Timothy took both of her hands in his, and Elena had the thought that he was giving himself a pep talk instead of her.
“Your career is all that matters,” Timothy echoed. “It’s what will outlast you.”
Elena flared her nostrils and let herself fall into his eyes. “You really do sound like my mother,” she said finally. “It’s uncanny.”
“I look forward to meeting her one day,” Timothy said. “I always imagined her as the most rational of all people. But she’s grieving right now, Elena. And grief is never rational. You know that.”
“Rationally, I do know that,” Elena said. “But I’m grieving, too.”
Timothy gave her a look that she translated as: Don’t let yourself get carried away.
That night, Timothy and Elena ate their dinner in silence as Timothy scanned through emails and jotted notes to himself onhis pad. Elena was inundated with images of her father from her long-ago past. Now that she was thirty-nine (how had that happened?), it felt as though she’d been a child in another lifetime, as though her father had taught her to ride a bike and climb a tree and enjoy a chocolate chip cookie a thousand years ago, if not more.
Guilt tugged at her stomach. She should have been home more often. She should have been a phone call away when her father collapsed.
Suddenly, she was on her feet. Syria was nine hours ahead of Millbrook, which meant that it was two in the afternoon. Incredibly. “I’ll be right back,” she hollered to Timothy, who probably couldn’t hear her over his genius note-taking. She entered his bedroom, closed the door, and sat at the edge of the mattress, her heart pounding. She tried to imagine the conversation she’d have with Carmen before it happened, if only to get her mind around it. But her mind was blank.
Carmen answered on the third ring but didn’t say anything.
“Mom?” Elena gasped, then burst into tears. “Mom, I just got your texts. Mom, I’m so sorry.” She fell onto Timothy’s bed and stared at the ceiling, willing time to stop or go back. “The generator and cell towers were down for days. I had no way of hearing anything. I’m so, so sorry, Mom. I’m so, so sad and sorry.” Her shoulders shook.
Still, her mother said nothing, not for another three minutes of Elena’s weeping and apologizing. Elena knew that if Timothy heard her, he’d be disgusted. But she couldn’t stop.
“Are you done?” Carmen asked.
Elena was stunned speechless.Done crying for her father?Would she ever be done?
She imagined her mother at the kitchen table, wearing her typical journalism outfit: her blazer and those cute gray pants. She imagined her mother doing just what Timothy was doingright now, making notes, thinking about her articles. But how could Carmen keep working at a time like this? How could Elena?
“I’m going to get on a plane,” Elena promised her mother. “I want to come home and help you through this.”
“Help me?” Carmen sounded on the verge of laughing. “What makes you think anything you could do would help me?”
Elena felt as though she’d been smacked, which wasn’t necessarily a strange thing when it came to her mother. “Please, Mom,” she whispered. “I messed up, but I want to fix it. I want to grieve with you.” She swallowed. “We need to do it together. I can take time off.”
“Time off? And I suppose you expect me to take time off as well?”
Elena rolled her eyes into the back of her head. Why did her mother have to be so difficult all the time? She wanted to point out how unimportantThe Millbrook Gazettewas in the grand scheme of things and how her father’s life (and her mother’s love for him!) surely outweighed whatever was going on in Millbrook. She bit her tongue to keep from saying “Oh, do you have to write about another family barbecue? Another basketball game? You know, I’m writing about war? Perhaps the most consequential and horrendous thing humankind has ever done? And I’m still willing to take time off to be with you?”
But she knew better than to throw her weight around in front of her mother like that.
Grief made everyone act like the children they were on the inside.
“I’m going to buy a flight,” Elena said. “You don’t have to take any time off. But I want to be there. I want to see you. You can do whatever you want.”
“Don’t bother,” Carmen said. She hung up.
For the following days, Elena walked around in a state of nightmarish grief and anger. Many times, she prepared to buy a flight ticket, and many times she stopped herself, remembering her mother’s cruelty. Why didn’t her mother appreciate all Elena had done in her field? Wasn’t journalism what Elena had been born to do? Her grandmother had even been a journalist, for crying out loud, during a time when women often didn’t work outside the home. The fact that her grandmother had died tragically before her career could really get started was yet another reason for Elena to keep going. She wanted to honor Grandma Rosa’s memory!
But as the days passed, things didn’t necessarily get any easier for Elena. At night, she suffered the most, tossing and turning in bed beside Timothy, who finally asked her to spend a few days at her apartment instead so that he could get some sleep himself. Elena understood. She also understood that her relationship often made her feel lonelier than she would if she were alone. Being so far from home, from the United States, from a country that wasn’t war-torn and dangerous, made her cling tighter to her relationship, to the point where she didn't recognize herself.
And then, very suddenly, it had been four months since her father had died, and it felt too late to return home. Elena knew she would carry this grief around with her for the rest of her life.
Chapter Ten
Eighteen Months Ago
Syria
