ISAT IN THE CHAIR,looking at the laptop screen, reeling.
Here it was: the truth.
And didn’t it make sense? Hadn’t part of me always suspected but been hesitant to think too hard about it, to actually admit it?
I found it heartbreaking that my mother had this whole secret life, and unnerving that everything I thought I knew about her growing up was wrong. I hadn’t known my mother at all. But the things I did know now clicked into place.
I knew my parents hadn’t had the best relationship; even as a small child I understood that my father felt inadequate and was always trying so hard to win her love and attention.
I remembered how happy my mother had been whenever Bobbi came to visit, the glow she got even just talking with her on the phone.
And I knew that my mother had been ripped apart by Bobbi’s death, that she was never the same after.
And now I fully understood why.
And why that damn rock meant so much to her: it was her connection to Bobbi. She’d lost her true love. All she had left of Bobbi was her stone heart, so my mother clung to it, slept beside it, argued with it, begged to have Bobbi back. Even now, as she lay dying, my mother kept the stone within reach, always in sight.
Again, I found myself pitying my mother.
There were tears in my own eyes as I watched my mother on Izzy’s computer screen.
“She was my best friend,” my mother confessed to Izzy. “And my lover. And my whole world. Until she wasn’t.”
The camera moved, jerked a little, as if Izzy herself had been so shocked by this revelation that she let the camera slip.
“So you guys were, like… together?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“Did anyone know?”
“A few people. Our closest friends. And others guessed at it. I think my mother suspected, but she never asked, and I would have denied it if she had. It wasn’t like now. People weren’t as open and accepting. There were… repercussions for things like that. It was a long time ago, Isabelle.”
“So… what happened?”
“Like I said, things were different. There were expectations.” Her face tightened, and she looked away from the camera. “Bobbi went to California and starting acting, just like she always said she would. I stayed back east and married David, like she told me to. She got married too. We had children. Went on with our lives. Saw each other for a week each summer.”
“But you still loved each other?”
My mother nodded.
“You were both living these lies?” Izzy’s voice came out like a gasp, like she couldn’t believe it.
“Isn’t everyone, in one way or another?” my mother asked.
“I—did your husband know?”
“He suspected—no, he more than suspected—I’m sure he knew. But he never asked, and I never told him. Simpler that way.”
“But you stayed with him? Even though you loved her?” Izzy asked, incredulous.
“We talked about it all the time. Leaving our husbands. One day being together. But the time was never right. And when we did talk about it… well, it was like telling each other a story we both wanted to hear, something we both knew couldn’t ever come true. And then… then shewas killed.” My mother looked down at her quilt, twisting the edge of it in her fingers. “A car accident.”
“Oh my God,” Izzy said, the shock and sorrow in her voice palpable. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well. It was a long time ago,” my mother said again, her face hardening. She turned and looked at the stone on her bedside table before reaching for it, running her fingers over its craggy surface. Then she turned back and faced the camera and Izzy behind it. “Lifetimes ago.”
The video clip ended. I sat staring at the now-still image of my mother looking at me from the screen.
