“What was that back there?”
“What was what?”
“Come on, Mallory, you’re not sixteen, and you’re also not being fair.”
Should she know what this is about? Other than mom-daughter squabbles that transcend universes?
“He’s a grown man,” her mom says. “He’s in charge of his own choices. You can’t blame him for that.”
But I can. I really, really can.
“It’s me you should be mad at,” her mom adds.
“Why would I be mad at you?”
Her mother grits her teeth. “Sarcasm gives you lip wrinkles.”
“I’m not being—”
“It was a month. Not even a blip when the span is forty years.” She holds up her palm. “I know I hurt him. And you. But don’t blame him for taking me back. Blame me for going.”
Shock renders Mallory speechless.
“I was curious. I was bored. I was... I don’t know what I was. Selfish. I was selfish. A woman in her sixties doesn’t just up and try out a new life on a whim.”
Mallory can’t move. She can’t even breathe.
Her mother opens the car door and tosses the tote into the passenger seat. She faces Mallory as she slides behind the wheel. “I’ll make it up to you both. Just give your dad a break. You know it’s not in him to hold on to negativity. So don’t try and make him.” Her eyes begin to glisten, and she shoves the emotion away. “Come for dinner?”
“I—I can’t.”
“I know. Busy, busy, busy. My smart girl. Guess I played a role. Serves me right. Reap, sow, and all that. Another time?”
Mallory nods, stepping back as her mother puts the car in Reverse. Her mother tried out another life? What does thateven mean? She left her father? The same way he supposedly left in her world? Could there possibly be more to the story Mallory grew up believing?
The car is halfway through a three-point turn when Mallory rushes forward and raps on the driver’s-side window. “Was it the first time? The only time? Did you want to before—”
Her mother looks at her blankly, scratches the back of her neck.
“Because he seems invested,” Mallory says. “So to leave...” A flash of her mom, sipping prosecco, a single bite left of a vanilla wafer, fingers scratching against her skin, the vertigo of déjà vu, and Mallory shakes her head. She’s confusing herself. Confusing realities.
“No relationship is perfect, Mallory. We make choices, we make mistakes. Life is simply trying to do the right thing most of the time. And love? Love is being able to forgive when we get it wrong.”
Mallory releases her grip on the edge of the window, and her mom drives off. Her mom and her dad, their relationship, one of them always leaving. Coincidence or destiny? Mallory never believed in either.
But what about love? Does she believe in that? She hasn’t been able to forgive Grayson. Is that because he doesn’t deserve it or because she doesn’t actually love him?
And perhaps it’s this shared sense of betrayal that gives Mallory the sudden urge to hug her father for the first time in her life. This man she has no memories of but who rents so much space in her head, affecting her in ways she’s never let herself truly admit. She rushes to the porch and bursts through the sliding glass door, but her dad isn’t in the kitchen. The basement door is open. The light is on. She bounds down the stairs.
Her father stands beside the freezer. The open freezer. Witha plastic bag in one hand and a look of anguish on his face. He sees Mallory and holds up the bag. “Sausages. I hit the butcher before your mom woke up. I couldn’t put them in the fridge upstairs and let her think I wasn’t listening to her. Because I’m listening, I am. I want to make her happy. So I...” He looks into the freezer. “I broke the lock, MallieMoo. And I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”
Mallory’s legs feel like concrete. “It’s... I mean, I...” She forces herself to lift a foot.
“No!” Her father slams the freezer shut. “Don’t come any closer. It’s... goddamn, Mallory.”
Her throat tightens as if a fist were lodged in it. “I don’t—”
“At least if someone’s got to tell you this, it’s me.” He balls his hands and takes two giant steps toward her. Before he says anything, he yanks her toward him, and the intensity of the love this man feels for his daughter both breaks and heals her heart.
