Impossible Things

by Alexandra McBrayer

  They placed their orders and sat in silence for a few minutes before her mom started to speak. “When I was young I had a lot of boyfriends.”

  That was news to Lucy and she realized again how little she knew about her mom’s life before she met her dad.

  “None of them meant anything,” her mom continued, “until I met Jeremy. I was eighteen and had just finished school. A friend and I went to Paris and I met him at a bookstore. It was instant. From the moment that I looked into his eyes I knew he was the one.”

  Lucy looked at her mom in shock and Rosaline smiled. “We had a whirlwind courtship. It was two weeks and it seemed to last a lifetime and yet somehow also pass in an instant. When it was time for me to go home, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave him.”

  The waiter came and brought their food but both of their plates sat untouched as Rosaline told her story. “My two week vacation turned into six months. Mom understood but dad didn’t. He wanted me to come home and to go to college, I didn’t care about college anymore I just wanted to be with the man I loved.”

  Lucy watched her mom’s face and she was startled at the difference in it, just talking about this other man, the man before Lucy’s dad, made her mom’s cheeks glow and her eyes bright.

  “My dad and I fought for the very first time in my life. He said that he would take away his financial support if I didn’t come home, but I didn’t care. Jeremy had an apartment and a job; he would take care of me. A few months after that mom came to see us in Paris. She had talked dad into allowing me to go to university in Paris. I enrolled the following spring and life was good.”

  Rosaline’s eyes dulled and Lucy felt her stomach clench. She knew it hadn’t ended well or her mom would have never met her dad and Lucy wouldn’t be hearing this story now. The look on her mom’s face made her not want to hear the ending.

  “Later that year I found out I was pregnant.”

  Her mom looked up and their eyes met and Lucy saw that Rosaline had tears in her eyes. She pushed her plate to the side and reached across the table to take her mom’s hand.

  Rosaline took a few deep breaths and continued, “We were over the moon. I can still remember how happy Jeremy was when I told him. He asked me to marry him and I said yes, of course. It was all I had ever wanted. With our news my dad came around. He reinstated my money and he and mom came and helped us to pick out an apartment. Then-“

  She took a deep breath and grabbed her water to take a drink. When she sat it down she reached out for Lucy’s hand again. “Then I lost the baby. I was seven months along, and I thought I was well beyond the point when anything could happen. It crushed me. When that baby died, when our son died, I felt like I died with him.”

  Lucy couldn’t help the tears that coursed down her own face. They matched her moms and the two of them sat and cried for a few minutes before Rosaline was able to continue. “Jeremy was very patient with me. He did everything he could but I couldn’t feel anything. I stayed in bed and slept all day. He would come home from work and I would still be in bed. He cried, he told me he would do anything to make me feel better, but of course nothing helped.”

  Her tears began to dry up and Rosaline released Lucy’s hand and sat back in her chair. She took a deep breath and carefully wiped her face.

  “He didn’t know what to do so he called my mom. I hadn’t told my parents that I’d lost the baby and I hadn’t wanted him to either. By the time he told her it had been a month and she was so hurt. I didn’t care though. I didn’t care about anything but my lost baby.”

  Lucy wiped her own face and took a drink as Rosaline finished her story. “He tried, I know he did, he tried so hard but after ten months of my not being able to get out of bed, of my not responding to him, he couldn’t take it anymore. He called my mom and asked her to come get me. She did. I will never forget his face that day; he stood there crying as I got into the car.”

  Lucy felt her stomach squeeze in pain and she asked, “You never saw him again?”

  Rosaline nodded. “I did. Yes. He came to check on me a few times, but a year and a half later I still wasn’t well. Looking at him hurt, and I told him that. After that I never saw him again but he would call once in awhile to check on me. Finally I started to get better but then my dad died. He called me when he learned about my dad, we talked and I heard the regret in his voice for everything that had been lost, but it was too late. Then a few years later I met your dad.”

  Lucy couldn’t help her curiosity, “What happened to him? To Jeremy?”

  Rosaline smiled and it was a sad smile as she said, “He lives in the south of France. He’s married and has two kids just a few years younger than you.”

  Lucy had to ask, “Do you regret it?”

  Rosaline nodded. “Every day of my life since then. I don’t regret you but I regret losing him. I’ve never stopped loving him and I don’t think I ever will. That’s why I don’t want you to make the same mistake that I did. I married your father for safety. I was never going to love him the way that I loved Jeremy. I was never going to ache for him the way that I ached for Jeremy. He was safe.”

  Safe. That was exactly what had drawn Lucy to Sam. The idea of being safe.

  Her mom reached across and touched her hand, “When you started growing up, and you started stealing…I blamed myself for that and for so many other things. I was worried that you could see that I didn’t love your father the way I should have. I was upset that we didn’t have the money to give you the things you wanted. I realized that by my trying to be safe I had taken a lot of choices away from you.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t blame you.”

  Rosaline smiled. “You don’t have to. I’m your mother and I blame myself. I wanted to call Isabella and get money but I knew your dad would leave if I did that, and I thought that you needed a father more than you needed money. It never occurred to me that you needed your grandmother more than anything.”

  Lucy smiled. “I have Lennox blood in me. Isabella said that blood always shows.”

  Rosaline laughed. “She believes that and I guess she’s right. You have some of your dad in you, but more than anyone you’re like your grandmother. I should have seen that sooner. I should have recognized it and helped you.”

  Lucy hesitated but then she asked, “Do you love dad?”

  Rosaline, serious again, nodded. “I do. It’s not the kind of love that I had with Jeremy, but I love him. Now you answer me a question.”

  Lucy looked up at her mom, worried what the question would be but said, “Okay,” anyway.

  “What about this Lucas?”

  Lucy sat back. “What about him?”

  Rosaline shook her head and smiled. “You’re not fooling me. I’m no longer walking around with blinders on, so tell me the truth.”

  Lucy hesitated. The last time she had talked to her mom about sex, she had been fifteen and they’d had ‘the talk’. She didn’t want to say too much but she wanted to be honest. “We’ve had sex.”

  “And it was good?”

  Lucy realized her face was turning red but she couldn’t help the grin spread across it. “It was good.”

  “I heard him tell you he loves you. Do you love him?”

  Lucy looked down and pulled her plate towards her. She took her time and cut a bite of cold chicken and ate it before looking back up at her mom but Rosaline wasn’t deterred.

  Finally she said, “I don’t know.”

  Rosaline shrugged. “If you don’t know then I would say you don’t love him. If you loved him the way that you should then you would know.”

  Lucy sat down her fork. “What if-“

  Her mom leaned forward, “What if what?”

  Lucy felt her throat close and the words were hard to get out. “What if he hurts me?”

  Rosaline sighed. “Oh baby there’s always a chance of that. But you can’t live your life afraid that you’re going to get hurt. That was my legacy to you and I wish I could take it back, b
ut I can’t. You don’t have to repeat my mistakes. If he’s your Jeremy then you have to go for it. I don’t regret one single day of our time together even with the way it ended. I’m sorry, but I don’t regret it.”

  Lucy picked up a breadstick and took a bite of it. She sat it back on her plate and then wiped her mouth. She felt embarrassed to ask her next question but she had no one else to ask. “What if I think I have feelings for him but it’s just because of the sex?”

  She wasn’t able to look up so she didn’t see her mom’s reaction but she heard the hesitation in Rosaline’s voice as she asked, “What do you mean?”

  Lucy looked up, and her eyes darted everywhere but to her mom’s face. “I mean…what if I think I have feelings but it’s just because the sex was so good. It wasn’t that way with Sam and I don’t have anything else to compare it to.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught the look of surprise on her mom’s face. “Oh you mean you never…before Sam?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No, and I never enjoyed it that much with Sam.”

  Her mom coughed and Lucy swore that she did it to cover up a laugh but she wasn’t going to turn and look to see. After a minute Rosaline said, “Well good sex is important. Okay…I’m not going to lie, it’s very important, but you have to ask yourself if you care about him apart from the sex. Do you enjoy spending time with him when you’re not having sex?”

  Lucy was frustrated. She smacked her hand on the table and said, “That’s just it, we’ve never spent any time together and not had sex!”

  At that Rosaline did laugh and Lucy shook her head in self disgust. She was a grown woman of twenty-seven and here she was asking her mom for advice on sex. Honestly the world seemed to have turned on its axis and what had been up before was now down.

  They finished their lunch, eating their now cold food and Rosaline told her that she had some serious thinking to do.

  She knew she did, she just didn’t know where to start.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They went back to Isabella’s and her grandmother was waiting on them. She apologized again to Lucy and tried to explain what had happened. She had met Lucas long before she met Rodrigo. They had run into each other at different events during the year, and had known each other well enough to say hello, but that was it.

  Isabella said that she’d thought he was gorgeous but far too young. She hadn’t been attracted to him in the slightest but she’d liked him as a person. Rodrigo had been in town for business and he and Lucas had been having lunch at The Ritz at the same time as Isabella. Lucas introduced them and that was it.

  It didn’t matter that Rodrigo was the same age as Lucas; with Rodrigo age hadn’t mattered at all. After a few months of long distance courtship and romance, Rodrigo had moved to London to be with her, and because of that, she saw more and more of Lucas.

  The more she got to know him the more she sensed that behind his smooth exterior was a lonely man. She felt that way even more so after Rodrigo had shared details of Lucas’ childhood with her.

  One day she and Lucas had been talking and she had mentioned her granddaughter. He had already seen pictures of Lucy and after that every time they talked, he had asked about news of her. When she found out that Lucy was planning to move to London she knew she had to introduce them.

  She didn’t want Lucy making the same mistake that Rosaline had and choosing a man that she didn’t love with her whole heart.

  “I admit that I’m a snob. But I’m not a snob about money; I’m a snob about experience, about life. I wanted you to have a European man because that’s what I thought you’d be happier with. They’re different from American men and you’re a Lennox. You deserve to be treated the way a European man will treat you.”

  Lucy looked at her grandmother, and felt her heart softening towards the older woman. She didn’t want her grandmother to know it so she said, “You didn’t believe I could find someone on my own.”

  Her grandmother raised her hand and waved that off. “Nonsense. Lennox women never need help finding men. I just thought he was gorgeous and sexy and even if you didn’t fall in love with him then I was sure that he could show you a good time in bed. He’s got that look about him.”

  After the day she’d had and the conversation with her mom, Lucy found that she’d lost the ability to be shocked. First she had admitted her limited experience to her mom and now her grandmother was giving her sex advice. The world was getting stranger every day.

  Rodrigo came in a few minutes later and the three women looked up. He was smiling as he brought with him the smell of clean, cold air. “Hello my beautiful ladies, how are we?”

  Lucy realized that all three of them were smiling as he made his way around to each of them, kissing her and Rosaline on the cheek before leaning down to kiss Isabella on the mouth.

  “Sit,” Isabella said and patted the seat next to her.

  He hesitated, “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  Isabella shook her head. “Impossible. I was just going to try and convince Lucy to call Lucas.”

  They were all watching him, so they all saw the look that went across his face. It was surprise and…disappointment? Lucy didn’t have to ask though because her mom did it for her. “You don’t like the idea of Lucy dating your friend?”

  Rodrigo looked at Rosaline, “I have no problem with Lucy dating anyone she wants to. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “And you think he’ll hurt her?”

  Rodrigo shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s always been hard to read but this thing with Lucy has made it worse. I can’t read him and he won’t tell me what’s going on. I heard him say the same things that you did on that balcony but he won’t talk about it and I worry about her.”

  Isabella grabbed his hand, “I love you even more for that but Lucy is a grown woman and she’s a Lennox. She’s tough.”

  He looked at Lucy then, “I know you are, I do. I just want you to be happy.”

  That was all she wanted too. She just wanted to be happy and right now she was confused. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, would make her happy.

  She went to her room a few minutes later, all ideas of leaving London gone now that she better understood what her grandmother had been trying to achieve. She took off her clothes and lay down to try and take a nap but after tossing and turning for an hour she finally got up. There was an idea floating around in the back of her mind that wouldn’t go away but it was crazy. Wasn’t it?

  She thought about taking a bubble bath but decided against it, she felt itchy and anxious and she knew that a bath would lead to thoughts of Lucas and that would lead to other things and right now she needed to put sex out of her mind. Sex was what had started this mess in the first place.

  She thought about reading but nothing she had sounded remotely interesting.

  She got up, got dressed and decided to go for a walk. Maybe the cold air would do her good and help clear her head.

  She told her mom where she was going since Isabella and Rodrigo were nowhere to be found and she headed out until the twilight.

  The sun was going down and the sky was a pretty lavender color. The air was cooler and for the first time she actually felt a little more like herself as she walked.

  She was nearing the end of the block when she could no longer push thoughts of Lucas away. She took out her phone and called him.

  He answered on the second ring, “Lucy?”

  The sound of his voice made her heart pound and she had to swallow before she could talk. “Hi. Are you busy?”

  “No. Not for you. Why?”

  She looked around her, at the cars rushing by and at the houses with their lit windows with lives going on behind them and gathered her courage. “Would you like to go for a walk with me?”

  He hesitated before replying and then asked, “A walk?”

  “Yes. Just a walk, nothing more. I want us to walk and to talk. Are you willing?”

  “Yes. Do I come p
ick you up?”

  “No. It’s a walk. I’ll meet you at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. Ten minutes?”

  He sounded hesitant but he said, “Okay.”

  She hung up before she could change her mind.

  She got to the pond before he did and sat down on a bench to watch the sunset. Her hands were shaking and it was from more than the cold, she was nervous. Without sex, would they have anything at all in common? Their lives were so vastly different that she didn’t think so, but she had to make sure. She wasn’t going to allow herself to fall for him just because the sex had been so good. She was a modern woman and she was smarter than that. When the sex tampered off in a relationship, you needed something else to sustain the connection.