Chapter 37 #3
She looks startled, but then nods. “Yes. I was not ...” She trails off.
“Totally coherent when I arrived. And there was a mix-up with my medical records, and they couldn’t find a next of kin.
They found your dad somehow. It turns out billing departments are good detectives.
A few days later, he showed up to visit me. ”
“What? He came to see you?” This betrayal feels like an even deeper cut. I figured—knowing Dad—he’d blocked it out, created a new reality and lived in it for the past thirty years. But this?
Her speech speeds up, and words come at me quickly.
“He confessed he’d let you believe I was dead.
That he’d lived in guilt over it, but when you were young, he was so scared that I’d reappear and take you, accidentally hurt you—or kill you—because I’d come close twice.
He put distance between us to save you. But then he lived in fear that you’d find out the truth and hate him forever.
You were his world, Ophelia.” She takes a deep breath.
“He was willing to risk telling you if I got better. But I was just starting my recovery and didn’t fully believe that I could get better.
And we made the decision not to blow up your world.
To ensure you’d continue to have a solid, whole relationship with one parent rather than fractured ones with both. ”
Tears glisten at her lids, falling like raindrops she doesn’t bother to wipe away.
“He gave me this, though.” She draws out an envelope and pulls out a photo.
It’s of me and Dad on the beach at sunset, his arm draped over my shoulder.
I’m thirteen, maybe fourteen. Beau is in the distance tossing a Frisbee with Arthur.
The memory lands somewhere too raw to process.
I hand it back. “And he paid for my treatment. I didn’t know until I’d checked out.
I didn’t even know how he afforded it. And I never had the chance to thank him. ”
He didn’t have money to shell out for in-patient mental-health treatment.
But suddenly the second mortgage and debts make a lot of sense.
But this is all too much right now. I don’t have the vocabulary or the emotional range to absorb all that she’s told me.
I could have prepared for this conversation for years, but there’s no way I could have anticipated how it would feel to have my history torn down and retrofitted with a new, disjointed foundation.
The silence stretches out until she fills it.
“There isn’t a day that went by that the decision hasn’t haunted me.
But I didn’t doubt it was the right one, at least at the time.
Maybe if I would have had you now, when there isn’t such stigma, and the treatments are better.
I could have been ...” She trails off, swallows, and then takes a rattling inhale.
“... a mother to you. I could have been better for you. But that was the only option I saw at the time—and the only one your father saw, too.”
She swallows a cry and keeps going.
“I’m sorry. For lying. For abandoning you.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t get well for you.
I’m sorry I asked your father to lie. I don’t expect you to forgive me.
I could never deserve that. But I hope you forgive your father.
That you find a way to”—she sucks in a breath—“if not understand, perhaps accept his decisions, however flawed, because they were made out of love for you.
“We knew Henry would be a better parent. That he would give you a good life. And look at you. You’re beautiful. You’re not ...” She hesitates. “You don’t suffer from ...” She can’t say it. Even after she acknowledged the stigma was one of her biggest barriers.
I stare back at her. It’s a little late for her to express concern for my mental health. She and Dad have given me a lifetime of trauma to unpack. “Why would you think that?”
“It runs in families, what I have. And we worried ...”
She stops and looks away. Afraid of the unsaid.
But another puzzle piece clicks into place. “That’s why Dad always had me in therapy. He thought I’d have it, too.” This fact only occurs to me as I say it aloud.
“From the beginning, he promised me he’d watch you. Get you better care if, well ...” She reaches for me but hesitates and pulls back, tears pouring down her splotchy cheeks. “I’m real glad. I’m so happy. He made sure you were fine.”
Fine.
I wrap my arms around my shins and drop my forehead to my knees, rocking gently back and forth on the creaking step. The new coat of paint can’t hide the familiar sounds—the memory of Dad bounding up these steps at the end of the day.
Neither of us says anything for several heavy minutes.
“I’m sorry about Henry, Ophelia. He was a good man. And a good father.”
Can he be considered a good father? Loving, yes. Doting, of course. Devoted, definitely. But a good father? A good man? I’m not sure I know what that means.
“Well, it’s late, and I’ve taken more of your time than I deserve.
” Mary leans forward, moving to stand, but hesitates.
“I know it’s too much to ask, but I’d really like to get to know you.
When, or if, you’re ever ready.” She hands me a piece of notepaper, folded into a triangle, and our fingertips brush as I take it.
She hesitates a moment, and I think she wants to hug me, but I can’t offer myself to her.
I won’t. I remember how much I’d longed for her hug as a girl—every time I saw a friend hug their mom after a fall on the playground, blowing out birthday candles, graduating from high school.
I can’t give away that hug I’ve been clutching like a long-held breath.
Her steps are silent as she walks down the stairs to her car.
I notice there is someone in the driver’s seat.
He’s in silhouette, but I assume it’s her husband.
She climbs into the car and collapses onto his shoulder before he wraps his arms around her shoulders.
I’m simultaneously relieved and jealous that she has someone to process this with.
She has someone to hold her. I retreat into the house to give them their privacy and absorb the information alone.
My parents made so many bad choices—leaving me without the power to make my own. I can’t rewind or change them. All I can do is make my own choices from here on out. Right now, though, I’m not ready to make this one. I don’t know if I will ever be ready to get to know my mother.
But at least the choice is now mine. I slide the notepaper into my pocket.