Chapter 17 #3
“I know,” her mom said. “And I’m very sorry. I don’t regret leaving your father, but I do regret leaving you. I regret the way that I did it. I regret that I let my shame keep me away from you. Shame is such a powerful tool.”
Addison felt so guilty, because she was only rubbing that shame in, and she knew it.
But she wanted to yell at her mother and tell her that her entire life was shaped by that decision that she had made.
That Addison had shut down her own desires, everything that she was, everything she had ever wanted, because of her mother.
Because of her fear of turning into her.
Because Addison wanted to yell about the fact that her mother had the luxury of letting her shame win.
And Addison had suffered for it.
And had had that shame rolled downhill onto her. So that her mother could feel her own a little bit less.
But it felt futile. Because she didn’t really know her mom, and her mom didn’t really know her.
“I’m a lot like him, you know,” she said.
“That’s not a bad thing,” her mom said.
She felt bad, because at this point, she knew her mom was just saying things to make Addison less angry.
And Addison didn’t even really know what she was angry about. Sparks were flinging around inside of her. Erratic and unlabeled.
She was angry that she’d been abandoned.
She was angry that she’d been left to carry the shame, she was angry that she had run away from passion for so long, and that she had nearly repeated her mother’s mistake because her mom hadn’t been around to honestly share with her what that first marriage had been for her.
“I just... I would have married Alan,” Addison said.
“And I never would have left him. I would have just been Dad. In a marriage with somebody that I didn’t love, who didn’t love me.
Forever. Because you couldn’t tell me this.
Because I was afraid of myself. Because I was afraid of you. And being you.”
There, she’d said it. The very poisonous thing.
“I was afraid of you being me too,” her mom said. “And I really thought that if I left, you wouldn’t be. I thought I could protect you from my influence.”
It had never occurred to her, not the whole time, that her mom might believe some of what had been said about her.
All this time, she had imagined that her mother had tripped lightly off into a field of hedonism and simply enjoyed herself.
That her not being there was her not being remorseful.
That it was her not taking responsibility.
But what if her mom hadn’t just felt the shame from other people. What if she had also been trying to outrun the shame directed at herself.
Maybe she didn’t regret leaving Addison’s dad. But it didn’t mean she didn’t feel like what they said about her was true.
“I’m just sorry,” her mom said. “And I can’t go back and change anything that I did. But I do want you to understand that I loved you the whole time. Even if I didn’t know how to show it.”
Addison nodded, even though her mother couldn’t see.
She didn’t have the strength to say that she knew, or to say that she loved her back.
Knowing that Jackson forgave her, that made her feel even worse.
Knowing that it gave her mom reason to hope that Addison would feel the same, but Addison felt differently, and it was complicated.
Because she felt like both of her parents, and she couldn’t work out which part of her was wrong or bad. Almost like neither of them were, or everything was, and she was the person who always held it together, and she just didn’t feel like she was holding it together now.
“I’m glad that I called you,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure she meant it. “I’ll make sure not to leave it so long next time.”
“Okay. I just hope you’re doing okay.”
“I don’t know,” Addison said. “Bye.”
She hung up just as she got out of town, as soon as red brick buildings turned into mountain views.
And she rested her head back against the seat and let out a primal scream.
Because what did she do anything for? What was her life? Her entire life was shaped around avoidance. And of what?
Her mom was a human being. She had made a stupid mistake. But she wasn’t the whore of Babylon trying to drag Addison down into hell.
She was just a person who had been stuck in a bad situation and who had made a bad choice in getting out of it.
And yes, it was actually easy—so easy, she knew, because many other people had said this in her presence—to say that her mom had failed at her one job.
Being a mother. That she had let go of the most important thing.
That she had lost sight of that. That whatever else she had done, it didn’t matter, but Addison just couldn’t believe that right now.
Because her mom was a whole person.
Because she had made mistakes as a mom, but she had found love as a woman, and she had built a life for herself, and in many ways it was probably really happy.
If this had happened to anyone else, Addison wouldn’t be excusing it, but it was her pain, so she was allowed to distance herself from it, to turn it over in her hand and examine it as though it was a detached specimen, and not her very specific childhood trauma.
All she knew was that she wanted to be free. She didn’t want to do things for her dad or for her mom, or against her mom, or against her dad, or for the town or against the town. She just wanted to be. And she didn’t know what that looked like.
The list. The list of all the things she hadn’t done. Not just with Walker, but in general.
Who was she, really?
Apart from all of this, with all this trauma set aside, who was she?
When she pulled into the driveway at Walker’s house and got closer, she saw that his truck was in the driveway. She put her car in park and got out, heart hammering.
They hadn’t discussed this. They hadn’t talked about sleeping together again, hadn’t talked about whatever that was, and she just didn’t care.
Because she knew what she wanted. Right now. Not in the future, not even tomorrow. But right now, she wanted his hands on her. Right now she wanted to feel something wild and frenzied. Right now, she wanted to be fully herself, in the moment, with him.
She walked through the front door without knocking, just as he came down the stairs wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, no shirt, barefoot.
He must have had a shower.
“Oh good,” she said. “You’re already half naked.”
“Hello to you too.”
He came down the last couple of steps, and she met him there at the landing, threw her arms around his neck and stretched up on her toes to kiss him.
Because that was what she wanted to do.
And in a whole sea of unknowns, that was one of the only things that she was certain of.
So she would grab onto it with both hands.