Chapter Thirty-Three
Thirty-Three
Choking back tears, I stagger uphill, dump my shell into some slings, and pull out my phone. There’s really only one person who I can turn to at this moment. Still, my thumb hovers over the name, indecision stalling me.
Mom and I have only talked superficially since our fight about Rob. I don’t know how she’ll react to me calling her now, unburdening on her about heartbreak—the very thing that has driven us apart.
Yet I have no one else to help me process the deluge of emotions that are threatening to break my carefully constructed dam.
The phone rings as I wedge myself into a sliver of space between a couple of tents. Back here, I’m somewhat protected from the crackle of the loudspeaker and the wind that’s snapping flags like whips.
“Kath, hello.”
Grass stabs the backs of my bare legs as I sink to a seat. “Mom. Can we talk?”
She’s silent for a long moment and I find myself holding my breath, waiting for her verdict. I hear her take a few steps across a hard floor. A door closes. A chair creaks.
“Tell me what happened,” she says, voice soft.
I sob. A heart-wrenching, obliterating sob. Phone still pressed to my ear, I pull my knees into my chest and brace my forehead against them, cocooning myself in a tight ball.
How can I explain what just happened? What I’ve lost. What I’ll never have. Where I went wrong. Where did I go wrong?
“Kath? Are you hurt?”
I shake my head on my knees, rubbing my forehead against my still-damp skin. “No. Not—not physically.”
A sigh rushes out of her—both relieved and even more concerned. “Tell me.”
With heaving breaths, choking sobs, and more tears, I get out the words. I tell her about the breakup, Adrian’s text, and coming clean to Carla. I tell her about the race: the beautiful, majestic, best-of-my-life race. How it still wasn’t good enough. I’ve lost my spot for good—no way back now.
And then I tell her that Adrian took the job in Florida. I tell her, truthfully, that I want him to be happy and I want him to succeed. But…it makes things even more impossible between us.
Altogether, it’s almost certainly the end of my rowing career. It’s definitely the end of us.
“Are we just doomed to repeat the same mistakes endlessly?” I ask aloud when I’ve finished.
So far Mom has remained silent, offering only small sounds of understanding. When she answers, however, her voice is sympathetic but skeptical. “What do you mean?”
“You and Dad. Me and Adrian.”
“I don’t see the similarities.”
A vinyl tent flutters in the wind, punctuating each of my shaky inhales. “This is what happened to your dancing career. You fell in love with Dad and gave up dancing for him. Then he left, anyway.”
“Your dad left,” she says, gently but firmly. “He left because our relationship didn’t work for him. That’s not what happened with you and Adrian.”
“It’s the same ending place, though. It’s always a choice between what you love and who you love. And even then, there’s a good chance you’ll lose both.”
“Kath…” I don’t hear doubt in the word. Just caution. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah it is, Mom.” I know we aren’t talking about me and Adrian anymore.
Not only. “Look at your life. You spent years dating men who weren’t right for you.
And you never had time or bandwidth to devote to anything else.
But then, being single simplified everything for you.
It made it possible for you to start the yoga studio. To be successful and happy.”
Mom sighs. In the distance, I hear the crackle of the speakers as the announcer rolls through finishes.
“Sweetheart,” she says. “I wasn’t single when I started the yoga studio.”
“I…what?”
“Rob and I have been together for almost a year.”
The world tilts. I hold the phone pressed to my ear, fingers chilled in the wind that’s gusting through the tents and sending the damp hairs on my legs into prickling goose bumps.
“Rob and I met and hit it off,” she continues.
“We spent those first few weeks talking constantly and, eventually, talking about almost nothing but our biggest, most terrifying dreams. Two months after our first date, we started the business. Was that too fast? I’m sure some would say it was.
But you know me, always full steam ahead. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At first it was because, well, because you never like the men I date. I told myself I’d wait until it got serious. Once it did…then I had a thousand new excuses. You were busy with qualifiers, then World Cups. You had too much on your mind to be open to him.
“Then when you came home for the summer, I told myself you just needed to meet him first. I’d tell you after you could see for yourself how different he is.
Then I saw you with Adrian, and I thought maybe, if you were finally happy in your own relationship, you’d see that I could be, too.
The truth is”—she expels a breath—“I delayed and delayed because I was afraid you would judge me. Or reject him.”
My throat tightens. “And then I did both.”
“Yes. You did.”
Cold rushes through me as I remember my reaction when I found them together. I acted like her relationship was shameful. Like she had to answer to me for it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“I’m not telling you that because I want an apology—at least not right now. I’m telling you because there’s something I want you to understand.”
“Okay?”
A long pause stretches between us. It reminds me of her last dance performance.
I was so young when she retired, but I distinctly remember this complicated solo.
The curtain went up, the room hushed, the music started.
There was this pause—this infinitesimal beat where Mom remained perfectly still, but somehow, I knew she was collecting herself.
Taking a single breath before plunging in.
That pause is laden with possibility. Like the top of a stroke. Like the last deep breath before a starting buzzer.
“Rob supports me,” Mom says. “He challenges me. He fills in my gaps—takes things on that feel overwhelming to me—and I do the same for him. He’s good with spreadsheets; I’m good with people. He gave me the confidence to open the studio in the first place.”
“You’re saying…?”
“I’m saying Rob is the reason that business exists at all.”
A prickle scales my arms as my mind zips over memories from this summer, categorizing and re-cataloging.
Some things make more sense now. Like the confidence that she’s had in starting a business—a terrifying new endeavor that has to have involved all kinds of skills she doesn’t possess.
How successful and well organized the yoga studio seemed when I visited.
She did that—but it makes more sense to know that she didn’t do it all alone.
“I want you to see that’s how love—healthy love—is,” Mom continues.
“It makes you better, stronger, in the other parts of your life, too. Yes, love can tear you down. It can hurt, it can make your life worse. But if you find someone who lifts you up instead, it makes the other parts of your life better. Even if it ends.”
Clearly, we’re not talking about Rob anymore. “You think that’s how it is with me and Adrian?”
“I know it is,” she says. “I watched your race. I saw your training over the last two months. You went from dragging yourself out of the house in the morning, and going through the motions because you thought you had nothing else, to practically skipping out the front door. You fell back in love with rowing because you fell in love with Adrian. You’ve always known how strong you are, but you lost faith in yourself.
You found that again, too. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
That’s the kind of love that lifts—the kind that adds instead of subtracting.
“When you find the right person,” she says emphatically, “it’s not a choice at all. When you find them, who you love will make you better at what you love.”
My throat has gone dry. The tears on my cheeks have evaporated. A sinking certainty creeps up around me, like I’ve been standing in a field and the grass has grown around my feet, but I didn’t notice until it was brushing my fingertips.
She’s right—it’s exactly the way the last two months have felt. This building sensation that everything has become fuller with Adrian in my life. She’s describing today, too. The race. The way I pulled harder, went faster than I’d ever done before.
Just yesterday, I told Adrian that my success today would be his, too. I was talking about his coaching: his technical advice, his passion, the way he’s helped me get out of my head. But the truth is so much deeper than I even realized. My life—my rowing—is stronger because of him.
“I need to—” I clear my throat.
I don’t know what, exactly. All I know is that I have to find a way to make it work, no matter how many thousands of miles stand between us. Surely, having him in my life, even infrequently, is better than not at all. Surely, it’s all worth the risk.
“I need to go,” I say.
“We’ll talk more soon,” Mom says. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say. “And thank you.”
With shaking fingers, I hang up. Turn toward the edge of tents. This isn’t a conversation I want to have over the phone. I could get on a flight to Berkeley today. But what if Adrian has already left for Florida? He said he was starting the new job immediately.
I frown at my phone’s screen, then pull up a message to Rohan.
Do you know where Adrian will be tomorrow? I need to talk to him as soon as possible.
My phone pings with a response almost immediately.
Isn’t he with you?
I stare at the words, uncomprehending. Before I have a chance to respond, I hear my name.
I spin in slow motion toward the shaft of blue sky between the tents.
The world is tilting again, but this time with a kaleidoscope around me falling, dropping, descending.
Clicking into place. Landing on one still image—a face amid streaking primary colors.