Chapter 24
Renleigh
There’s an empty wine bottle on the porch table, and I am only responsible for a single glass of it.
That was enough for me. And while my sister can be a sloppy drunk, she has earned the right be sloppy a few times before she has to get her shit together and take her soon-to-be ex-husband to the cleaners.
“Come on, Linds. Let me do the heavy lifting.”
I duck under my sister’s arm and help her stand, sort of. She’s wobbly, so by the time we get inside, she has to lean against the entry table for balance. She spots her keys in the tin bowl and clutches them, so I promptly take them from her hand and tuck them in my pocket.
“Nope. You’re staying here tonight, remember? The boys are on the pull-out sofa.” My sister giggles and wanders toward her twins, so I veer her back toward the stairs. “No, babe. Let them sleep.”
This was so much easier when I was a freshman in high school and she was a senior. Seven years of life has made her more gangly, a bit heavier, and stubborn.
“Let me help. Here,” my mom says, swooping in and taking my sister’s other side. My face goes stoic, but I accept her offer as my sister rolls her head to my side and holds her finger to her lips.
“Shhh, be nice,” Lindsey says.
“I am, Linds. I am,” I reply.
The three of us take the steps one at a time, and after a few minutes, my mom and I manage to get my sister into my bed and pull her shoes off. I throw the quilt over her, and she’s snoring by the time I slip back out the door with my mom.
“You’re a good sister. I hope you know that,” she says.
I pull my lips into the familiar forced smile and nod.
“Thanks.”
My chest is tight for lots of reasons. I feel unsettled, for sure, but nothing makes my chest tighter than being alone with my mom.
To end this moment on the positive, I decide it’s best I leave her with that small token and kindness and slip downstairs so I can make myself comfortable on the blow-up mattress next to the boys.
This house is too small for this many people.
“Renleigh, hold on a second,” she says, her fingernails grazing the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
I should keep going.
I sigh softly and turn around to face her, my tight, forced smile clearly pretend now.
“Can we?” She nods over her shoulder, toward her bedroom, which was mine a week ago.
“Sure,” I relent.
I’m too tired to fight.
I follow my mom into her room, and she glances over her shoulder as she sits on the foot of the bed.
“Close the door a little,” she says.
I do, leaving it cracked enough for an escape, I suppose, then join her on the bed.
She pulls a cardboard box from the center of her mattress to her lap and flips open the lid.
I recognize the photo of me and Lindsey in the baby pool instantly.
We’re maybe two and five, respectively. Our hair is covered in mud, and Lindsey pushed my short hair into a mohawk with it after attempting to do the same with her own.
I was too young to fully remember the moment, but I have heard the story many times.
And this picture has always been one of my favorites.
“I love this photo,” I say, taking it in my hands.
My mom leans closer but doesn’t touch me.
“Yeah,” she says. I glance at her in my periphery, and she’s smiling softly. She smiles a lot. More than I give her credit for.
She pulls another photo out, this one of the four of us at some amusement park. I’m in a blue wagon. I vaguely remember this one, too. Again, I was little. Not much older than the mud photo.
“Where was this?” I ask.
She runs her fingers over the yellowing photo, still smiling.
“Upstate. It was high school baseball playoffs, and they had a carnival. The team got knocked out early, so we stretched the weekend into a family trip. We didn’t get many of those.”
She’s right. We didn’t. Because she wasn’t here for them.
“Why are we looking at these?”
I level her with a frank gaze, and she draws in a deep breath before letting her shoulders sag and putting the photos back in the box, seemingly filled with so many more.
“I wanted you to see that we were happy. Your dad and me. We are happy. We’ve never been enemies. I love your father, very much. And he loves me.”
I shake with a silent laugh.
“Sure,” I utter.
“No, Renleigh. We do. We did, even then. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have regrets. Because I do. I regret leaving after his last stroke. That wasn’t right of me. But—”
“But you had work.” I emphasize that word, punching it out.
She’s quiet, her lips mashing as her eyes flit to her lap, her mind seeming to sort through how to respond. Her lips part with a breath, and it takes her a few more seconds to look at me again.
“Your dad told me to go. Every time. Your dad asked for the divorce, and not because he was bitter or angry, or because we didn’t get along. He wanted to force me to pick me. Because he knew I wouldn’t.”
My mouth hangs open, and I laugh once without sound.
“That makes zero sense.” I shake my head and rack my brain for the any evidence I have that supports her version.
“I know it doesn’t. And I probably shouldn’t have gone along with it. It took some convincing, for sure. In fact . . .” She pulls the mud photo out again and flattens it on her thigh.
“This was about the same time I was offered the Chief of Staff job in Tulsa. The new mayor was a friend of mine from college. She knew I was trying to break into the politics and PR world, so she reached out with an incredible offer.”
I don’t remember my mom ever working in Tulsa.
“You didn’t take it?”
She shakes her head, confirming so.
“Your dad was the new coach, and he was so excited about it. And you guys were young. I would have had to spend weeks away and weekends in Tulsa, or we would have had to move. I couldn’t do that to your dad, and I didn’t want to leave you. So I turned it down.”
My gaze drops to the floor as I consider how that decision squares with everything I know about my mom. She’s always been selfish. I can’t imagine her turning down something so huge. It doesn’t jive with who she is.
“Your father didn’t know I had the offer,” she adds. My gaze flashes to her face, and her expression is resolute, mouth a solid line, eyes unflinching. “And when he found out about it, and that I turned it down, he felt . . .”
“Guilty,” I say.
My mom nods.
“Among all the other emotions in that family of feelings.” She sighs and shifts so she faces me more head-on. I do the same.
“I told him it wasn’t a big deal, that I would take the next one. And the woman who did work for Lianna—that was my friend, the mayor—she ended up running for congress a few years later. She won.”
“Allysa Saunders,” I hum. I remember my mom helping with her campaign. We had posters all over the house, and I liked coloring the letters in. I probably wasted a dozen of those things with my markers. My mom never got angry at me for it, though.
“Yep. Alyssa wanted to take me with her, but your dad had just won state. So, I didn’t tell him. Again.”
“But you ended up in Washington around then. I know you worked for Alyssa,” I contradict.
Her gaze falls again, and a sad laugh leaves her lips with a tiny breath.
“I did. Your dad pays more attention than any of us give him credit for. He figured it out, and when I insisted I didn’t want to take the job, he saw through my bullshit and asked me for a divorce.
“That was probably the first real fight we ever had. But your dad knew I would never leave this—him, my girls, Sweetwater—unless he forced me to. And he knew I would have probably resented him for it one day. My work gives me so much joy, Renleigh. I know it’s hollow sounding, but you never knew your grandmother.
“My mom? She was a housewife, and my father was so stifling. She had this incredible mind, and she tried to volunteer for community groups just to use her voice. He never let her. He made her small. And I was so afraid of feeling the way she did. Your dad was the opposite of my father, though. And he’d rather make life hard for him than limit my potential. ”
She pauses with a soft laugh, shaking her head before looking up at the ceiling.
“I know how self-centered it all sounds, but the way my self-esteem blossomed when your dad pushed me to pick myself. It was . . . addictive. I became the person I sketched out in my mind when I was a teenager, the strong personality my mom buried. And even though we weren’t still legally married, I had this man—my best friend—who rooted me on the whole way.
Who was the best girl dad around. Who loved his life in Sweetwater, and coaching those boys, so much he knew he couldn’t give that up to move to Boston, or Washington, or Houston.
And you and Linds . . . you had friends here.
You were happy. It worked. And maybe it only worked for me, and I’ve made all of that up to justify the life I’ve led.
But you girls turned into incredible people.
I’ve done enough for me now. It’s your time, you and Lindsey.
Though your sister is going to need some help. ”
I gurgle an irritable laugh over my sister’s situation as my mom leans into me.
“She’ll get through it. She’s better off,” I say, shifting my gaze to my mom’s.
“She is,” she agrees. “And now, it’s my turn. I should have taken it sooner. I didn’t realize how much like me you are.”
I bristle at the comparison, and I think she notices as she rests a palm on my knee. I don’t recoil from her touch, which maybe surprises both of us a little.
“You would pick anyone else rather than choose yourself.”
Her words hit my chest like Thor’s hammer just as my pocket vibrates with a call from the one person I want to pick for myself, more than anything.
And even with my mother’s truth bomb giving me permission, I still don’t know if I can.
Because he’s always going to be somewhere else more often than he’s not.