Chapter 36
Time stops. And races ahead.
It’s been hours, days, weeks, months since our goodbye. My sheets don’t smell like him, and he didn’t leave anything behind. But my blank walls and cold bed all conspire to highlight his absence.
Mom visits the fancy neurologist Dad found, and she gives us hope and a tentative plan: a cocktail of medications and possible surgery in the months to come.
Mom begins physical therapy and dance classes for Parkinson’s patients.
In exchange, I let her teach me to paint.
I am a terrible artist, but she insists she’s an inferior dancer and says it makes us even.
I seek comfort in having her home, having the chance to make up for our lost years.
I throw Cassie a duck-and-daffodil-themed baby shower and help her search for baby names. I am relieved I can hold her joy while clutching my grief.
Adelaide brings Abby for a long weekend before the school year starts.
It’s painful to see how much I’ve missed in just a few months.
She got her braces off, which makes her look even more like her father.
Her smile is blinding, both beautiful and torturous.
In a blink, she’s older, taller, wiser—her girlhood slipping away in a summer.
I hang on every word, hoping for news of Caleb: He covered for Ian most of the summer, working sixty to seventy hours a week.
He was awarded three of the grants we wrote and will begin forest restoration this fall, which will keep him busier.
He’s been tired and, Abby says, “a little off.” But there’s no amount of information that can quench my thirst for him.
And Adelaide watches me like the counselor she is, so I retreat.
She’s kept our secret, just as Caleb said she would.
But she’s assessing me, judging me, even though I did exactly as she asked. I convinced Mom to seek treatment.
But I also happened to break two hearts in the process.
I know Caleb and Mom talk. There are times when I catch her side of the conversation and feel faint from longing, drawn to pluck the phone from her hand just to hear his voice. But if I cave, I’ll have to start the clock over—zero days since I last succumbed to Caleb.
I drift through my white-walled house like the ghost of the girl who found happiness for a season.
Mom mentions how hard it must be for me to live in the house Jeff and I shared. She thinks I’m mourning him. But I barely remember him. How did we spend our time? What did we talk about? Laugh about? Fight about?
I do remember the vibrant colors and textures of Caleb’s home. I remember the clean pine scent of the trail that led to him. I remember his laugh lines and scars, his rough hands and soft words. I remember how I’d exhale when he held me.
I’ve been mourning him longer than he was mine.
But I know I made the right choice, not just for Mom but for me.
Mom is thriving—physically, mentally—as is our relationship.
I’m finding the rhythm of forgiveness. It’s not an epiphany, I realize now.
It’s a practice. And practicing grace has loosened the ball in my stomach and neutralized my numbness.
Absolution isn’t a gift I’m offering to Mom; it’s a kindness I’m granting myself.
All those months ago, I sensed that I needed to travel back to where everything fell apart in order to begin again.
My grief and resentment were poisoning me, killing my ability to connect and care.
Over the last few months, I’ve worked through my scar tissue causing the block.
And I was right—it’s a relief to feel alive again, even if it means I experience every pang, throb, and ache from losing Caleb.
Mom and I step through the glass doors into the lobby as a trio of young ballerinas step out of the private hallway. Their impeccable posture, willowy limbs, and pink tights peeking out under street clothes would give them away anywhere, but this is their natural habitat.
They sneak past us, giggling, and my chest constricts.
I avoided everything dance adjacent for twenty years, but Mom’s homecoming has given me an opportunity to heal another wound.
Dropping Mom off for her weekly Parkinson’s dance class is exposure therapy.
On the way here, we passed the War Memorial Opera House, where larger-than-life banners highlight perfectly posed ballerinas in Swan Lake.
In the lobby, I hear the distant allegros on the piano and the buzz of students talking about class, unmarred by injury or disillusionment.
Every Saturday night, Mom shows me what she learned, and I fix her alignment or teach her something new.
We dance in the kitchen and laugh at ourselves.
She fights for balance, and I struggle to extend my leg. But we dance. And we heal.
An older woman shuffles by with her caretaker. “Are you ready to boogie, Nicolette?”
“Always,” Mom says. “I’ll see you in there, Linda.”
“I filled your water bottle and packed a snack.” I hand Mom her tote bag.
She slides it onto her shoulder and smiles at me. “You’re such a good dance mom. At least you didn’t have to sew my pointe shoes.”
“Keep working and maybe you’ll earn yours.”
She guffaws. “Can you imagine?”
The thought makes me smile, and I check my watch. “I’ll be back in two hours.”
“Your dad is going to pick me up today. Sorry, I thought I told you. There’s an exhibit at the SFMOMA he thought I might like.”
“Oh, really?” Their mini adventures around the city are becoming a pattern.
Last week, they visited a nursery and brought home an avocado tree for my backyard.
Dad stops by every morning, teaching Mom about the native flowers he planted for me after I let Jeff’s bougainvillea die.
Sometimes, I wake to the sound of their gentle conversation—my childhood in retrograde.
“You’re welcome to join us. We just thought you’d like a free afternoon.”
“You two should go ahead. I have lunch with Cass, and then I might run some errands.” Cassie and I have eschewed Sunday brunch for a weekly lunch on Saturday while Mom is at class.
I smooth a strand of hair that’s come free from Mom’s top knot.
It’s not required, but I couldn’t bring her to a ballet class without giving her the traditional smooth bun, ballet skirt, and classic wrap sweater.
Everyone else shows up in sweats and T-shirts, but ballerina daughters don’t let their mothers dress inappropriately for ballet class. That discipline was driven into my DNA.
“Thanks, honey. I love you.” Mom turns toward the turnstile that leads to the studios.
“Love you more. Will you be home for dinner?” I call after her.
Mom stops and grins at me from over her shoulder. “We might grab a bite afterward. Do I have a curfew?”
This role reversal is a full one-eighty. “All right. Have fun. Be safe.”
She waves, and I watch as she disappears into the back hallway before I exit. It’s a short walk to Hayes Street, where I’m meeting Cassie at a café serving all manner of carbs to satisfy her pregnancy cravings. No doubt she’ll want to grab ice cream afterward, too.
While I walk, I text Dad to confirm his plans.
I don’t want to leave Mom stranded if they got their signals crossed.
Dad gives me a full rundown of the exhibit and their reservations at some new buzzy restaurant in North Beach.
I don’t know if their new dynamic is romantic or platonic, and I’m trying not to get too involved.
It’s long past the point where my parents’ marriage should be my concern.
Either way, though, they both seem . . .
content. Like the world has settled on its rightful axis after two decades of spinning backward.
I know it’s not that simple. Mom loved Sonny.
She loved the life she shared with him. But my parents cram words into the hours they share, compensating for the silence that stretched taut over twenty years and three hundred miles.
It makes me realize Mom told me the truth all those months ago—she loved them both, the man she married and the man she never could.
It should give me hope that it’s possible to find new love while yearning for Caleb from afar. But it doesn’t. Because I know, deep in my bones, that my love for Caleb is ivy, wound around my heart, choking any chance for anything else to take root.
And I’m not willing to settle for another small love.
So I am considering my next options.
I spot Cassie at a wood table near the front of the café, sitting in the path of the breeze through the open doorway.
Fall in San Francisco notoriously ushers in the warmest weather of the year.
Cass typically lives for it, spending as much time outside as she can to soak up the sun like a cold-blooded reptile.
But now in her third trimester, she’s begging for the relief of winter.
“Hey.” I slide my purse over the back of the chair.
“You’re sure?” Cassie asks without preamble.
I tilt my head, trying to figure out what she’s talking about, and then I remember the text I’d sent her last night, which she never responded to.
“Not really,” I say. “But it’s time to stop waiting for life to happen to me.”
The server places a glass of water in front of each of us and tells us she’ll be back to take our order.
Cassie scrolls her phone, and I assume she’s looking at the link I had sent her yesterday—a sperm bank that our mutual friends, Xochitl and Lorelei, used to conceive their daughter. “Honestly, it’s a racket. Most men would be happy to knock you up for free.”
“Yeah, well, most men aren’t screened for STDs, genetic diseases, criminal records, and psychosis.”
“You know I’ll support you no matter what. I’ll give you all the hand-me-downs, let you learn from all the mistakes I’m about to make, and hold your hand in the delivery room. But do you really want to do this without a partner?”