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“I know. I’m so sorr—”
“We’d lost our mother and our father. We had no one but you and your deadbeat husband. And not only did you ignore us, but you manipulated us. Lied to us. Pretended to the world that you were perfect guardians, except you were nothing but greedy, social climbing, junkies. I will never forgive you for robbing my brothers of their childhoods.”
“Will you forgive me for yours?”
Staring at the doorway behind her, I said, “I read once that forgiveness is between you and God. Everyone else is for vanity. Don’t waste the little time you have left on me, Catherine. Make peace with your maker.”
She nodded, jerking her chin up and down, and rose from her chair.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw her approach the door. However, before she left, she said quietly, “I’ve asked God for forgiveness and have made peace with my sins. I pray you will find peace as well, Ryan. I no longer wish to hurt you.”
My throat tightened, and I couldn’t swallow. I closed my eyes as I fell back into my chair.
I spent the last thirteen years of my life trying to forget this woman. Forget how much I wanted her to be a mother to us, listen to us. Give us a bit of motherly affection.
I saw her face in every woman, wondering what they had to hide. Were they what they presented to the world or were they high as a kite?
Maybe my sister-in-law Frances was right. I should make an appointment with her therapist. I needed to forget Catherine, and everything I’d done so far hadn’t worked. Maybe I would forget her when she was gone. Except I was terrified that I wouldn’t. She might haunt me forever.
6
Laura
I threw another dress onto the floor and stared at the pile growing in my bedroom. I had tried on three dresses and attempted to pair a shirt and blouse but nothing worked. My clothes were either too casual or club wear. Neither would cut it for a charity gala held at the swanky LAM, the local artists museum, tonight.
I should cancel. Tell him I had nothing to wear. No. That sounded shallow. I would tell him I couldn’t do it. But I never went back on my word when I committed to something.
My phone rang and my mother’s vibrant auburn hair appeared on my screen. I swiped up.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, trying to sound cheerful but failing miserably.
“Hi, baby,” she said. “How are you?”
“Fine.” I looked up at my nearly empty closet. I’d thrown most of my clothes on the floor after trying them on. “Just fine. How are you?”
“Really good, actually. Our band has another gig booked tonight in Boston and then we’re off to Miami. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Yes. That’s really great.”
My parents married shortly after my mom found out she was pregnant with me. They tried to make it work for a couple of years, but she said she wasn’t really cut out to be a mother. She had dropped her dream to be a famous singer and regretted it every day.
One day, my father found a letter on the kitchen table. She said she’d been practicing with a band while he was at work and they planned to go on tour. She said she’d be back in six months when the tour was over. That was twenty-four years ago.
I didn’t really have any hard feelings toward my mother. She did what she thought she had to do. She probably would have been a terrible mother had she stayed. This way, at least we still had our weekly catch-up calls.
My dad couldn’t raise me on his own, though. He called his parents to help and for most of my life; they had raised me. They both passed when I was a teen. My grandfather died when I was twelve and my grandmother passed shortly before my fourteen birthday. That was when everything changed. My father couldn’t handle a teenager, so he left me alone most of the time.
I preferred it to when he was home. An image of my father and his friends sitting at our kitchen table high as kites popped into my mind, but I immediately shook it off.
I didn’t blame my dad.
At least not anymore.
I had never blamed my mother. But there was always this distance between us, and it wasn’t because she was usually another state away. She held back in her conversations and feelings. I felt it. Maybe it was her way of protecting herself. At best, it kept our conversations very polite, and distant at worst.
I sat down on the floor, leaning against my bed, and settling in for our chat.
“Maybe if the tour ends early, I’ll see you for Labor Day,” she said. Her voice pitched high whenever she said something she knew wasn’t entirely true. She’d said something similar to me at least twice a year. Sometimes it was ‘I’ll see you for Independence Day’ or ‘I’ll be home for Christmas’. But I stopped believing her after the third year those promises turned empty.
