Page 131 of When We Had Forever
“Shh,” she says. “I’m thinking.”
Well, that’s more than Kate did. Something winds tight, some inner piece of me that craves her approval, even though, as she’s pointed out, I’m an adult, and I can’t say exactly what I want her to approveof.
Still, the feeling makes me restless enough to drive me out of my seat and toward the sliding doors to the deck, where I stare out through the panes. The forest blurs in a misty panorama of silver.
Dishes clatter. The water snaps off. Finally, my mother appears and hands over a freshly opened seltzer water. The can sucks the warmth from my palm.
“I think you should call him,” she says.
I almost drop her offering. “What? Why? There’s nothing to say.”
“Isn’t there?” There’s a strangeness in her voice, a gentle sort of leading, as if she knows something I don’t.
“No,” I say. “If we talk again, it’ll only make things messier. And I can’t go back to that. Not when this is finally starting to make some sense.”
She cocks her head. She’s wiped off the mascara mess, and now appears as an older, wiser version of myself. “I’ll just say this one thing, then, and that’s that I’ve never seen you glow the way you did just now. When you were talking about him, every time you said his name, you had this look on your face. Like you were suddenly more alive than you ever were with Michael.”
I hide the purse of my lips with a swig of fizzy water. “Mom. Helied to me. Then and now.”
She sighs, tucks my hair back behind my ear. “And then he told you the truth. And I’ve been overprotective all your life, but here we are, and now I’m going to do better. We all mess up, sweetheart. And then we learn. All of us are growing up, all the time, and I don’t think there’s a person in this world who doesn’t deserve a second chance.”
A second chance. I can’t believe I’m hearing this from my mother, of all people. “Butyounever had a second chance. After Jasper died, you were never the same. Some things cut too deep to ever recover from.” I clamp my teeth together. I can’t believe I even went there.
She doesn’t fall apart, though. Tears only pool in her eyes. “No, I was never the same. I never will be again. But I could’ve done a better job than I did. I could’ve...” She glances down, away.
“What?”
A lifetime passes while she considers. “Celebrated your birthday.”
That jars me. I didn’t know she realized how much that bothered me.
“I should have,” she continues.
I take a mile-long breath. “You still could, you know. If you want to. Next year. My half birthday’s kind of ruined forever, anyway.”
She glances up, her smile shy. “Maybe I could take you to Woodhouse? We could get massages. Then go to lunch. Something fancy.”
I gape. And then I’m crying, too, and she starts all over again, and within moments, I’m sobbing on her shoulder like a little kid with a skinned knee, my arms thrown around her neck.
When we finally pull apart, I say, “You’ll tell Dad? About Greece? Why I have to go?”
“Of course.”
“What will he think?”
My mother pauses. “Probably whatever I tell him to think.”
I giggle, which ends on a hiccup. How saucy of her.
By the door, she fiddles with her umbrella and takes one last look around. “What you’ve done here is incredible.”
I help her with her coat. “You like it?”
“I love it. I’ll be honest, I never really understood this place before. But now I think I do.”
I nod. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“And, Mina?” She turns back in the open doorway, framed by the silken wet outside. “You were right before. You can never start over. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start new.”
