Chapter 16
16
Christa
I n the wake of everything happening, I decide to take River’s advice and make another attempt to reconnect with my Aunt Mary. In hindsight, everything she ever said that made me feel uncomfortable or downright miserable in my own skin stemmed from her education and upbringing in a society that was, and in some respects still is, designed to tell us what we need to look like to please others.
I find her out in the garden late one afternoon, tending to her azaleas with a pruning shear and the same gardening apron she’s had since I was a kid.
“Hey,” I gently say as I walk up the stone path with a goodie basket hanging from one arm. “How about a peace offering?”
Aunt Mary stills and looks at me. At first, I can’t tell whether she’s about to throw the shears at my head or hug me. She rises slowly, dusting herself off, and sets the shears down. “I take it you found my favorite oatmeal cookies?”
“Cranberry and ginger, from Rosie’s Bakery,” I proudly declare. “Plus, some lovely preserves and artisanal teas. They had a great selection of flavors to choose from.”
She smiles and motions for me to follow her inside.
Five minutes later, we’re seated at the breakfast table over tea and cookies, trying again.
“I owe you a lifetime of apologies, I suppose,” Aunt Mary says, tearing an oatmeal cookie in two, then in four pieces before eating it. “It took me a long time to realize it.”
“Are you referring to something in particular?”
“Only every comment I ever made about your weight,” she replies with a heavy sigh. “Don’t think for a second I’m not aware of my own shortcomings, Christa. I’m just really bad at owning up to them. But there comes a time and an age, I suppose. And you’re the only family I’ve got left. Instead of being happy, just happy to see you, I wasn’t very kind.” Her voice breaks.
She has no idea how much this means to me.
“I didn’t go too easy on you either the last time we met,” I say.
Aunt Mary shakes her head. “Oh, honey. I deserved way worse. In fact, I applaud your restraint.”
“I’ve heard worse over the years,” I chuckle dryly.
“You should’ve never heard anything from me,” she insists. “Christa, I really did do the best I could. But there’s something I never knew how to tell you. I wasn’t sure you’d understand. You were just a kid yourself.”
I lean forward, finding a strange sense of tranquility in her presence for the first time. It’s as if the thick wall once between us has finally crumbled. “What is it?”
“A few months before your parents died, I was diagnosed with a severe form of endometriosis,” she says. My heart breaks in the blink of an eye. “It made it virtually impossible for me to have a viable pregnancy, to have children of my own. There is also an extremely high risk of ovarian cancer. They’d already found some irregular polyps hiding in plain sight.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I made my peace with it, eventually. But I made a difficult decision then.”
“The hysterectomy,” I say, remembering she’d had one. She never told me why. Now, I know. “That’s right.”
She nods again. “My husband left not long afterward. He just waited for me to get better after the surgery, then told me he wanted kids. I’m sure you can fill in the gaps there. Point is, a couple of months after he walked out, I got the call about my brother. Your father. And your mother. It tore me apart on so many levels. I woke up with a kid on my doorstep, and I had no idea how to cope. How to be a mom. How to do anything!”
“Nobody plans for something like that,” I say.
“Least of all you, and I neglected to see that for a long time. I should’ve been happier for the fact that God was giving me a child to raise, to be a mother even though I couldn’t have children of my own. I should’ve done more and better for you, but I was just bitter.” She pauses as if to collect herself. I remained silent. “Christa, I’ll be honest, I was bitter and angry at life, angry at the world, angry at everything and everyone. I tried to keep it under control, but some of it oozed into our day-to-day life. For that, I am sorry. So, so sorry.”
I reach across the table and take her hands in mine. “Aunt Mary, it’s okay. I mean, thank you, of course, thank you for telling me all this. It does shed light on a few things. But I get it. I understand. I think, in a way, I forgave you a long time ago. I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Honestly, I’m surprised you came around again.” She gives me a troubled look.
“I didn’t want to give up on you.” I add a little flourish to the truth. Aunt Mary doesn’t need to know River is the one who advised me to give this another shot. “And I’ve made my share of mistakes over the past seven years. I’ve learned to judge less and listen more. Those comments just caught me off guard.”
“No, those comments were awful. Me and my nasty mouth. I’m sorry, Christa. I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad we’re able to talk about these things now.”
She’s eyeing me intently. The woman raised me, after all. She can tell something is wrong, but considering how most of our conversations ended in the past, she’s apprehensive about asking.
“I had a massive argument with Teagan,” I sigh, giving her what she is quietly asking for. Part of the truth, anyway.
“There it is,” she mutters, then sighs deeply. “What happened?”
“I broke the code,” I reply, lowering my gaze for a moment.
“You two had a code?” Aunt Mary sounds confused. “Of course you had a code. You and Teagan Hawthorne were always as thick as thieves. Sisters in all but blood. What happened?”
“River and I… we’re an item.”
Keep it simple, Christa.
“And? What’s the problem? River Hawthorne and his brothers are three of Portland’s best men. You know better than me how hard it is to find a good man in this day and age.”
Let alone three. At once. Lord have mercy.
“I promised Teagan since we were in high school that I’d never look at her brothers that way. I think she knew there was something brewing between us even then,” I tell her. “When I came back, we reconnected. It quickly spun out of control.”
“You and River.”
“Yes.”
“Let me guess. Teagan found out.”
“Yes.”
Aunt Mary takes a deep breath and leans back in her chair. “I guess it wouldn’t have been as bad if you’d been the one to tell her.”
“I was honestly afraid to tell her. I wasn’t sure how she’d react or how valid the pact even was after all these years.”
“You were afraid of a possible confrontation,” she says. “You were always terrible in a conflict. You tend to shut down, to run away and hide.”
Talk about reading me like an open book. I feel naked as the day I was born in front of this woman. For a moment, I glance around at the kitchen, noticing how little has changed in the years I’ve been away, as opposed to how much I’ve changed. She is using the same kettle for tea. The fridge is new, but it has all the old decorative magnets on the door along with photos and drawings of mine from kindergarten.
She’s kept everything almost exactly the way it was.
“It took me a while to understand that your way of loving me was different from my parents’ through no fault of your own.” I smile at her. “It’s dawning on me now that not once did I ever come to you for advice because I was convinced you didn’t love me.”
“That is my fault, Christa. No point sugarcoating it.”
“Well, I’m here now,” I say with a weak smile. “What should I do?”
“What is expected of you?”
I offer a tired shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe if I break it off with River—”
“Do you want that?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
“But Teagan—”
“Teagan is a grown-ass woman, and she will get over it.” She shrugs. “Sooner or later, anyway. She always had a bit of a spoiled brat vibe about her. I remember steam coming out of her ears when something didn’t go exactly the way she wanted.”
I can’t stop a hearty laugh from rolling out of me. “Wow, Aunt Mary.”
“It’s the truth. Teagan is great, don’t get me wrong. And your friendship is special. All I can tell you is to give her time. She needs some discomfort right now. It leads to growth. I think you’ll find her a lot more cooperative once she’s had some time and some space to process everything.”
“Her husband said something along the same lines.”
“Time, Christa. Time heals most wounds.”
Most wounds.
I wonder if I will ever heal from mine. The ones that linger even now. The ones that keep me fearful and distrustful and with one foot out the door, even when all I want is to let my roots thicken and take hold.
I’ll give Teagan the time she needs.
Maybe she’ll come back to me before it’s too late.