Chapter 31
MADDY
Then
Ican't breathe. It's like there's no air, only a thick fog pressing against my chest and all the noise around me. The beeping machines, the frantic rush of nurses and doctors. It’s all too much.
I keep blinking, but nothing feels real.
The cold, sterile ER waiting room, the sharp scent of antiseptic filling my nose, making my stomach churn.
My fingers are tight around my mom's hand, her skin damp and clammy.
She's as scared as I am. I can't look away from the door, can't stop expecting to see my dad.
To see him walking through that door with a tired, confused look on his face.
“False alarm,” he’d say with a sheepish grin. “Sorry I scared you girls.”
But I can't breathe. I can't think. I want to call Ben even though I know he’s on the ice and won’t answer. I was getting ready to go to his game when Mom screamed for me to call 911.
The only other person I really want to call is my dad. I want him to fix this. I need him to fix this.
A door opens, and a doctor steps through. He’s tall, his light blue scrubs in complete contrast with the darkness I feel. His mouth is tight, his eyes solemn.
“Are you…are you the family of Mr. Clairmont?” he asks, his voice gentle.
I nod, but I can't speak. My mouth is dry and I feel like I’m going to throw up. My mother’s hand trembles in mine, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s holding her breath.
The doctor steps closer, and I brace myself. He doesn’t sit down, just stands there, looking at us, like he's trying to figure out how to give us the worst news of our lives.
I don’t hear the actual words, but I feel them. That cold sinking feeling in my stomach. A heavy, suffocating weight spreads through my chest. I hear my gasp. Feel Mom’s grip go limp in my hand. I can feel the tears slipping down my cheeks, but I can’t stop them.
He’s gone.
NOW
“You are so like your father.”
I freeze, sandwich halfway to my mouth, as I stare at my mother. Her light brown hair catches the sunlight, holding on to the golden streaks summer left behind. But there are more gray strands now woven through.
She’s only fifty-two, but time has started to leave its subtle signs. The soft lines around her eyes and mouth seem more pronounced as she smiles at me.
“I swear, you got your stomach from him. The way you add so much pepper to your mac and cheese, how you both hate any and all pickled things, and of course,” she nods at my lunch, “how you insist on dipping your grilled cheese sandwiches in your tomato soup.”
“Some things are just better together.” I take a large bite of my favourite comfort food. This meal reminds me of him. It was one of his go-to’s when Mom was out. He’d make soup and sandwiches and we’d work on a jigsaw puzzle at our kitchen table, with CBC radio playing softly in the background.
“Speaking of things that are better together…” Mom hedges, peering at me over her mug of tea.
“I can’t believe I gave you that opening.”
She sets her mug down, giggling. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but if I wait any longer to bombard you with motherly concern, something inside me is going to burst.”
I gasp in shock. “Was that an appendix joke?”
She presses her lips together, looking chastised. “Too soon?”
I snort, pushing my plate away. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to start.” I’ve given Mom snippets of my life’s inner workings since I moved to Ottawa, but she deserves more than just a choppy highlight reel.
“Start at the beginning.”
So I do. I tell her about how I felt displaced moving in with Derek. How we’d grown even further apart living in the same city. That being in the same condo didn’t bring us closer together. How the more time I spent with him, the more doubts I had about our relationship.
I tell her about my job. About my struggle to set myself apart as a leader at the foundation. All the stupid screw-ups surrounding the Gala. Of how I love my boss, but I still feel vulnerable.
Finally, I tell her about Ben. How a chance, midday encounter made me feel more in five minutes than I had in years. How he’d stepped up, without question, when I needed him. How he continued to show up for me. Again and again. In every way imaginable.
Mom listens to the entire tale, occasionally taking sips of her tea. When I’m done, my throat is dry and my soup is cold.
“So yeah,” I shrug, suddenly exhausted. “You could say it’s been an eventful few months.” I laugh shakily before asking the question I’ve been dreading. “Are you disappointed in me?” It comes out quietly, but my mother’s eyes widen like I’ve screamed at her.
“Why would I be disappointed in you?”
“Take your pick. For calling off my wedding? For leaving Derek and not looking back? For getting back together with my ex-boyfriend?”
A smile lights up her face. “So you are back together?”
“Seriously, Mom? That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“Well, you’ve both been so vague about your relationship since I arrived! I read online that you young people don’t use labels anymore, so I didn’t want to ask. I thought, maybe, you were just sleeping together.”
“Mother!” I bury my face in my hands, briefly regretting surviving my surgery.
“Darling,” my mother tuts. “You weren’t very good at pretending you weren’t having sex with Ben when you were a teenager, and I regret to inform you that you haven’t gotten any better at it with age.
” She reaches across the table and grabs one of my hands that is still covering my face.
“Now. Did you really think I’d be disappointed in you for calling off the wedding? ”
“Well…yes. I thought you liked Derek.”
Her slender shoulders rise and fall. “I do. I don’t like him for you, but I like him well enough.”
I blink, thrown. “But…but you were so happy when we started dating,” I sputter. “You were practically floating on air.”
“I was happy because after six years of doing nothing but studying and working, my daughter was finally going outside. Talking to people. Laughing again.”
“Then why didn’t you say something when we got engaged?”
She sighs and looks away. “I didn’t want to interfere. You told me you were happy, and I wanted to believe you. But the truth is, sweetie,” her voice lowers, “I’ve always felt like I was to blame for you and Ben breaking up all those years ago.”
My chest tightens. “What? Mom, why would you feel that way?”
She swallows and when her gaze finds me it’s soft and glassy. “After we lost your dad…I wasn’t myself. I could barely function, let alone take care of you. I leaned on you far more than I should have. You were only nineteen, and I made you feel responsible for me.”
As she talks I get the feeling these words have been sitting inside her for years, waiting for permission to be said.
“When Ben wanted you to move to Philadelphia, I should’ve encouraged you to go.
I should’ve told you to fight for what you had with him.
But the thought of losing you—of having you so far away, so soon after your father died—” Her voice breaks, just slightly, taking my heart right along with it. A hot tear slips down my cheek.
“When you told me it was over, I let myself believe it was for the best. I was proud of you for focusing on school, for chasing the career you always dreamed of. But deep down, I was just relieved you stayed. I didn’t want you to end up like me.”
The pain I feel at my core has nothing to do with my recovery. “Why?”
She draws in a shaky breath. “I left university when I got pregnant with you. I always meant to go back once you started kindergarten, but then your grandmother got sick and I became her caretaker. And then I kept telling myself it was too late. That life had made its choice for me. Your dad had a thriving career and was proud to provide for us. He was happy. But when he died…” She pauses, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I realized I had nothing that was mine. No career, no safety net.”
Her voice is soft but sure when she adds, “I didn’t want you to ever rely on someone the way I had to rely on your father. I wanted you to stand on your own. And when I saw how you threw yourself into your studies after Ben left, I told myself it was because you were stronger than I was.”
She draws a breath that trembles. “But maybe…if I’d been more supportive, if I’d pushed past my fear instead of letting it shape yours, maybe you would’ve found a way to make it work.”
I’ve been having that same conversation in my head since the moment Ben and I decided to try again.
What if I’d gone to Philadelphia?
What if we’d tried long-distance?
What if I hadn’t given up so easily?
What if? What if? What if?
“I think,” I run my fingers through my damp hair.
“I think everything happened like it was supposed to. We were so young when we fell in love and as much as it hurt when we broke up, I think it needed to happen. We were both able to focus on what we needed to at the time. I think if we tried to do that and be a couple, we wouldn’t have been able to be what the other needed and we would have wound up resenting one another. ”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t know. He makes me so happy, Mom. Like, stupidly happy. And when I picture the future I want, he’s in it. Front and center.”
“But…”
“But what if it doesn’t work out?”
My mother’s sad smile puts a halt to my spiral. “What if it does? We have no way of knowing what tomorrow holds, Madelyn. I thought I’d have eighty years with your father. In the end, it was just over twenty. But I wouldn’t trade a second of that time.”
“I’m scared I’ll lose him again.”
“I know. But what frightens you more? Having him and maybe losing him again? Or not having him at all?”
I don’t have to consider it. “The second one.”
She chuckles. “I thought so. Talk to him, sweetie. If you two can be honest and open with one another, I really believe things will work out.”
Ben’s been open and honest with me this whole time. It’s me that’s been holding back, afraid of saying too much, feeling too much.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
He’d said it so casually. I’d wanted to say it back. Because I do love him. So much. Maybe being honest with Ben has to start with me being honest with myself.
“Now,” Mom says, setting down her empty mug, “I’ve only got a few days with my baby girl before I fly home, and I intend to make the most of them. Why don’t you go lie down for a bit, and when you’re feeling up to it, we’ll make your favourite icebox cookies?”
“That sounds perfect.” I ease myself up from the table. I’m still sore but better than yesterday. I’m healing. In more ways than one, I suspect.
As I turn, I pause to watch her. She’s at Ben’s sink, rinsing the mugs and humming an old Boney M tune she used to play on vinyl when I was a kid. I’m struck by a memory of her and dad dancing to this song, holding each other and laughing as they spun around the kitchen.
“Mom?”
She looks over her shoulder. “Yes, sweetie?”
“I’m really glad you’re here.”
Her eyes crinkle as she smiles. “Me too.”