Chapter 34
thirty-four
AMANTHA
Iset my box of leftover dreams on the living room floor. My belongings seemed smaller here than they had at the museum. Out of place. Like they didn’t belong here any more than I had belonged there. A sharp pang reverberated behind my sternum.
“So you really went through with it?” Mom sat at the dining room table, sipping a tall glass.
“Mom...” I collected my expression and forced a smile. “I already told you—I couldn’t anymore.”
“I know, sweetie. Come, pull up a chair.” She retrieved a fancy crystal pitcher from the counter, setting a glass in front of me.
“Lemonade again?” I said.
Mom’s sad expression crinkled into a smile.
“It reminds me of him. After my dream last night… Well, I just needed to feel closer to Frank today. It was his favorite.”
“I remember.” My eyes smarted as I raised my glass and toasted Mom’s. The mint leaves swirled to the bottom as I said, “Well, then, to Dad.”
Mom clinked my glass and murmured, “To Frank.” She set the glass down and began to spin her wedding ring around her finger.
“Amantha, I need to tell you something,” she said. “We both know I try to stay out of your business. I’ve always trusted you to make your own decisions, and I’m so proud of where that has led you. You are truly incredible, honey.”
The lemonade was difficult to swallow around the growing lump in my throat.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I mean it, Amantha. I’ve always had faith in you, but something tells me right now that you need to have more faith in yourself.
” She paused, glancing down into her glass.
“I haven’t told you something about me, but I think you need to hear it.
After you were born, I had a severely dark bout of postpartum depression. ”
My eyes grew. I never would have guessed. My mom had always seemed so… together. So present, so loving, so happy.
Perhaps that’s what we do as parents—hide our burdens and keep smiling for our children.
Mom went on, “Becoming a mother was the sweetest, most reverent experience. Each day, we thanked the heavens for you. But no one had told me about the mourning period a woman can experience after birth. Not about having the baby, of course, but of saying goodbye to our old life. Our old selves. No matter what choices we make, or how hard we cling on, it’s just gone.
Everything changes in that precious moment, as it should.
“Even though it’s a natural transition, I took it really hard.
Things got, well, very dark. I was a first time mom and didn’t know better, so I just contributed it to the ‘baby blues.’ After about a year, though, we realized it wasn’t going away.
Frank encouraged me to get help. Thank the heavens I did.
” Eyes the color of the summer sky met mine. “And do you know what they told me?”
Tears slid silently down my face. I shook my head, unable to speak.
Mom reached across the table and took my hand. “That I had to begin to do things for myself, or I wouldn’t survive,” she said. “That I couldn’t run the race if I was already exhausted. That I couldn’t pour from an empty cup.”
She wiped her own eyes and said, “I felt so selfish at the time, but I had to make myself a priority too. And after a while, I ended up rediscovering one of my passions. I had never graduated from college, you see, but if I had, I would have liked to be a historian.” Mom gave me a watery smile.
“So I got a library card and began to read again. I began to study again. It brought me joy, Amantha. It brought me back.”
She chuckled. “You had been dragged to those flea markets long before you could even walk. Bringing those trinkets of history home with me—I needed to surround myself with reminders that every past has a future. Sweetie, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about yours.”
My heart twisted. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Mom.”
“I’ve seen the trajectory before, honey.
After Ryan, I worried your depression would get as bad as mine had.
Moving in hadn’t only been for Anthony. I also needed to check on you, too.
But after you started working at the museum again, I saw you get better.
It was as though I was watching myself come back to life. Amantha, you can’t just let that go.”
“You’re forgetting about Anthony,” I said thickly. “I’m a mother. Sacrifice is part of—”
“Part of being a mom. Trust me, I know. But motherhood is also about balance. Anthony wasn’t only improving because Ryan finally paid attention to him.
He saw his mother smile again. Light up again.
Live again.” Her short blonde waves shook back and forth, her lips tightening.
“Your father would have been so angry with me for letting you quit.”
My heart broke all over again. “But I don’t know how to be both, Mom. To let myself be both.”
Mom bustled around the table to wrap me in a hug, and I quietly cried into the arms of her cardigan.
“You just do, Amantha,” she whispered against my hair. “It won’t always be guilt-free, but I promise the process is worth it.”
“But I can’t go back, Mom. I can’t see Val anymore.”
“Then don’t. There are plenty of museums. Promise me you’ll find a new one.”
I lifted my tear-stained face to hers and said, “I will. I promise.”
Later that evening, I lay on the couch, flipping through shows. The remote buttons protested my force as I searched for something, anything to watch.
Val had tainted so much for me. Picnics, paintball, and even my own swimming pool. But ruining Whisper Harbor? I could never forgive him for that.
I turned off the TV and stalked to my room, flopping onto my bed. The conversation with Mom had affected me deeply. I conjured the image of myself seven months prior. That terrified version of me had been loveless, jobless, and lost.
I grimaced. Not much had changed.
I recalled how rusty I had felt right after Blythe had hired me. How the struggle itself had felt powerful, like a trembling muscle regaining strength. I remembered the surge of confidence. The sensation of achievement.
A spark had flickered back to life.
But currently, I felt hollow and bruised, as though Val had stepped on my heart one too many times. I still loved him, and I wasn’t sure what my future looked like, but did my happiness depend on a relationship? Sure, romance made me happy, but was it required?
A small smile bloomed across my face.
No.
As a matter of fact, that spark inside me had only reignited after divorcing my husband of ten years.
That spark, I realized, had been me.
I jolted into a sitting position, clapping a hand to my mouth.
It had been me all along.
I had actively snuffed out my spark when I married Ryan—willingly given up all that I was in order to please him. To become the doormat welcoming him home every night.
I couldn’t recall Ryan even asking me to. Had I just assumed I wasn’t enough on my own? That I needed to be less to be more? Had I really thought so low of myself?
My clouded emotions began to part, a ray of hope peeking through.
So many of my previous beliefs had been a lie.
Mom was right. Sacrifice was a part of motherhood.
Disappearing wasn’t.
A whole slew of Amanthas filled my mind.
A teenage girl gaping at a painting in a white canvas tent.
A woman sitting at a mahogany desk, doodling Ryan’s name.
A blue bundle of joy being placed into exhausted arms. A woman hiding in her car, tears streaming in the light of the crosswalk.
A woman blocking a jerk in front of the museum door.
A blue paint pod spattering a shrieking smile.
A woman toasting a champagne glass in a sapphire gown.
Each version of myself had tried her best. Through their perseverance, they had all led me to this.
To now.
Tears of affection for myself streamed down my face in a moment I would never forget. I silently thanked each and every version of myself that had ever existed, and I vowed to continue their progress.
The spark inside fanned back to life as I gave myself permission to live mine.
VAL
A static buzz alerted me to my front door. Puzzled, I checked my phone notifications as I approached the intercom. The talk button beeped under my thumb as I asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s your sister, Butthead. Open up.”
My eyebrows knitted together as I pressed the button. “Why aren’t you at Nonna’s? It’s Sunday.”
“The real question is, why aren’t you?”
“That’s none of your business. Why didn’t you call first?”
“Cause I knew you wouldn’t answer. I’m not stupid, Val. I know something’s up. Either buzz me in, or Mom will kill you if I fall off the fire escape. Your choice.”
I rubbed the overgrown stubble on my jaw.
Exasperation and exhaustion warred within me.
Deciding to rip the bandaid off, I buzzed her in without another word.
I used the few minutes of privacy I had left to locate a shirt and pull it over my bare chest. Turning to survey the state of my apartment, I couldn’t stop the shame from flooding my cheeks.
The open concept kitchen and living room looked spotless. Hospital-grade clean. My dark wooden floors gleamed with the fresh scent of pine. I itched to dump a cereal box on the countertops for camouflage, but I was too neurotic to even entertain the idea.
A sharp knock rapped at the door.
I thought about ignoring her. Camilla couldn’t plummet from the fire escape anymore, so maybe my job was done?
“Open the freaking door, Val. I can smell the Pine Sol from here.”
Begrudgingly, I cracked it open.
Camilla’s angry expression softened a bit before she shoved past me.
She hadn’t bothered to put on makeup today, apparently, since her freckles across her olive skin were more pronounced than usual.
I wondered if yelling at me took priority instead.
She flung her sandals in different directions and dropped her bag right on top of my freshly vacuumed carpet lines.
“Come on. It’s time to talk.”