Page 50 of A Love Like Christmas Time
“The day I gave birth to you was the happiest day of my life,” she prefaces with a nostalgic smile. “But the time after that… It was hard. I’m sure you did the math at one point.”
Her eyes dart to Lauren, and she quickly explains, “I was seventeen when I had Caleb. James had turned eighteen a only few weeks before he was born.” Emilia’s smile turns tight. “Our parents abandoned us because I was going through with the pregnancy without getting married. Somehow, we managed. By luck, we got a flat, and we thought we had it all figured out. We had all those grand plans that only naïve seventeen-year-olds could come up with.” She turns back to me. “After you were born, we were fish out of water. Your dad spent most of his time at work, pulling 80- to 100-hour weeks to keep a roof over our head, only coming home to sleep. And I was justdrowning.” She closes her eyes and takes a shaky breath.
“I barely slept more than three hours at once, because I was afraid you’d stop breathing and there was nobody who could stay with you while I took a nap or shower. I was a stranger in my own body, watching life happen through a fog, snapped at you and James for the tiniest things, every movement took so much strength.” She clears her throat.
“It was only you and me, and a mountain of people who were waiting for me to fail. Most of all, me. Now I know what I was going through is called postpartum depression, but back then all I knew was that every time you cried, I felt likethe worst mother in the world. Like you might be better off without me.”
She swallows hard, her fingers white as they dig into the edge of the counter, a faraway look in her eyes, telling me how dark the place her brain led her toactuallywas.
“Those thoughts went away over time as you grew up. And by that, I mean I thought about them less, not that they were gone. They never left. After a while, things were finally changing for the better. Your dad got promoted and finally worked fewer hours, everything was about to turn better. Then, when you were five, I was pregnant again.”
She draws a shaky breath, biting the inside of her cheek, but her tears overflow, running down her cheeks.
“I lost your brother.” She sobs and quickly wipes them away. “And everything came crashing down on me at once. The voices in my head were louder than ever, telling me I’m the worst mother in the world. That I killed a child, how could I be trusted with you? They told me you would be better off without me. My parents’ voices that called me a failure, that I’d be the worst mother and example for you and suddenly,I believed them.” She wipes her tears away, but new ones follow. “So I ran.”
Her sobs turn uncontrollable, and my blood turns cold.
It is one thing to imagine all the ways you failed your mother that caused her to abandon you. Hearing it was never your fault to begin with?
I thought I believed it. I really did. Yet, even hearing it from her that the reason wasn’t me at all?
“But why all this time?” I ask, swallowing past the knot of emotions in my throat.
She takes a shaky breath, wringing her hands. “I was only supposed to be gone for a little while, only enough time that you wouldn’t have to see me struggling with the loss. Or that’s how I justified leaving. I stayed with a friend, and toher it became apparent that what I was going through was not something I could deal with myself. She got me into four weeks of impatient care. Then a residential program that went another three months. Both helped me deal with losing…” She wipes a tear away with trembling fingers “…losing your brother. Heather told me I should go back, and please believe me, I wanted to, but I was paralyzed with fear.
“I knew I was hurting you by staying away. And that I would hurt you by coming back, too.” She clears her throat. “But the more I waited, the more I convinced myself that you were fine without me. That you didn’t want to see me anyway. That you’d healed.”
“Well, there are some wounds that never heal,” I say, holding her gaze. “I’m sorry you went through that, for what it’s worth.”
And I am. Truly. If anyone else knows that mental health is not a joke, it’s me. Ironically, thanks to her.
“I called on your tenth birthday,” she whispers.
What?
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “You did?”
She nods. “Before I could even ask for you, your father called me a disgrace and told me to stay away. I thought he was protecting you. Who was I to force my way back into your life?” She shrugs, sadness radiating from her movement. “He confirmed everything I was afraid of, all of my doubts.”
A cold wave washes over me, my clammy hand squishing Lauren’s. I never knew she had tried to call.
“He didn’t do much protecting. Lots of anything with me, really.”
Cold betrayal grips my heart. How could he have kept that a secret from me?
Was he trying to protect me after all? Or was he just angry with her?
“I only questioned it when you turned eighteen and he told me you were gone. Before that, I had no reason to doubt that he did what was best for you. He fought so hard for me, forus.” Dejection makes her crumble into herself, eyes dropping to the ground.
Silence hangs heavy in the room as she searches the ground for her next words.
“I searched for you over the years, but I couldn’t find you. Until Dawn saw your picture in the papers a month back.”
My eyebrows knit together, confused. The papers?
“Oh.” Lauren breathes and when I turn my head to glance at her, she looks downright shocked. “The autumn fair. You must have been in one of the pictures they took of Nic,” she whispers and I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose. Right. Nic’s ex called all paparazzi he could to Wayward Hollow for the autumn fair, supposedly to embarrass Nic or something like that. His plan didn’t work out too well, but the endeavor apparently still made its way into several magazines.
“We are going to be here until the end of next week,” she whispers, snaking her arms around her own waist, probably trying to keep herself together and still not meeting my eyes. “If you have any more questions, or any more you want to talk about, if you need anything from me, I am at the hotel.” She takes a step back from the counter. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping Dawn away from you. I think she got carried away with the idea of having an older brother. I’ll talk to her.”
