“Really?”
Well, maybe it’s not quite true. There are dark smudges under Phoebe’s beautiful eyes. I want to hug her close, but she’s chosen a very public place for our conversation, rather than to come to my new apartment, and she’s keeping her distance.
“Why can’t you just tell the truth, Mom?” She chances a glance at my eyes, then ducks her own eyes away from mine again, hiding her thoughts. At least she picks up the menu.
The waiter approaches as she scans the options. It’s Sabrina again, sunny in a white t-shirt with yellow daisies. She’s from Malaysia, always cheerful, despite working all hours and studying English in between. I’d sit Sabrina down for a chat with us in an instant if I didn’t think she’d lose her job. She could tell Phoebe about her own barefoot childhood, so far away, her own troubles making ends meet in a new city. Maybe they could be friends.
Phoebe stares at the menu and begins to speak.
“I’m okay. It’s okay. Jaxon’s from Oregon. We met at a party. Nothing like how you and Dad met.”
What am I supposed to say?
Phoebe replaces her cup in the saucer and turns it around and around. She spotlights me again, her gaze unfiltered, vulnerable.
“How do I know if he’s the one?”
“Oh. Well.” I’d love to have an answer, but I’d thought Bart was the one, and now look at me. She’s waiting, eyes on mine. “I don’t know, Phoebe.”
“But ...”
“You’re different to me, and I have no doubt Jaxon is very different from your father.”
“Did you think you’d be together forever?”
I nod.
“That’s what marriage is, Phoebe. It’s a public promise – a commitment to be together forever, and I wanted that. But you’re right about the house. I did love it. Maybe too much. Maybe it became a distraction. And then, in a way, a kind of ... consolation. I loved your father, but we saw each other less and less. He was in demand day and night, on screen and off it. I worked alongside him in the early years, but then I was busy raising you.”
“So now it’s my fault?”
“No. Not at all! We couldn’t love you more. Phoebe. I tried to keep our family together. And I failed. But I wasn’t alone in failing. It takes two to honor a commitment.”
“Dad says you lost interest in him.”
Did I? I loved being a stay-at-home mum – meeting Phoebe at the gates after lessons each day, walking her home, hearing the news, laughing at her stories, offering her comfort through the bullying years, helping with her school assignments, doing the makeup for all her school plays.
And as she became more independent, I turned my attention to the garden, to my shabby chic business, then starting Lucy’s Lamps.
“Maybe we lost interest in each other, Phoebe. Your father had a very interesting career. I don’t really know why he stopped loving me. It scares me, that love can be so transient.”
“So you don’t trust love?”
Suddenly I understand why Phoebe has agreed to see me. And I lean across the table and take her hands again as she waits for my words.
“Love is the best, Phoebe. Don’t ever let what happened to me and your father stand between you and your own boyfriend, or any future boyfriends for that matter. You are two completely different people. And you do know the old saying, that ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’ don’t you?”
“Platitudes.”
“Sometimes platitudes are all we’ve got, Phoebe. Besides, love has a way of sneaking up on us, whether or not we’re looking for it.”
“Have you moved on already?” Phoebe’s gaze is hard as a brick fence.
“Yes. No. Well, things happen, Phoebe. You meet people.”
“You’ve met someone?”
“I didn’t say that. But your father has clearly moved on.” I’m not yet ready to tell her about Dirk. There’s nothing to say about him, anyway. He’s a neighbor, a friend, an acquaintance – a mere distraction. That’s not true.
