The sound of a car pulling into my driveway, then of a door opening and closing, had my heart beating. In fact, it probably wasn’t him, not at this hour, but yet I fantasized it was.
I strolled out to the living room window and drew the curtains aside, but it was too dark to see much of anything. And then the sound of three firm knocks on the front door had my heart racing. I peeked out the peephole. Confusion filled me at who stood on the other side.
When I opened it, the huge smile on my mother’s face had worry filling me immediately. She clutched an overnight bag in her hand, the grin on her face looked forced.
“Surprise,” she said a little too eagerly.
“Mom?” I stepped to the side to let her in. I closed the door and faced her, leaning against it and just watching her, waiting for her to drop the bomb I knew she’d come here to drop.
Why else would she show up unexpectedly this late?
“Is everything okay?”
She looked around the small house that I called home while in school. “This place is cute, Grace.” She turned and faced me, but I could see her smile was still forced.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
She set her bag down. “What? I can’t surprise my daughter with a visit?”
I knew my expression was probably disbelieving.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but you’ve never just shown up out of the blue, especially when it’s this late.” I could see the wall she’d built around herself start to crumble. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She sighed, and I watched her smile vanish. A real look of anguish, wrath, hopelessness clung to her in that moment. I knew what this was about before she even said anything.
My father.
Pearce.
He and my mother had married young. They’d been high school sweethearts, and I knew from enough reminiscing from my mother over the years that my father had been her first everything.
First boyfriend.
First love.
First kiss.
First everything.
So, when things had gone wrong, my mother had taken it hard. The divorce hadn’t been amicable. My father had up and left my mom, taking a substantial amount of their savings, and ran off with the lady who would become his new wife. He hadn’t given a second thought to how this would affect my mother; probably even assumed I was mature enough to get through it.
He’d tried to smooth things over with me, going off about being in love and wanting to start his life.
It had all been crap.
He’d abandoned his wife and daughter for a young, new piece of ass. He’d married her shortly after he deceived my mom and clearly had no regrets or shame about it.
A part of me despised him for what he’d put my mom through, for how he’d hurt her.
“It’s about your father.”
Of course, it was. Because even after the years that had passed, he was still fucking her over.
I stepped over to her and gave her a hug. I didn’t know what this was about, but whatever it was had disturbed her enough that she felt the need to come all the way out here to see me.
I pulled back and gazed at her, hating that she felt so lost. She put up a nice face, though, and I knew she did it for me even though I knew how distraught she genuinely was over it all.
“Whatever has happened, things will work out. They always do.” I took her hand and led us into the living room, and we sat on the couch. Her focus was on the textbooks and papers strewn about the floor.
