49. Genevieve #2
“Hello?” Her voice came out fast, hopeful, breathless. “Genevieve? Are you there?”
“Brielle… Sweetheart, I’m sorry but… but we can’t… we can’t talk, okay?”
Her silence sliced through me. “I’m… I’m sorry.” Her voice broke. “I shouldn’t have—”
I shook my head. “None of this is your fault. Don’t apologize. I just… I can’t… we can’t.”
“I just… I wanted to know you,” she said. “If you’ll let me.”
“This… it’s too complicated, I’m afraid.”
“It’s not,” she replied.
I sighed. “It is, honey. I was never supposed to even call you; it was a mistake—”
“It wasn’t.”
“It was, Brielle.” My eyes closed, tears sliding down my cheeks silently. God… God, I had wanted this for so long, so painfully long, and here I was, shutting it down even while my heart swelled at the sound of her voice.
“Then why call at all?”
My lips parted, the air faltering in my lungs. “I…”
The truth clawed up my throat. Because I missed you and I wanted to hear your voice just once.
I breathed out shakily. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not asking for everything,” she murmured.
“I’m not asking for explanations or answers or the full story in one phone call.
I just… I just want a conversation. I want to hear you talk.
I want to know the sound of your laugh. I want to know who you are besides the ghost everyone thought was dead. ”
My heart cracked open. “I can’t give you that.”
“Yes, you can,” she whispered. “You can. You’re already doing it.” My knuckles whitened around the phone. “I don’t want to make your life harder,” she whispered. “Really, I don’t. But… please don’t hang up. Not yet.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as another tear slid down.
I wanted to shut her out, forget this ever happened, apologize to Reid, let him be right.
Because it would never be just one phone call.
I would get attached, and this would ruin me.
Only problem was, my stubborn daughter wasn’t ready to let me be buried by my decisions again.
My heart thudded painfully.
“You don’t understand,” I whispered. “There are… rules. Lines I can’t cross.”
“So just talk to me,” she said gently. “Talking isn’t crossing anything.”
“It is,” I breathed. “Just talking to you now, reaching out to you in the first place… I should have never—”
“But you did,” she interjected. “I’m not asking for the whole story. I’m not asking you to rewrite the past. But you called me. You reached out to me and I answered. And now I have questions, now I want another conversation… After all these years… you at least owe me that.”
Owe her?
I owed her so much more than broken promises and empty conversations.
My lips trembled, but I stayed strong. “You’re right,” I exhaled, defeated and breaking. “You’re right, sweetheart.”
And so we talked. More than I was ready for or that I was allowed to. Still, it wasn’t enough for her. After so many years, it couldn’t have been.
She asked simple things at first. She truly wanted to know who I was. My hobbies, my favorite food, favorite flowers, about how much I loved France.
Her questions were small… but they were everything.
Tiny windows into the life she never got to know me in.
And I told her things I hadn’t planned on telling her.
Pieces of myself I thought were dead. Things I’d buried under years of silence.
Then the harder things. The ones she deserved to know that hurt to say out loud.
It made her go quiet on the other end of the line.
It was hard revisiting most of the events of the past, but saying them aloud was liberating almost. But I couldn’t tell her about Reid, couldn’t say where or who I decided to run away with.
Couldn’t even tell her that he was her father.
That she had never been Gregory’s to begin with.
But there was already enough said as it was.
Hours had passed. It was well into the night for her, but she was still there, listening and absorbing everything I’d given her as best she could.
Finally, she let out a breath. “I can’t believe you’re alive.” That was a bit of an understatement given I was suffocating this entire conversation, holding my breath, afraid of what she’d say. “You know…” she murmured, “I’m sure Eugene would want to hear from you.”
I ran a hand through my hair.
Eugene.
My baby boy. My little Lovebug.
Guilt chewed at my throat as I shook my head. “Brielle…”
“I’m not saying right now,” she cut in quickly. “I just mean… I’m sure he’s always wondered. Even when he didn’t talk about it or want to admit it. I’m sure he’s thought about you for a long time.”
My chest tightened. It was probably too long for any little boy to go through.
“How is he?” I asked gently.
Her voice softened. “He’s… better than he used to be,” she said. “But he’s still… Eugene.”
A laugh trembled out of me. “Stubborn?” I guessed.
“Painfully.”
I smiled gently. “…I’d like to hear more about him,” I whispered. “If… if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” she said immediately. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
And I listened.
I listened like a starving woman being fed, storing away every detail of the years I missed, the milestones I abandoned, the son I left behind: His nightmares. His disappearance. His trauma. His temper. His protectiveness. His loneliness. His loyalty.
His love for her.
The decades I lost spilled through her voice, piece by piece, until I felt the shape of him again: my son, somewhere in this world, alive and hurting.
“Do you remember your years with him?“ she asked.
“I do… but it’s been so long. I’m—I’m forgetting him.”
“You don’t have to,” she said gently. “You can reach out to him too.”
“Honey… I can’t. I…”
“Mom.” The words left her mouth like they were natural, like anything about this situation was natural. “You can.”
All rational thought left my mind. I didn’t even think of what Reid would say when he found out. That was if he didn’t already know. “What if he hates me? I left you both… I—I left him. I don’t know if I have it in me to face him.”
“But you should at least try. If you can’t forgive yourself for leaving… at least forgive yourself for coming back… for trying?”
I didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t know if I was strong enough to reach out to him, or if it was my place to. I didn’t know if I even could. But when I finished the call with my daughter and watched the screen light up with his number that she’d sent… I knew I had to at least try.
Just once, even if I would never try again.