by Torrest, T.
“What about Lutz Hamburg?”
“The producer guy? What about him?”
“The Super Bowl last month. Trip said he ran into Jack and him there. He’s going to do that soundtrack, right?”
Livia was silent for a beat too long, and I thought there was a chance I’d spoken out of turn. Shit. Did she not know about that? I hoped I didn’t just inadvertently get my cousin sent to the doghouse. But she allayed my concerns when she said, “Oh. Yeah, that. He hasn’t really decided yet.”
She wrapped up the conversation quickly after that, and I sat there for a few extra minutes, trying to figure out what to do about Trip.
Yes, I was pissed and unsure about just exactly what was happening between us, but I wasn’t even allowing myself to consider the possibility that we were over. I decided to concentrate on the memoir. It would be a special gift for him, a way to show him how much I loved him by getting every detail down perfectly.
An assignment like that was an obsessive-compulsive’s dream.
I had to drive into the city to do the proper research, get the right vibe for the New York chapters of our story, maybe take some pictures. I knew there was plenty of time to send Livia back in to take some more professional shots for the actual book, but for right then, I just wanted to give her an idea of the visuals I’d be going for.
I hit the TRU Times Square, and prayed that Concierge Cat would be behind the front desk. The girl had a serious ass-whooping coming her way, but she wasn’t there. I assumed she’d probably been fired a long time ago. I snapped some shots of the lobby, then headed back outside. Down the street was the movie theater where we’d caught a showing of Swayed, and the diner around the corner where we’d pigged out afterward.
Then I zoomed down to the Village to my old apartment building, but wasn’t able to finagle my way up to the roof, much less my old apartment. I took some exterior shots of the building instead.
The last stop was Beth Israel Hospital, where Trip was treated after he’d broken his arm.
I’d just made my way to the front desk when I turned and collided into a woman coming around the corner. We were both holding folders, the contents of which had gone flying through the air upon impact.
That’s when I realized I had literally just bumped into Kate.
Kate Warren.
My mother.
Chapter 28
A HOLE IN MY HEART
I was frozen with shock. I knew it was her just as sure as I knew my own name. My name that she’d lifted from a Clapton song over thirty-one years before. It was a killer song, but still. That’s a pretty lame-ass thing to do to a kid.
She hadn’t really looked at me yet, and she definitely didn’t recognize me as she started apologizing profusely, bending down to pick up our collective papers, separating them on the receptionist’s counter into two piles, hers and mine. I stood there glued in my place, jaw slightly agape, watching the woman who’d given me life giggle casually as she cleaned up her mess.
I didn’t know what I should do. Talk to her? Introduce myself? Run? I sure as hell was eyeing up Option Three right at that moment.
Before I could make a decision, she stood and met my eyes.
Her smile abruptly disappeared.
We stood there like that for a long while, my heart beating out of my chest, my words caught in the back of my throat, my mind racing. I hadn’t seen her since I was twelve, but she looked almost exactly as I remembered her. I stood there and assessed her, compared my memory with the woman standing right there in front of me.
Same honey-colored hair—although, I was sure that by then it was coming from a bottle—shoulder-length and wavy and hanging over her forehead.
Those same brown eyes—my eyes—sporting a few new crinkles, as well as some long, faint creases around her mouth.
Laugh lines. How dare she.
I only came back to Earth when I heard her voice—that oddly familiar, melodic voice—ask, “Layla?”
I couldn’t speak. I wanted to deny it. I wanted to run away. But instead, my head shook up and down on its own, as my shaking, traitorous voice answered, “Yes.”
There was an awkward second where it almost looked as though she were going to hug me. I tensed visibly and she must have thought better of it.
“I can’t believe how much you’ve grown!”
Yeah, Kate. That’s what kids do. They grow up. Most parents stick around to witness it.
I didn’t know if she was expecting an answer, but I wasn’t giving her one anyway.
“You look just like Kenny. My God. It’s uncanny. You always did, but…”
“What are you doing here?”
She shifted on her feet for a moment, ran a hand over her hair, tried out a smile. She tipped out her bottom lip and gave a quick breath to the wayward curl across her forehead. I’d forgotten how she used to do that. “Well, I work here. What are you doing here?”
For some reason, that casual question made me angrier than had she slapped me right across the face. But I suppose anything she said would have been met with the same venom.
“I’m researching my book,” I answered with added vengeance. See that, Kate? Look how well I’m doing without you. “What do you mean you work here?”
“I mean I work here.” She held her hands at her sides, palms facing me. Trying to make me notice that she was wearing scrubs.
“You’re a nurse? You take care of people?”
“Yes. For about ten years now.”
“That’s rich.”
My words were laced with a bite I didn’t even recognize. Who was this person trying to have a pleasant conversation with me? Where did she get off talking to me like we were a couple of long-lost friends just catching up?
Her face dropped at that, her attempt to remain smiling abandoned at my answer. Her shoulders deflated, her gaze focused on the two piles of papers she’d scooped off the floor. I watched, flabbergasted, as she nudged each of the two piles into perfect stacks, setting them at exact right angles along the countertop.
“Guess that’s one thing you gave me,” I said, nodding my head in the direction of her busywork. “Thanks.” No way she could’ve missed the sarcasm.
She stopped fiddling with the papers, laying a flat palm on top of each stack, her eyes closed as she said, “You’re angry.”
That made me snap loudly, “Ya think?”
She tried to give me a shush, even though there was no one else around. Well, save for the two other nurses at the far end of the desk. But fuck her. Let her coworkers see what kind of person they were working with. The kind of selfish bitch who abandoned her family for her latest boy toy.
“How’s Ke—How’s your father?”
“Still around. How’s Rick?” I asked her, my eyes like slits, my mouth barely able to form the word.
She actually looked wistful when she answered, “Oh, he and I haven’t been together for a long time now.”
What the…?
“Oh, really? He was so fucking important to you that you left us for him, but you’re not even together? What kind of succubus are you?”
She actually looked like she was trying to contain a smile. Was she for real?
“Layla I—” She bit her bottom lip, trying to find the right words. “I know what you must think. But I didn’t leave you for him. I left… I left you for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I wasn’t happy, Loo. Not for a long time.”
Who cared if she was happy? Who really gave one flying fuck about her happiness? The woman made everyone around her miserable for years after she left. She didn’t deserve to be happy.
“Don’t call me that,” I spat.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Only, she and I both knew she owed me an apology for things way bigger than using my family nickname.
“I was young, Layla. Your father and I… we were so young when we had you. I didn’t know who I was.”
“Is this the part where you tell me you needed to find yourself? If that’s the case, you can just save it.”
“You need to understand—”
“I don’t need to do anything.”
She took a steadying breath. “You’re right. I have no right to ask anything of you.” She bit her lip and continued, “Just please know that… Well, sometimes your life doesn’t turn out the way you plan. Sometimes, you make choices and—”
“The motherly advice is really warming my heart, here, Kate. But you know what? We’ve been fine without you. We’ve done just fine. We didn’t need you. So spare me your sanctimonious explanations. At least be honest.” I ran my hand through my hair and tried to find my equilibrium. There was only one thing I needed from this woman in front of me. Only one question I’d always wanted to ask. “Just answer me this. Just… How could you do it? How could you walk out that door? Leave your husband and your kids and never look back? What kind of person can do a thing like that?”
She gave a defeated sigh, then turned broken eyes to me. The pang in my heart was only out of an instinctual sympathy. I didn’t feel badly for her. I didn’t feel anything for her.
“I’m trying to tell you. I was young. One minute, I was a teenager. The next, I was a wife. And a mother. It was just… too much. I never… I never knew how to handle things back then. I was insecure and there were younger men who paid attention to me. Who made me feel young and carefree, too. Like them. And then Rick came along…”
“Okay, eww. Got it.”
“He offered me a way out. I didn’t realize I’d been looking for one. But I never… I never thought it would be forever. After only a couple weeks, I missed you and your brother terribly. I called your father. He told me to meet him at his office so we could talk things out. I never showed, Layla. I never went to meet him.”
The weight of that statement and the forlorn way she delivered it almost made me feel badly for her. Almost.
“Why not?” I asked, more gently than I intended.
“Because Rick made me choose. Made me choose him or your father. I knew I wasn’t happy before, why would I expect to be happy a second time? So, I chose Rick. Mistakenly believed my happiness depended on something outside of myself. But he didn’t make me happy either. We broke it off after only a few months. I went to the house that day. It was fall. I parked my car at the end of the street and watched you two playing in the leaves with your dad. And you looked… joyous. It’s the only way I can describe it. You had on that rainbow hat? You remember, the one with the tassels that hung down to here? And you were smiling, and Bruce was laughing and… I knew you were better off without me.”
“How noble of you,” I said, trying to regain the proper snottiness to my voice. It wouldn’t come.
“I wasn’t well in those days, Layla.”
I tossed her a bone on that one. “I know. It took me a while to figure that out.”
“But I straightened out. Truly. I had lots of therapy.” At that admission, she actually let out with a tiny giggle. The sound was so completely unexpected, so achingly nostalgic, that I hadn’t realized I’d let my guard down.
I took in in her trim physique, obvious even in the scrubs, and found myself hoping I had inherited those genes. I peered at her lips—lips that were tipped ever so slightly into a smile as she giggled. I knew that if she’d smile just a bit wider, I would see the crooked tooth, the one my skull had shifted one afternoon when she was tickling me. She had refused to get it fixed, insisting that it would forever remind her of me. Before I could wonder if that too had been erased, she grinned uncomfortably at me, and I could just make out the slight turn of that incisor. My eyes snapped up to her face, and I took a step back, bumping into the desk.
I was having a conversation with my mother. Almost more dumbfounding than that, I found that I was actually hearing her. Hearing what she had to say. And even if I didn’t agree with her choices, agree with the way she had left us so easily… I allowed myself to let her be human.
She must have sensed this shift in me, because her voice had changed from tense and beseeching to simply… pained. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, trying to hold back the looming tears.
She gave another burst of air toward her forehead and continued. “I was so impressed with everyone at the hospital that I went back to school and got my nursing degree. It was a huge turning point in my life. I continued with my therapy, realized the gravity of my selfish mistakes.” She put a hand to her heart and said, “I was filled with such regret, Layla. If you listen to only one thing I’ve said today, please hear that. Please know that it’s the truth.”
I believed her. I couldn’t forgive her, but I believed her.
She was caught up in her retelling, shaking her head at the memories before she continued. “By then, years had gone by. I couldn’t quite believe it. I wanted nothing more than to try and make things right. But after so much time, I knew it was too late. I never thought you, or your brother, or your father… I knew that you had built your own life together. I knew I wasn’t a part of that. By then, there was nothing left of me in you kids. You were all his, and he deserved you. He earned it from you. You, especially. You and your father were always so much alike.” Her eyes were glistening with genuine tears as she added, “But I did love you—so much—and I am sorry. Truly, Layla.”
Okay, fine, yes, I was crying. I admit it.
I wasn’t feeling badly for her, exactly. After all that time, there was no way I was going to feel sympathy for her after what she’d put us all through. And even in that moment, I knew it was pretty damned unlikely that we’d be able to salvage any kind of relationship after something like that. And trust me, I wasn’t looking for one. This was a chance encounter. It’s not like she tracked me down to tell me these things. I was only willing to give her so much credit.
I was simply crying from the sheer waste of it all. The utter helplessness, the lost time, the alternate life. I was crying because I understood her regret, her indecision, her insecurities. I was crying because that was my mother standing there in front of me, for the first time in almost twenty years, practically begging for some sign that I might someday forgive her. Absolve her guilt. Maybe even lose just a smidge of my long-held hatred for her.
Sometimes, you just have to learn when to let go.
I made the decision that I could toss her just the slightest morsel here. I couldn’t grant her my absolute forgiveness—I’d spent too many years cultivating my anger to give that up so easily—but I could at least give her something. I could at least leave her with just the smallest bit of peace.
“Thank you for that.” I swiped my eyes and met hers as I added, “You’re wrong about something, though, you know. I look a lot like Dad, that’s true.” My hand reached out on its own as I laid it against her arm. “But he always said I was more like you.”
Chapter 29
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
I really wanted to call Trip, hear his voice, tell him about my day. But not like that. Not by using the encounter with my mother as an excuse to talk to him. I could tell him everything once things between us got squared away.
If they got squared away.
Right then, what I needed was a dose of my best friend.
The twins would be in school for a couple more hours and Pickford was at work, so I probably couldn’t have planned a better time to have a breakdown. I went right to Lisa’s house and came in through the sunroom door at the back. She turned from her seated position in the middle of her family room, and I could see that I’d interrupted her in the middle of packing up her winter clothes.
I was familiar with this ritual, as I’d seen her perform this task twice a year, every year, since the day we met. She had towers of clear, plastic bins stacked around the room, labels informing her as to the contents of each box. And not just boring categories like “shorts” or “sweaters”. No. Lisa’s bins sported terminology like “Kate Spade Summer Bags” and “Ass-tas
tic 7 Jeans”.
She was excited to see me after so many weeks and lunged across the room to give me a laughing hug hello. I hugged her back, happy to see her, but gutted from the day’s events.
That’s when she saw my face.
She knew I was there for something big, even before I said the words. “I just saw my mother.”
Her eyes went buggy, but then she promptly put her hand in the air, halting further speech. “Hold that thought.”
If I weren’t feeling so miserable, I’d have laughed at the torn label she was holding in her hands: “Marc Jacobs Fuck-me Heels.” I guessed it was time to re-categorize now that the twins were learning how to read.
She led me to the kitchen and poured me a big ol’ glass of wine, then we settled in on a couple stools at her island. Lisa ignored the clothes explosion in the adjoining room to give me her undivided attention. She propped her elbows on the granite surface in front of her, rested her chin in her hands, and said, “Okay. Spill it.”
So spill it I did.
I told her everything that had happened at Beth Israel, every single word of the bizarre conversation, every thought that had run through my mind during the whole encounter. Lisa offered wide eyes or questions or words of comfort throughout my tale, helping me to sort out the myriad of emotions racing through my brain.
As I neared the end of my story, I actually felt a hundred times better than I had only moments before.
Thank God for best friends.
“Wow,” I said on an exhale. “I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I never understood that saying before, but I feel… lighter.”
“Screw you. I’m feeling heavier than ever.”
Lisa’s belly had bumped out considerably in the weeks since I’d been gone. She still had four more months to go, and I could only imagine she’d be bigger than a manatee by then.
