Mom sighs and sets down her plastic spoon, then reaches over to take my hand. “Mona walked out on him. It’s normal that he feels angry.”
I snatch my hand out of hers. “Stop saying she abandoned them! It’s Jeff who shoved her out of their lives.”
Mom’s expression tightens. “Were youthere, Angela?”
I flinch.
“Were you present when they decided to split?”
“No.” I lift my chin a fraction. “But you weren’t either.”
“True. But I’ve lived many more years than you, and let me tell you,a divorce is never black and white. There are a lot of gray areas. A lot of them.”
“How would you know? It’s not like you ever got divorced.”
Mom stares at her mountain of chocolate frozen yogurt. “I filed for divorce a couple of hours before your daddy died.”
Goose bumps crawl all over my bare arms. “What?”
“We didn’t have a happy marriage.”
“I thought you loved him.”
Mom looks up. “I did love him. Until he started drinking.” Her eyes begin to glitter. “He wasn’t very nice when he drank. I told him that if he didn’t clean up his act, I would take you and we would leave. And he said…” She blots the inner corners of her eyes with her napkin. “He said…fine.”
All the tender images I conjured of my father and mother go up in smoke.
“He didn’t even fight to keep us, so I called him and informed him that I’d filed for divorce, and he told me he’d sign the papers, and then I didn’t hear back from him.” Mom’s voice has become so low I can barely hear her. “That night, a cop called. Said your daddy had gotten into a car accident.” She lets out a ragged breath. “Ran a red light.” She releases another breath. “Collided with a truck.” Another breath. “Died on impact.” Her chest stills, as though she’s all out of exhales.
How did we go from speaking about Mona and Jeff to Mom and Dad?
“I thought… I thought—” But everything I’ve ever thought is wrong wrong wrong.
My life frays and unravels heartbeat by heartbeat.
“The accident was Dad’s fault?” I croak. That part seems so inconsequential compared to all the other things Mom has told me.
Mom nods as she rolls the tip of her paper napkin between her fingers. “He had so much alcohol in his system that the insurance company refused to pay out his life insurance policy.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I idolized him,” I finally whisper.
Mom gives me a sad smile.
I hug my arms around me. “I feel so stupid right now.”
“No.” Mom scoots her chair closer to mine and laces her arms around my hunched back, and then she sets her chin in the crook of my neck. “Don’t feel this way.”
“Why—”Why did you keep it from me? Why are you telling me now?I don’t speak my questions, yet Mom understands. She always understands. I feel even more stupid because I’ve never understood her.
“Your father loved you, baby. He just didn’t lovemeenough.”
“He left us…”
“I know, but before he did… before he started drinking… he was a good father.”
“You mean for the three years he stuck around?”
