Chapter 32
I glance around the dining room with a mix of nostalgia and dread. Goldie’s Harvest Café hasn’t changed since the summers I binged their blueberry waffles. It still has the same green pleather booths, fake-wood countertops, and framed photos of every camp cohort along the walls.
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t talk last night,” I say after the waiter pours our coffee and strides away.
“I needed some time to think.” Mom’s hand trembles as she lifts the mug, and she braces it with the fingertips of her broken arm.
“Think about what?”
“Let’s talk when your father gets here.”
I snort into my coffee—that expression is like a time warp to my childhood.
Mom’s evasion is driving me batty, and she’s been giving me the same line since last night.
The party broke up soon after Lina’s dramatic departure.
When Mom and Dad returned to the dwindling festivities, Adelaide had put me to work clearing the buffet tables, and Dad took the opportunity to slip away back to the bed-and-breakfast. On the way home, Mom was tight-lipped because some things never change—silence is a stubborn Hawthorne habit.
She shuffled off to bed the moment we arrived home, leaving me to count the wooden planks in the vaulted ceiling of Sonny’s bedroom.
Mom has been watching the door to the café since we arrived, fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet Dad.
If they’re dragging me here to tell me they’re finally making the divorce official, it seems like a lot of pomp and circumstance to announce a split I thought had already been finalized.
When she straightens her spine and tucks both hands under the tabletop, I turn to see Dad approaching.
He’s pressed and polished as ever in a short-sleeve button-up shirt and navy slacks.
But it’s disorienting to see him here; he’s a mirage in the wrong timeline.
Dad hovers at the table, as if he’s unsure whether the invitation to breakfast was genuine. Mom scoots aside before I do.
“Good morning, Len. How was your stay at the bed-and-breakfast?” Mom’s tone is so forced and friendly that she sounds like a Disneyland employee.
Dad settles beside her, tentatively, and his posture is ramrod straight. “It was lovely, actually. It’s a quaint town. I understand why you loved coming back every summer.”
All three of us freeze, and I can tell by Dad’s pained expression that he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. But still, we’re all aware of the real reason for her visits. I hold my breath, but Mom recovers.
“Carmela and Bob run a charming inn. I’m glad you were comfortable.”
Dad fumbles with the oversize menu, concentrating on the page with a focus he typically reserves for classic literature. They trade small talk about what sounds good, whether the fruit plate includes local produce, if the kitchen would make an omelet without butter—as I stare at them, dumbfounded.
But I’m no longer going to play by their rules and swallow the words that need saying. I set my menu aside. “I suppose it’s better that you two are on speaking terms finally, but if we’re here for superficial chitchat, I’m not interested.”
Mom looks at her hands, her shoulders by her ears, and Dad stares over my shoulder, a mock eye-contact trick he taught me before my first oral presentation in middle school.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Mom glances at Dad and then at me. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you came to town.
I know it hasn’t always been smooth, and we still have a lot of work to do to heal, and I have a lot to make up for.
But seeing you, spending time with you, having the chance to really know you again”—Mom swallows hard and blinks back a sheen of tears—“has made me believe in second chances. And your father’s bravery in coming here, in reaching out to make amends, well, he’s convinced me that I should seize this opportunity.
You’re right. I’ve been punishing myself, and I see how that hurts you, too.
I’ve decided to take you up on your offer. ”
I look between them, hope building. “You’ll seek treatment?”
Dad breaks into a grin, reaching across the table to grab my hand. “Even better. I got her an appointment at UCSF with the best neurologist in the state. And she’s agreed to move home with you and start treatment in the city.”
I go stock still as I absorb the news I would have celebrated mere months ago, my mouth ajar, my eyes wide.
It takes a moment to process the implications, the possibilities, the limitations.
But I guess I haven’t evolved as much as I thought, because I do not say the words that need to be said.
At least, not all of them. Instead, I smile and lean across the table to hug them both.
I tell Mom I am overjoyed she changed her mind.
That we’ll kick Parkinson’s ass, or at least throw spikes in front of its tires to slow it down.
I do not tell them that somehow, I fell in love with a man and was busy planning a new future for myself. Here.
Instead, I read through the pamphlets Dad brought along—about the specialized Parkinson’s clinic at University of California, San Francisco, world-renowned doctors, surgical options, physical therapy, and support groups.
He explains that since they’re still legally married, she can use his insurance and have access to the best care.
Mom’s eyes well with tears, her lip quivering as she looks at me across the table. “I love my people here. I have loved my life here. But you are the most important person of all, and I want us to have our second chance.”
“I want that, too.” I ache to rewrite our relationship—my most formative one. “But I told you I’d move here.”
“Oh, honey,” she says. “I can’t tell you what that offer means to me, but you’ve already given up so much.
You’ve put your life on hold and stayed with me for months.
But I am the mother, and I refuse to let you make more sacrifices.
That’s my job. You can’t give up your life.
You’re young, and have a business, friends, and a home. ”
“Neither of us wants you to do that,” says Dad. And suddenly, they’re a united front. As if they rewound my adulthood and pressed play on my childhood.
“But I want to.” I sound like a petulant kid arguing with my parents after they’ve announced they know what’s best for me.
“I am touched that you’re willing. But I am unwilling to be that selfish.”
“It’s not selfish.” I exhale and rub my clammy hands on my jeans.
“When you asked me to move home with you before, I refused because I didn’t want to intrude and ask you to give up your life for me. But yesterday, when you said you would move here, I realized you were determined to put aside what’s best for you.”
I need to tell them about Caleb, about what I want. “It’s not like that—”
“It’s better for everyone if I move. You get to keep your home and your life, and I’ll get good treatment.
These doctors may give me some hope. It’s all seemed futile until now.
” She waves to the pamphlets and printouts littering the table.
“I know that my condition is deteriorating and it’s hard to get the care I need here.
My greatest fear is that we reconnect and don’t have enough time .
. .” She trails off, leaving the rest unsaid.
Her lifespan will be shorter, and her quality of life minimal.
Our shot at a renewed relationship, abbreviated.
And that’s the crux of this, isn’t it? I can’t sacrifice Mom’s life for my relationship with Caleb. I made my original offer before my emotions were muddled. Objectively, this idea is the best option for Mom and me. My life—and her best shot at life—is in San Francisco.
But knowing the right choice doesn’t make choosing it any easier.
Suddenly, the coffee smells too bitter, and I’m nauseated by the scent of bacon and eggs wafting over from the adjacent table.
I’m having a hard time catching my breath, but I’m smiling, pretending, keeping my hurt from my parents’ prying eyes.
Mom won’t agree to come home with me if she knows the real reason I want to stay.
Last night, my future with Caleb flashed before my eyes as we swayed under the fairy lights, and now it’s fading like a week-old dream.
There’s no reality in which Caleb can come with me.
Abby is here, and her mom and siblings are here.
He’s immobile, at least until Abby graduates from high school.
And even then, he loves Grand Trees and feels responsible for keeping Sonny’s legacy alive.
He can’t leave. I can’t stay.
I know without a doubt that I’m in love with him—desperately in love with him—but it was foolish to think I could uproot my life and plant shallow roots in the town that broke my body and heart all those years ago.
I should have known it would wound me again.
That it would taunt me with joy and take it away.
“Oh, honey, why are you crying?” Mom asks, and I look up to see her pale features blurred before me.
Despite the honesty Mom and I have pledged to one another, it’s important I get this lie right. I wipe my tears away and plaster on a smile. “I’m just so happy.”
Abby sends news of the baby as Mom and Dad are finishing breakfast, and I conceal my lost appetite by pushing eggs around my plate.
I open the text and find photo after photo of a perfect newborn, tucked into Abby’s arms, sandwiched between Lina and Ian, with all the kids crowded around the hospital bed.
Abby: My new sister! Maeve Jane. She’s already sucking her thumb!!!!
She follows it up with a string of emojis, most of which I don’t understand. It’s a foreign language.
Me: Congratulations! Give your mom and Ian my love.