23. Emily
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Emily
I’m at Mrs. Potts’s when it happens.
She lived three doors down from the house I shared with Henry, and she was the one bright spot on that whole street.
Back when I was married I’d sneak down to her place just to breathe for an hour, and after I left him I kept it up, every week, because she’s the one person from that part of my life I actually want to keep.
She makes tea I pretend to like and tells me about her roses and the neighbor kids she can’t stand.
I sit in her warm cluttered living room and get to be a person nobody’s keeping score on.
Today it’s a rosebush that won’t bloom. I’m only half listening, honestly.
I’m still floating a little after the last two days with Richard.
Then a car door slams out front, hard, and Mrs. Potts stops mid-sentence.
Her face goes pale and careful. She sets her cup down.
“Are you expecting somebody?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, because the front door’s already opening, no knock, and my mother walks into Mrs. Potts’s living room like she owns the place.
She looks like hell. Thinner than I’ve ever seen her, hard around the mouth, eyes too bright and darting. I haven’t seen her since the day I told her I was done, and she’s aged a year in a couple months.
“There you are,” she says, and there’s something pleased about it, like she’s caught me. “Knew you’d still be hiding out down here. You always did like this old woman better than your own family. I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”
My blood goes cold, but it makes sense she found me. She’s my mother. She knew Mrs. Potts lived on that street the whole time I was married, and she knows there’s nowhere I’d rather be on a bad day. She didn’t need anyone to tell her. She just finally bothered to come looking.
“I blocked your number,” I say. “On purpose. Isn’t it obvious why?”
Her voice climbs. “After everything I’ve done for you. Do you have any idea how that looks? How it feels?”
“Of course that’s where you go.” I almost laugh. “Not whether I’m okay. Whether the neighbors are whispering. That’s always been the whole thing with you.”
“I came here to talk sense into you. This divorce is a disgrace, Emily. People are talking. You had a perfectly good marriage and you threw it away over one mistake, and now you’re shacked up with some man like a...”
“He had a baby with Carmen, Mom.” I’m on my feet now. “A whole secret child. That’s not a mistake, that’s a second family. And you knew. You sat me down and told me to make peace with it. You told me to call that baby my niece.”
“I was trying to protect you from humiliating yourself.”
“You were trying to protect yourself from your friends finding out your daughter got cheated on.” I shake my head. “It was always Carmen with you. Always. Dad noticed, you know. He used to ask me if I felt left out, because even he could see it.”
“Don’t.” Her voice goes sharp and strange. “Don’t bring your father into this.”
“Why not? He’s the only one who ever actually saw me. The only one who tried.”
“Oh, your father tried.” She lets out a short, ugly laugh, and there’s something underneath it I’ve never heard before, something almost bitter enough to be jealous. “Saint of a man, wasn’t he? So devoted. You have no idea how exhausting it is, being loved by a man you never...”
She catches herself a beat too late.
That stops me cold. “A man you never what?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Finish it.” I stare at her. “A man you never loved. That’s what you were about to say. Dad worshipped you for twenty years and you couldn’t even fake it back.”
“You don’t understand. You never understood any of it.”
“Then explain it. I’ve spent my whole life thinking something was wrong with me. So tell me. Tell me why.”
“Because I wanted her to be mine!” It rips out of her, loud and cracked, louder than anything I’ve gotten out of her in twenty-five years. “Is that what you want to hear? Yes. I wanted Carmen. I wanted her to be my daughter, I wanted that whole life, she was supposed to be my...”
She stops.
Her hand comes up over her mouth, too late, and the color just drains out of her face.
The room goes dead quiet. Mrs. Potts has frozen in her chair, teacup forgotten in her lap, and I can hear the clock on her wall ticking.
“...your what?” My voice comes out small. I heard it. I heard the whole thing and my brain still won’t let it land. “Finish it, Mom. She was supposed to be your what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“No. You don’t get to do that.” My heart’s going too fast. “You said that whole life. What life? Whose life?”
She presses her lips together and looks away. The silence stretches. I watch her decide whether to keep lying, and I already know. I think some part of me has always known and just never had a name to put on it.
“It’s John.” I barely get it out. “Isn’t it? You and Uncle John.”
And that’s when she breaks open.
“Don’t you say it like that!” She’s on her feet now, shaking, eyes wild and streaming, and it’s not guilt pouring out of her, it’s something closer to rage, like I’m the one who did something to her. “Like it’s some dirty little thing! You don’t know anything about it!”
“Then tell me. Are you sleeping with him? Yes or no, Mom.”
“It’s not that simple, you can’t just...”
“It’s the simplest question in the world. Are you having an affair with Uncle John?”
“It’s not an affair.” She says it like the word offends her. “Don’t you dare call it that. An affair is some sordid little fling. This is the love of my life. He always has been. What your father and that woman did was come along and get in the middle of it.”
“So that’s a yes.” My stomach is somewhere around my feet. “How long?”
“Does it matter?”
“How long, Mom.”
“A while. On and off. These things aren’t...”
“How long?” I’m not letting her wriggle off it. “Years? Since Dad died? Since when?”
She stares at me, and I watch her weigh whether the truth will hurt me or impress me, and the fact that she can’t tell the difference is its own answer.
“Over twenty years.” And she doesn’t say it ashamed.
She says it with her chin up, almost proud, like she’s been waiting a long time for someone to make her say it.
“Since you were little. And don’t look at me like that.
I’m not the one who should be ashamed here.
I’m the one who got cheated out of the life I should’ve had. ”
The floor tilts for real and I grab the back of Mrs. Potts’s good chair to stay standing.
“You’ve been married to Dad almost that whole time.” I can barely get the words out. “You married him. You had me. And the entire time you were...”
“It started after I married him.” She’s pacing now, hands flying, and the words come out in pieces, not order.
“I thought your father was enough. He wasn’t.
And John was right there, the whole time, married to her, and one day I just knew I’d picked wrong.
Too late by then. Rings on, kids, the whole thing. So we didn’t stop. We never stopped.”
“You cheated on Dad the whole marriage.” My voice cracks and keeps cracking. “He’s dead, Mom. He died loving you. He never knew. You let him die not knowing.”
“Your father was comfortable. He was never the love of my life.”
“He didn’t know that!” I’m shouting now and I don’t care. “He worshipped you. He died still worshipping you. And he was the only one in that house who ever loved me.”
“Don’t you dare make me the villain!” Her voice goes shrill.
“I’m the one who got robbed! She took him.
She trapped him with a baby and a ring, and I had to smile at her for twenty years while the man I love went home to the wrong house.
” She presses both hands to her chest. “Do you know what that does to a person?”
I almost laugh, and it comes out cracked. “Ciara’s done nothing to you. She brought you soup when you had the flu. She has no idea, does she? None of them do.”
“She knew I loved him first.” She says it like that’s all the permission she ever needed.
“That doesn’t mean anything, Mom! You don’t get to call dibs on a person for life!”
“He’s going to leave her.” She says it fast, certain, like she’s said it to herself a thousand times. “He just needs the right moment. It’s me he wants. It’s always been me.”
“He’s not leaving anyone, Mom.” I can’t tell anymore if she believes it or just needs to. “He’s had two women in two houses for twenty years. That’s not a love story. That’s a man who got away with it.”
“You sound just like your father.” She spits it like the worst insult she’s got. “Always so sure you’ve got me figured out. So busy judging me you never once asked if I was happy.”
Her face crumples, but under the tears there’s that same hard certainty that’s run her my whole life. She’s not sorry. She’s never going to be sorry.
“So it was never even me.” My voice is shaking, but I push it out. “It was about him. All of it.” And then another piece clicks. “Even Carmen. You were sweet to her so John would see it. Putting on a show.”
“And what if I was?” She doesn’t even deny it, just lifts her chin like I’ve handed her a compliment. “Somebody had to show him what a real mother looked like. I wanted John to see there was a better woman right across the street. Better than the one he married.”
“She’s my age, Mom.” I feel sick. “You used a girl my age to flirt with a married man for twenty years.” I let it land. “Did it even work? All this time, did he ever once actually leave?”
That shuts her up. And the silence is the only honest answer she’s given all day.
“You think this was easy for me?” She rounds on me, and there’s still no apology in it, just more of her own grievance.
“You think I wanted to feel this way about my own child? I couldn’t help it.
Every time I looked at you I saw everything I didn’t get to have.
You were the mistake that chained me to the wrong life.
That’s not my fault, Emily, that’s what they did to me! ”