Aleeza:Because you didn’t believe in commitment.
Jay:I think I would have realized that you’d be worth so much more than a hookup, and I would have backed away because that wasn’t my style. Honestly, I think my whole no-commitment thing is a trauma response. Learning about your ultimate demise in weeks kind of makes you rethink how you’ve lived your life, you know?
Aleeza:I can imagine. Why a trauma response?
Jay:I went to see my mom again today. She said something that made me think. She said she knows she has a screwed-up view of relationships, and she’s afraid she passed it to me. She was in a strange mood ... kind of melancholy. I kept thinking she might know what’s going to happen, too, but of course that’s not possible. Maybe my mood was contagious.
Aleeza:Do you think it’s her depression?
Jay:No. I mean, this is nothing like when she was really bad five years ago. She kind of closed in on herself then. Yesterday, she was chatty.
I want to ask him more about his mother and where she could be now. This could be my chance to get more information out of him. But ... it feels so wrong to deceive him after he told me he wants to hold me. Even though it can’t happen.
Aleeza:Why does she think she has a screwed-up view of relationships? Because of your father? Or did she have other bad relationships?
Jay:No, she hasn’t had a lot of relationships. She goes out on dates sometimes. Nice Bangladeshi men my uncle finds who don’t mind that she’s a single mother. She once even almost married this divorced man, but it didn’t work out. I think I’m portraying her as some tragic fallen woman here, but she’s not. Mom’s a ton of fun. She’s just had some rough things happen to her. My whole family has. They came to Canada with nothing.
Aleeza:How old was she?
Jay:Thirteen. They all had it rough for a long time. My grandparents, aunt and uncle, and mom all lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and they all had to work. Every weekend in high school, Mom waited tables at some posh place near the lake. She still refuses to butter toast from all the brunches she served.
Aleeza:Do you know what happened between her and your father?
Jay:Not much. She was eighteen when I was born. I know she was lucky her family didn’t disown her. They’re all a lot more religious than she and I are, but they’re thankfully not the “disown the sinners” type of religious.
Aleeza:Do you think she still talks to your father? He should have paid child support, right?
There is no response to that. A few minutes ago, he said he wanted to hold me. He said he wanted to do more than hold me. But now I’m pushing too hard. Finally, he responds.
Jay:I don’t know. I can’t ask her about him.
Aleeza:Is there another way we can find out about him? He might be relevant. Does she have any friends from back then? Yearbooks?
Jay:Don’t think so. Her closest friends are people from work.
This is going nowhere.
Aleeza:What high school did she go to?
Jay:East Scarborough Collegiate.
Aleeza:Did you go to the same school?
Jay:No.
This is still going nowhere.
Jay:I’m sorry, but that’s all I got. I’m not willing to ask my mother about my father. And I really doubt it’s important, anyway. He’s not a part of my life. At all.
And I’m not willing to give this up either. Because it’s the biggest unanswered question about Jay. But also? I’m not willing to push Jay too hard either. He’s having an existential crisis, and facing his mortality head-on, and I’m the only one he can talk to about it. I want to be there for him, not make this harder.
I stop bugging him about his father and ask him about his aunt and uncle instead, but I don’t learn anything useful. He doesn’t talk about them the same way he talks about his mother.
Aleeza:You all live together. You aren’t close?
Jay:No, we are. Sort of. I got the impression from Mom once that my aunt assumed she’d be the one raising me when they took Mom in. But Mom always made sure she was my parent, not them. We saw a lot of them of course, but Mom kept a separate life too. She even got her mail sent to a friend because she suspected my uncle was reading it.
That sounded significant. Could the aunt and uncle have been bitter or resentful about that?
