Eleanor didn’t say anything. She just leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder, warm and steady and real.
I smiled, driving us the rest of the way in silence, the road humming beneath us as we headed toward the rink in Columbus, together.
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Anything,” I said, giving her lush thigh a squeeze.
“Do you still talk to your family?”
I shook my head. “They don’t approve of the life we live.”
She nodded, lost in her own thoughts.
“Do you miss them?”
I took a deep breath and thought about that question. It was hard to answer. Those feelings were very complicated. “I miss what could have been. And there are some things I miss, but the faith they live is so interwoven into everything they do, it gets messy quickly.”
“We don’t have to talk about it . . . I guess I’m just trying to figure out what to do with the toxic family of my own.”
“I don’t mind talking about it with you. I haven’t talked to them in years. My dad has only met Leo once when he was a baby. My mother drove up a few years ago when Leo was about five. She just wanted to check up on us.”
“What was that like?”
I took a sip from my soda, thinking about that visit. It had been the shock of a lifetime to open the door and see my mother standing there in her tennis shoes and denim skirt. “It was hard, but not in the way it had been. She’s my mom, but she caused so much harm in my life . . . But she also lives a life where sheis trapped. I’m not even sure what she told my dad to be able to come visit us.”
“Do you ever think they will be in your life again?”
I shook my head. “Not my dad or my brothers . . . but if my little sister ever showed up on my doorstep, I would help her anyway I could. I hate that she is still stuck in a culture that doesn’t see her worth outside of being a babymaker.”
“That must be hard,” she said as she took my hand.
I just nodded. I hadn’t really thought about this stuff in a long time. I’d been no contact for almost a decade.
“And maybe my mom,” I said quietly.
“Maybe your mom what?”
I shrugged. “I think if my mom showed up and wanted out, I would help her. We would both need lots of therapy to get through it, but I don’t know if I’d be able to turn her away. But there would need to be lots of communication and boundaries . . . not something that was ever honored in my family.”
Eleanor just squeezed my hand and looked out the window. I wanted to ask if she knew what she wanted to do about her mother, but I had a feeling she was working that out right now, if the thoughtful expression on her face was any indication.
42
ELEANOR
The rink in Columbus was already buzzing when we pulled up.
Music thumped through the open doors, something loud and pulsing that made my heart beat faster the second I heard it. Skaters were everywhere. They were stretching in the aisles, rolling in lazy circles, laughing, slapping helmets, adjusting gear.
It felt alive.
Both teams were warming up on the track, a blur of motion and color and confidence. Bodies in every shape and size, all of them fierce, all of them unapologetically taking up space. People in fishnets and knee pads. People who looked like they had finally found somewhere they fit.
My chest ached in the best way.
I couldn’t believe I got to be here. Couldn’t believe I was part of this world now, or at least on the edge of it, stepping in.
Alex slipped his hand into mine as we walked toward the bleachers, warm and sure, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
