“When I got pregnant, the whole thing was so complicated, and then…you tell a lie so long, and it kind of becomes truth, you know?” Her voice was wavering, and she took several breaths to try to control herself. “How is he?”
“He’s good,” I said. “He has a nice life and he’s happy. Or was until I showed up and fucked everything up for him. I guess I’m more like you than I realized.”
“I never hurt your father.”
“You did now. Thanks to me,” I responded, intending to cut her deep.
Starting to cry again, she said, “I had my reasons for not telling him.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now because he knows, and it’s all blown up in my face. He doesn’t even want to hear from me.”
“Why not?”
“Why would he?” I shouted. And I wanted to keep shouting. Wanted to shout that it was her fault, that she’d caused all this by being a liar and playing with people’s lives. I wanted to show her how much I blamed her and how resentful I was against her for havingbeen the worst mother in the world. She had never shown any interest in anyone but herself and had pushed me aside so she could continue on her way, as if I were a dog abandoned on the side of the road.
What kind of mother does that?
Mine. Mine did it.
And yet, instead of letting out all the rage that consumed me, the disappointment and reproach I’d swallowed down, I told her the story of my life as it had gone since she’d taken those photos of me.
The words came out, and I watched her shrink and grow weaker before my eyes, especially when I got to the part about the life I’d discovered in Sorrento and how happy all the people there were and how, for once, I’d been able to fantasize about a family where I finally fit in.
I told her about Dante and the misunderstanding that caused everything to collapse. About Giulio’s reaction and what he said before he disappeared through the door.
“I couldn’t stick around after that,” I whispered.
Then I bent over and pressed my hands into my eyes till I saw stars. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t cry again.
“I’m sorry things turned out that way,” she said.
“It was me, though. I’m a disaster. I fucked everything up from the beginning. No matter how I try, I always pick the wrong road.”
“That makes two of us,” my mother responded.
“It’s shit,” I hissed, feeling disappointed as my mother sat back and sighed.
“What do you want from me, Maya?” she asked.
I blinked and stared at her, shocked by the question. Then I asked myself the same thing. I had gone there to free myself from a weight that was keeping me from moving forward. But the problem was, I didn’t know how. What did I actually need to bring that story to an end?
Was I looking for reconciliation? Had I gone there to renounce her forever? Would either of those make up somehow for an entire life of abandonment? I didn’t know. All I could say was I was tired: tired of an entire life of revolving around that infinite circle that was my mother, looking desperately for a way out, an escape hatch from those emotions that had always dug into me with their claws.
I studied her, asking myself: What do I really want?
Then the answer appeared like a lightning bolt.Nothing.I knew nothing about the person who had carried me in her belly for nine months and then had decided to shove off and live her own life.
I read somewhere once that the truth will set you free.
Maybe. And maybe that was all I wanted.
“I want you to tell me the truth. The whole truth.”
68
My mother said we should take a walk on the beach. I agreed. The walls in her house were starting to close in on me, and it was getting hard to breathe.
The sun shone and the air was cold and damp coming off the sea. I was chilly, so I flipped up the collar of my jacket as I crossed the street. Mom walked beside me, hands in her pants pockets, eyes lost on the horizon.
