These men usually had slicked-back hair, worn leather jackets, and always smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, even when Mom claimed smokers were a deal breaker. They were everything my dad wasn’t: freewheeling, partying, gambling men. It’s like she never understood that luck on the casino floor usually meant unlucky in love.
Now it makes sense when I think about why I was inexplicably drawn to Patrick when we met in college outside of that clubhouse. He smelled like vodka and he was dressed like Santa and his phone was missing. On the outside, he appeared much like these card sharks my mom brought around the apartment—the masculine ideal I was programmed to want.
But as we got to know one another, Patrick’s true nature unmasked itself. His partying, lightly mysterious persona was not a feature of his programming, but rather a bug in his development. It was his way of letting loose, shedding his parents’ disappointment over his path of study. Even if I often wondered how true their disapproval was.
The Patrick I started dating barely drank except socially and would rather go to a movie than a club. He was a handsome, stable decision-maker. I sighed with relief and promptly fell head-over-heels in love with him.
Maybe head-over-heels in love isn’t a state you can stay in or try to get back to—too much blood rushing to the head all the time, dizzying. Maybe firmly-on-two-feet in love is mature love. The kind we need now.
“Why’s it matter?” Mom asks, snapping me back to the conversation.
“A little soon to be going to his family Thanksgiving, no?” I ask without thinking.
“Not like you sent me an invite. I don’t even know where you are.”
“I’m in New Jersey. Home,” I say, sounding salty in the reverb on her end. She must have me on speaker. I temper my voice before asking, “If I had invited you, would you have come?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course. As long as Pete could come, of course.” Is Pete there, standing in our old kitchen eating a sandwich over the sink, listening in? That’s how it feels.
“Are you sure?” I ask, harnessing some of the forwardness I found in the North Pole. “Because the last few years, the last several holidays, you’ve bailed.”
“I don’t bail. I have somewhere else to be.” She’s failing to spot that there is no difference. That “somewhere else to be” usually only materializes after the fact, after the plans have been made, but I don’t want to blame her anymore. There are two people who are a part of this problem. We both have to want to find a solution.
“Mom,” I say. “Be honest. The last major event I saw you at was my wedding, and even then, you sulked through the whole thing.” I lift my left hand, once again mourning the place where my wedding ring used to be. Before, it felt like a bothersome anchor. Now I feel completely adrift without it. I wish we could split the difference.
“Where is this coming from?” she asks sharply. At least she hasn’t denied anything.
I shake my head, unable to find words until suddenly I’m choked up. “It’s coming from missing you,” I croak.
There’s silence and then finally: “Oh, my baby.” I hear rustling, the sound of a chair scraping across linoleum, and footsteps down a carpeted hallway that I recognize too well from my childhood. “I don’t even know what to say. I miss you, too.”
“Then why don’t you ever want to see me?” I ask. I wish we weren’t having this conversation over the phone while I’m standing in my driveway. But I’m frozen here. Autumn wind gliding over my shoulders. Dead leaves rolling over my feet.
She takes a loud breath that crackles. “Because it hurts too much.”
“Hurts? What hurts?” I ask, wanting desperately to understand.
“I had you when I was a teenager, Quinn. Barely an adult. I had plans to go to college and get a business degree. But a couple months after high school graduation I became a wife, and then a couple months after that I became a mother. Gran and Grandpa would’ve had it no other way. Everything changed for me so quickly,” she says, saddened. “I loved you from the moment I found out I was going to have you. Don’t mistake my words. I’m only trying to say that one night with your father irrevocably changed the path of my life. I didn’t even know if I loved him. All I knew was that I needed to learn how to and fast so that I could be there for you.”
“Mom,” I say, as if that’s worth anything in this moment. I wait patiently for her to continue.
“I wasn’t good at it. I tried and tried and tried to make a happyhome while I only grew unhappier, so when your father finally served me papers, I flung myself in the other direction.” There’s a sniffle. I can’t tell if it’s on her end of the line or mine. I realize now that every relationship is as delicate as a strand of dental floss. Two good tugs in opposing directions could snap the whole thing apart.
“It was me and you, my baby, against the world. That’s how I liked it. They tell you in all the parenting books how to make sure your child grows up to be strong and independent, but I liked how you needed me too much. I liked that even in middle school you weren’t embarrassed to hold my hand when we crossed the street or to go shopping with me at the mall and then suddenly high school happened and you came into your own. Then, you got into a great college and met this great man with this perfect, perfect family and I know this is selfish, Quinn, I know, but I didn’t want to let you go,” she says, breaking and somehow also healing my heart.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” I say reassuringly. “I’m still here.”
“It didn’t feel that way. It felt like I was being replaced. Again,” she says with a sigh. I know she’s talking about Dad. Regardless of whether she loved him or not, she depended on him. Her whole life she was told she had to. “But I’m sorry. To protect myself from hurt, I hurt you. That was never my intention. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” I say. Mom hardened, like Patrick did before we met. They performed “carefree” as if they were being paid to do so. I did the opposite. I was so afraid Patrick would hurt me by leaving that I performed “careful.” Careful husband who never says no and is along for the ride.
Marriages aren’t one person driving the sleigh and the other playing pillow-passenger in the sidecar.
Marriages are, as silly as it may seem, tandem bicycles. If you can’t learn to pedal together, you’ll end up tipping or crashing or worse.
“Good,” she says, recovering. “Good. So, listen, do you have plans for Thanksgiving? Because if you don’t, it’s not too late for me to cancel. My car is out of commission but I’m sure I could take the bus up to you or—”
“No, Mom, don’t rearrange your plans for me.” I wipe a stray tear from my cheek. “I’m going to Veronica’s house to celebrate with her mom and stepdad.”
