“Trinity?”
I turn toward the door and find Mom. She stands there with a confused look on her face.
Great.
“What are you doing in here?” Her eyes fall over my shoulder.
I know she’s looking at the picture frame I just picked up. I’m surprised it’s still displayed. I thought she would have shoved it into a box.
I swallow tightly. “I was just looking at that photo.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I nod my head. Awkwardness is thick in the air. It’s suffocating, making me want to run away from her the first chance I get.
“It’s my favorite photo.” My fingers fiddle together as I feel my heart beating at a fast rate.
I watch as she walks into the room farther. Her eyes suddenly fill with sadness. “There’s not a single day that I don’t miss him.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
She slowly lowers her body onto the bed, staring forward. I inch closer to her when she continues, “Every morning, I always look over to his side of the bed. You would think after all these years, I would get used to not seeing him beside me. But I always still expect him there. I want to wake up to his smile again. I want to sit on the front porch and have our morning coffee. We both used to smile when we heard your tiny footsteps pounding down the steps in the morning.” Mom’s voice cracks, and she’s forced to stop.
When she glances down at her lap, I spot one tear slowly drip down her face.
“When you lose your partner, it’s like a part of you goes with them. I feel incomplete without him.”
Mom is breaking down before my eyes. By looking in her distant eyes, I know she’s reliving the years she spent with her husband. She’s never been this open with me. She’s always been the strong one, but she stopped being the mother I grew up with when Rodrigo came around.
“When he died, it was so unexpected. I didn’t have time to process it. Not being able to say good-bye was the hardest pill to swallow. But the one thing I knew he wanted of me was to be there for you.” She grips my hand in hers and squeezes it. “I started hiding my tears and put on an act for you. That’s the worst thing I could have done because behind closed doors, I was so sad. I showed you I wasn’t grieving, and that’s not fair to you.”
My eyes fill with tears as I listen intently to Mom. Her hand tightens around mine, and I give her a soft smile to continue. “I didn’t know how to be a single mom. I always had your dad beside me. We always decided decisions together about you. We both picked you up when you fell. But out of the blue, all that pressure was placed on my shoulders. I didn’t know how to be the best for you when I didn’t feel the best for me.”
“Mom—” I try to cut her off, but she waves me off with a hand.
“I then started losing myself. I didn’t mother for the longest time. I left you home alone at night, wondering where I was. And that’s not fair. I should have been home with you because you’d lost your dad. Instead, I started acting selfish.” She pauses and scoffs at herself. “When Rodrigo first showed interest in me, I thought he would let me forget the pain. But he only put me through more because I now see what I’ve done to you. I was so blinded by him that I forgot about you. I know that makes me a shitty mother, but I’m here now to make up for it.” She moves closer to where I sit on the bed, and her hand goes up and brushes a lock of my hair behind my ear while the other grips my hand. “Will you forgive me?”
Pushing past the pain people have caused you is hard. For months, Mom has been a mom that you see in horror movies. She neglected and forgot about her own daughter. That sends thousands of bullets to my chest because I was replaced with a man who wasn’t my father.
Yet everyone grieves differently. I, for one, closed myself off to people. I never left my room. I hated the things I used to love and started hating myself. So, even though Mom has treated me terribly, that’s her way of grieving. She didn’t sign up to be a single parent, and I need to understand that.
In life, you truly have only two parents.
I learned the hard way to treasure what you have in life because it can be taken from you in a heartbeat.
I have one mom, one person who’s left to be my support system. If I’m moving on and becoming a better version of myself, I need to forgive Mom first.
“I never stopped loving you,” I mumble and smile up at her.
I feel her hand leave mine. Not even a second later, I’m in her arms, and she’s squeezing me in a tight grip.
“I’m so sorry for not being the mother I was supposed to be. I’m sorry for leaving the back door open, causing Simba’s death. I’m so sorry, my love.”
Her hand runs through my hair as a sob racks her body. My heart shatters as I feel Mom sobbing against me. Her grip doesn’t loosen; it only tightens. It’s like she’s afraid that I’ll vanish before her eyes.
I pull away from her body and clasp her hands in my own. “I’m going to be honest. It’s going to be hard to forgive you fully for how you’ve been treating me. But I’m going to try because I can’t imagine losing a husband.”
“Thank you. I’ll take what I can get.” Her fingers fiddle with her wedding ring that she hasn’t taken off yet. “I have something for you.”
