For the first time, the tears flowed freely, and this time, I felt no need to hide them.
“But you know what, Mom? I love you anyway. You hid things from me, but you were just trying to take care of me in whatever way you thought was right. And I’m here to tell you it wasn’t right. You shouldn’t have done that. You should have been more honest with me. Like I’d been honest with you all my life. I never hid any of my boyfriends from you, nor did I hide the first time I came home drunk or my terrible grades. And I’d like to think that if you had a second chance, you’ be honest with me about your fears. You’d realize I was old enough to take that burden. And unlike Desmond, who left me again, I’d like to believe you still love me. And you wouldn’t lie to me again.”
I knelt down and ran my fingertips over the engraved letters on her headstone. Even though I felt sorrow and longing for her, I felt a new thing. I felt a sense of connection to Mom here and a peacefulness that I hadn’t been able to find at home.
“I’ll see you again soon, Mom,” I whispered and stood up. “I’ll be back next Sunday.”
When I turned to go, I saw something white peeking out from behind the headstone. Rounding it, I noticed what was an envelope. Pulling it to me, I saw that it was not sealed.
Inside it were a few printed photographs on glossy paper and a keychain. My eyes pricked with tears when I recognized the familiar engraving on it—the letters A and D, intertwined. Rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand, I turned to the pictures.
There was a photo of Desmond hugging me in the midstof a football field. I gaped as I stared at it. I remembered that. It was taken after he’d scored a touchdown for Centerville High in the fall of senior year. We’d been so young and giddy in our happiness.
The next was a photo of the two of us watching fireworks. We were sitting on a plaid picnic blanket, our hands intertwined, backs to the photo as we stared up at the dusky sky. That had been on the Fourth of July near the lake.
I turned away, my eyes welling up with tears at the reminders of those days.
Why had Desmond left them here? And how could Desmond bear to hold on to these? Why would the guy who couldn’t see a future with me keep such diligent track of our past?
I sucked in a lungful of air and felt loneliness and loss wash off of me. Des wasn’t going to move on from me any more than I could. Any more than two stars colliding in space. We were like the earth and the moon, always locked in together, but never getting closer. Sometimes, he’d disappear from my life completely, and then he’d come back, shining brightly, unmissable and unignorable by me.
That night,I walked back to my apartment from the subway station, feeling a mix of happiness and sadness.
I’d gotten Mom’s restaurant back. Not the original one, but better, if the past few days were any indication. We were in a location that had a lot of foot traffic, and business was looking good. It felt like the good old days. Life should have been looking up. These were essentially the kind of workdays I’d been hoping to have after all.
But something was still missing.
I stopped on the pavement outside the brown apartment building I called home.
Desmond was sitting on the steps by the building’s front doors.
He was wearing an iron-gray suit, smart and polished. He had his hair done in a strong side part to the left. It was freshly trimmed, and not a hair was out of place. He had a bit of a stubble, but I’d always liked that.
He knows I like that, I realized with a pang of regret.
When I walked up, Desmond saw me, and he stood up.
A range of emotions crossed his face. He looked happy, relieved, and exhausted at the same time.
“You’re home,” he said.
“You’ve been waiting?” I asked, stopping at the foot of the steps.
He looked at me kindly, softly and nodded. “Just for a bit.”
Mrs. Wilson looked through a window in her living room that opened to the street. “He’s been waiting for four hours. I tried to invite him inside for a cup of coffee, but he said he didn’t want to miss seeing you walk in.”
I nodded before she withdrew.
I crossed my arms over my chest and eyed Desmond. I had a sneaking suspicion of something, and I needed to follow up on it. “Did you, by any chance, visit Mom’s grave?” I asked, holding out the envelope with the photographs and the key chain in it.
He angled his head as he looked at me and gave me a single nod. “I did. I wanted to get her up-to-date on everything. And to apologize for a whole lot of things I had done to hurt you, sweetheart.”
It was too much, the tenderness and love I heard in his voice.
“Not your sweetheart anymore, but thank you. And you don’t need to visit her grave anymore,” I said, pocketing the photographs. “I’ll be visiting her weekly from here on out.”
At that, he met my eyes evenly. “Before you walk away, I want to speak with you, Ava.”
