My mother rubbed my back. “I know, Jocey.”
Clearing my throat, I faced her. “How am I supposed to trust it?”
That was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. Love had burned early on between Don and me. At first, it had been a mere spark. An inkling that something bigger was bound to happen. Then, the spark became a flame that pulled me in so deep, I couldn’t see a way out.
That flame had evolved into a full-on blaze.
“How do I know he won’t cheat on me and break my heart?” I asked. “What if I’m not enough? Like…”
I didn’t want to say the name on the tip of my tongue.
“Like I wasn’t enough for your father?”
My mouth fell open to deny it, but the lie burned away on my lips at the look in her eyes.
Her eyes watered. “I did you a disservice that day when you came to me.”
“About Daddy.”
She stepped back, folded her arms across her midsection, and looked off at the corner of the room. “Your father was a good man.”
“I know, Ma.”
“Hush and let me get this out. I knew about his affairs. What you don’t know is that I did leave him.”
I scrunched my face and jutted my head backward. “When?”
She gave me a side-eye, and I clamped my mouth shut.
“The summer you two turned fifteen. Remember that summer?”
I nodded, recalling that Corey and I had been sent to Jamaica to stay with our Aunt Patrice and her family for summer break.
“I packed all of my belongings and told your father I refused to live with him and his cheating ass any longer. He begged me to stay, but I was done. I found myself an apartment and made sure it had extra bedrooms for you two. He was adamant that he’d do anything to fix our marriage.” She looked me in the eyes. “Slowly, I came around and agreed to try again. We went to counseling. I’d tried to get your father to go with me to counseling for years.”
She paused, eyes watering.
“We had a hard time conceiving. I had two miscarriages before you and your brother.”
A sheen of wetness blanketed my eyes. I hadn’t known about the miscarriages. My mother had only told me it took her and daddy a long time to get pregnant with us.
I started to feel as if a wool was removed from over my eyes.
“Between the unhealed pain of the miscarriages, fear over losing you two, and then the hectic early stages of parenthood and taking care of twins, the relationship between your father and me got lost in the shuffle, though that’s not an excuse for his behavior. I turned a blind eye to it for far too long because I didn’t want to acknowledge that someone I loved so much could do that to me.”
A shudder ran through me. I knew that feeling. I’d experienced it with my first love. That same hurt and betrayal reflected in the faces of many of my clients once they found out the truth.
“But I never wanted you to see me accept that type of treatment. When you came to me about what you saw, I froze. I tried to deny the truth. Your father and I got into a huge argument when he came back the following night from his shift. He swore it was a lie, that you didn’t see what you thought it was. And I wanted to believe him, so I tried to go along with it, but by the time you were fifteen, I’d had enough. He begged me to come back home and even agreed to stay in the apartment while I lived here with you and Corey. He lived in that apartment for almost a year.”
My mouth fell open. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what my mother told me. “He was here the whole time,” I said.
“You only thought he was. But nights after you kids went to bed, I’d send him off. Or we told you all he had an overnight shift at work. He was staying at that apartment. It took me more than a year to decide to let him move back in.”
“What made you decide?”
I had to know.
She approached me and cupped my face. “Your father did. He showed up to every counseling session early. He did everything I asked of him and more. I never thought we could rebuild the trust between us, but he did it, brick by brick. We rebuilt our marriage and with it, our love.”
