You said a lot of things. But that one seemed to really upset you.”
Clara’s eyes immediately moisten, but she releases the chair and turns away. “I don’t know why I said that.” Her voice cracks as she walks across the living room, toward her bedroom.
For once, I can tell she’s lying.
“Clara.” I stand up and follow her. I reach her before she disappears down the hallway. When I spin her around, she’s crying. It’s heartbreaking, seeing her so upset, so I pull her to me, holding her, attempting to soothe her.
“I was texting Aunt Jenny when they had the wreck,” she says. She’s clinging to me like she’s scared to let go. “I didn’t know she was driving. One second, we were chatting, and then the next . . . she stopped responding.” Clara’s shoulders are shaking against me.
I can’t believe she thinks it’s her fault.
I pull away from her and hold her face in my hands. “Jenny wasn’t even driving, Clara. It wasn’t your fault.”
She looks at me with shock. Disbelief. She shakes her head. “It was her car. You told me . . . at the hospital, you said she gave Dad a ride.”
“I told you that, but I swear it was your father who was driving. He was driving Aunt Jenny’s car. I never would have told you that if I knew you would think it was your fault.”
Clara takes a step back, swallowed up in confusion. She wipes her eyes. “But why would you tell me that? Why would you say she was driving if she wasn’t?”
It hits me that I have no idea how to back up the lie I told her. And I have no excuse for it either. And I’m a terrible liar. Shit. I shrug, trying to make it seem like it’s less than it is. “I just . . . maybe I was confused? I can’t remember.” I take a step toward her and squeeze her hands. “But I promise I’m telling you the truth now. Your Aunt Jenny was in the passenger seat. I’ll show you the accident report if you don’t believe me, but I don’t want you thinking this was your fault for another second.”
Clara isn’t crying anymore. She’s looking at me with suspicion in her eyes. “Why was Dad driving Aunt Jenny’s car?”
“He had a flat.”
“No, he didn’t. You’re lying.”
I shake my head, but I can feel my cheeks reddening. My pulse is racing. Just let it go, Clara.
“Why were they together, Mom?”
“They just were. He needed a ride.” I turn to go back to the table. Maybe if I start cleaning, I won’t start crying, but when I reach the table, my fearful tears begin to pour out. This is the last thing I wanted. The last thing.
“Mom, what aren’t you telling me?” She’s beside me now, demanding answers.
I turn to her, desperate. “Stop asking questions, Clara! Please. Just accept it and never ask about it again.”
She takes a step back, as if I just slapped her. Her hand goes up to her mouth. “Were they . . .” There’s no color left in her face. Not even her lips. She sits down in a chair and stares at the table for a moment. Then, “Where’s Dad’s car? If it was just a flat, why did we never get it back?”
I don’t even know how to answer that.
“Why did you refuse to combine their funerals? They basically had all the same friends and family, so it made more sense, but you seemed so angry and kept demanding they be separate.” Clara covers her face with her hands. “Oh my God.” When she looks at me again, her eyes are pleading. She’s shaking her head back and forth. “Mom?”
She’s looking at me with fear.
I reach across the table. I want to shield her from this blow, but she’s running toward her bedroom now.
She slams her door, and I’ll follow her in a second, but I need a moment. I grip the back of the chair and lean forward, trying to breathe slowly—to calm myself. I knew this would kill her.
She opens her bedroom door. I look up, and she’s rushing back to me, full of more questions. I know exactly how she feels, because I’m still full of questions.
“What about you and Jonah? How long has that been happening?” There’s an accusatory tone to her voice.
“We weren’t . . . the night you walked in on us. That was the first time we ever even kissed. I swear.”
She’s crying now. She’s pacing, like she doesn’t know what to do with all the anger. Who to throw it at.
She clenches her stomach and stops pacing. “No. Please, no.” She points at the front door. “That’s why he left Elijah here? That’s why he said he couldn’t do it?” Clara is gasping now between tears. I pull her in for a hug, but it doesn’t last. She pulls away from me. “Is Dad? Is Jonah not Elijah’s father?”
I feel like my throat is so constricted noise can’t even slide up it. I just whisper, “Clara. Sweetie.”
She sinks to the floor in a heap of tears. I lower myself and put my arms around her. She hugs me back, and as good as it feels to be needed by her right now, I’d give anything for this not to be happening. “Did you know? Before the wreck?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Did Jonah?”
“No.”
“How did you . . . when did you find out about them?”
“The day they died.”
Clara hugs me even harder. “Mom.”
She says my name with such a guttural ache it’s like she’s needing something she knows I can’t give her. A comfort I don’t even know how to provide.
She pulls away from me and stands up. “I can’t do this.” She goes to her room and comes back with her purse and her keys.
She’s hysterical. I can’t let her drive a car like this. I walk over to her and take her keys out of her hand. She tries to snatch them back, but I don’t let her have them.
“Mom, please.”
“You aren’t leaving. Not when you’re this upset.”
Clara drops her purse in defeat and covers her face with her hands. She just stands there, crying to herself. Then she slides her hands down her face and looks at me with imploring eyes, dropping her arms to her sides. “Please. I need Miller.”
Those words coupled with that look in her eyes—it all shatters me. It feels like my soul has been stomped on. But somehow, even beneath all the pain, I understand. Right now, I’m not what she needs. I’m not the solace she’ll find the most comforting, and even though it feels like the death of a huge part of our relationship, I’m grateful to know there’s someone out there who gives her that besides me.
I nod. “Okay. I’ll take you to him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CLARA
Miller has a line of customers when I walk into the theater. As soon as he looks at me, I can tell he wants to jump over the counter. He looks worried but helpless. He holds up four fingers, so I nod and walk to theater four.
I sit in the closest seat to the door this time. I’m too tired to walk all the way to the top.
I stare at the blank screen, wondering why Jenny never decided to act. She’d have been good at it. My dad too.
I shake my head, lifting my T-shirt to wipe my eyes. I should feel relieved to know that my text didn’t cause the wreck because Aunt Jenny wasn’t even driving, but I don’t feel any relief at all. I don’t even feel anger. I feel like all my anger has been directed at my mother for so long that I don’t even have any left. Right now, I just feel disappointed. Defeated.
It’s as if all the romance novels I’ve ever read have turned into dystopian fantasies. My whole life, I thought I had these great examples of love and family and humanity around me, but it was all bullshit. The love I thought my father had for my mother was a lie. And the thing that bothers me the most about it is that half of me is made up of him.
Does that mean I’m capable of being the kind of human he was? The kind to betray your spouse and child while plastering a loving smile on your face for so many years?
I hear the door to the theater open. Miller walks over to me and then leans down to kiss me. I pull away. I don’t feel like a kiss right now. Or maybe I don’t feel like I deserve a kiss right now. Whatever this is I feel for him, it worries me that it’s nothing more than manufactured signals from my brain that’ll eventually fade.
Miller steps over me and sits down in the seat to my right. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “But you will. I will. Everyone does. Everyone fucks up.”
“Hey,” he says, touching my cheek, pulling my teary eyes to his. “What happened?”
“My father had an affair with Aunt Jenny. Elijah is his. Not Jonah’s.”
My confession stuns him. He drops his hand and falls against his seat. “Shit.”
It felt weird, saying it out loud.
“Does Jonah know?”
“He didn’t know until after the wreck.”
Miller lifts an arm and slips it behind me, despite my earlier hesitance to let him kiss me. He begins to gently rub my back. I lean into him, even though right now, I’m convinced that love is stupid and I’ll probably break his heart someday.
I shake my head, still in disbelief as I think about it all. “I idolized my dad. I thought he was perfect. And her. She was my best friend.”
Miller kisses me on top of the head. “How’s your mother taking it?”
I don’t know how to answer that, because looking back on it, I don’t know how my mother even got out of bed after finding something like this out. For the first time since the wreck, I feel this ache for her—for what she went through. What she’s still going through. “I have no idea how she’s still functioning.”
It kind of even makes sense now that she and Jonah would lean on each other through this. They had to. They were the only ones who knew, so who else could she have talked to about it besides Jonah?
We’re quiet for a while. I’m trying to work through it. I think Miller is just giving me time to process everything. I don’t expect him to give me advice. That’s not why I’m here. I just needed to be near him. I wanted his arms around me.
It reminds me of all the times growing up, how my father would always comfort my mother. She didn’t need it a lot, but sometimes I would see him holding her while she was upset.
Now I realize it was all fake. All those looks of concern he gave her—they weren’t real. He was sleeping with her sister. How could he pretend to love her while doing something so incredibly vicious?
I trusted him more than I’ve ever trusted any man in the world. It makes me doubt everything. Everyone. Myself. Maybe even Miller. I don’t even know what Miller’s intentions actually were in the beginning.
I face him. “Would you have cheated on Shelby with me?”
He looks thrown off by my question. “No. Why?”
“That day in your truck. I thought maybe you wanted to.”
Miller sighs heavily with a look of guilt on his face. “I was confused, Clara. I wanted to talk to you, but when you got in the truck with me, I didn’t like how I was feeling. I wouldn’t have cheated on her, but I can’t say that I didn’t have the urge.”
“Do you still talk to her?”
He shakes his head, but the shake of his head is coupled with an eye roll. He looks like he’s growing frustrated with me. It slams me right in the chest. Every time I’m angry, I find myself involving him somehow. I’d almost rather him break up with me than lose respect for me, but if I keep behaving this way, that’s exactly what will happen.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “All of this is messing with my head, and I don’t know who to be mad at.”
Miller brings my hand to his mouth. He kisses the back of it, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Remember when you thought I
was epic?” I laugh at that. How could anyone think I’m epic?
“I still think you’re epic,” he says. “Frustratingly epic.”
“Or epically frustrating. You started dating me at the absolute worst moment of my life. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this shit.”
He lifts his hand and gently cups my face. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this shit.”
Sometimes when he says things to me, his words feel like they reach me through my chest rather than through my ears. I love that he’s so understanding. So patient. I don’t know where he gets it from, but maybe the more I’m around him, the more I’ll become like him. “Imagine how great we’ll be when I’m finally emotionally stable.”
He pulls me into a hug. “You’re great now, Clara. Damn near perfect.”
“Near?”
“I’d say a nine out of ten.”
“What’s the reason for the one-point deduction?”
He sighs. “It’s that pineapple on pizza, unfortunately.”
I laugh, and then I lift the armrest that’s separating us to snuggle against him. We’re quiet for a while after that. He holds me while I try and work through my thoughts, but I know he can’t stay here all night. After a few minutes, he kisses me on top of the head.
“I need to get back to work. It’s not even my break right now, and the manager is on duty tonight.”
“What time do you get off?”
“Not until nine.”
“Can I stay until you get off work? I need a ride home.”
“How’d you get here?”
“My mother dropped me off.”
“Oh. She doesn’t know I work here, huh?”
I nod. “She does. That’s why she dropped me off here.”
Miller raises an eyebrow. “Do I sense progress?”
“I hope.”
He smiles and then kisses me. Twice. “There’s a cartoon starting in theater three in about fifteen minutes. Want to go watch it while you wait for me?”
I crinkle up my nose. “A cartoon? I don’t know.”
Regretting You Page 29