“No. It’s not.” Dean picks up the muffin again. Takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. “But here’s the thing, little brother. You know what it’s like to have someone leave. You know what it feels like to wait and hope and have that hope crushed over and over again.”
My chest tightens. I know where this is going.
“Mom,” I say.
“Mom.”
I don’t talk about this. Not with Dean, not with anyone, not even with Delilah, though I told her more on that pier than I’ve told anyone in years. But the memory is right there anyway, sitting on my chest like a weight. Eight years old, standing at the mailbox every day after school, checking for a letter that never came. Keeping my bag packed for three years, shoved under my bed where Dad wouldn’t see it,just in case she sent for me. Watching the driveway every time a car drove down our street, hoping this time it would be her.
It was never her.
“Delilah’s not like Mom,” Dean says quietly.
“Could have fooled me.”
“No, listen.” He sets down the muffin. “Mom left because she wanted something else. She wanted LA. She wanted her singing career. She wanted a life that didn’t include a husband and two kids in a small beach town. She looked at what she had, and she decided it wasn’t enough. She made a choice.”
“Delilah made a choice too. She chose to leave instead of talking to me.”
“Did she? Or did she panic and run before she could think it through?” Dean holds up a hand before I can interrupt. “I’m not saying what she did was okay. It wasn’t. But there’s a difference between someone who leaves because they want something better, and someone who leaves because they’re terrified of being left.”
I stare at the table. At the wood grain. At a water ring from someone’s coffee mug.
“Mom didn’t love us enough to stay,” Dean continues. “That’s the truth of it, as much as it sucks. She loved herself more. She loved her dreams more.She walked out that door and she never looked back.”
“I know.”
“But Delilah?” He waits until I look up. “Delilah loves you so much she’s convinced herself she doesn’t deserve you. That’s not the same thing. That’s not even close to the same thing.”
“It feels the same. She’s gone. The house is empty. She’s sitting in a hotel five hours away, and I’m here, waiting. Again. Just like when I was eight.”
“Except you’re not eight anymore.” Dean reaches across the table, puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’re not a kid standing at a mailbox hoping someone will come back for you. You know exactly where she is. You have a truck with a full tank of gas. You can go get her.”
“What if she doesn’t want me to?”
“What if she does? What if she’s sitting in that cemetery right now, crying her eyes out, hoping you’ll show up but too scared to ask?”
I think about the note.I’m sorry. I love you.
If she didn’t love me, she wouldn’t have written that. If she didn’t want me to come after her, she wouldn’t have said she was sorry.
Would she?
“She didn’t trust me enough to talk to me,” I say. “How am I supposed to get past that?”
“Maybe you don’t get past it. Maybe you work through it together. Maybe you show up at that cemetery and you tell her what actually happened, and you let her decide if she believes you.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then at least you tried. At least you didn’t sit here in Eleanor’s kitchen, eating Jo’s muffins and feeling sorry for yourself, while the woman you love convinces herself she made the right call.”
I look at my phone. At the time. It’s been hours since she left. Hours that she’s been sitting alone with a dead man and a dog and all the voices in her head telling her she’s not good enough.
“Asheville’s five hours from here,” I say.
“Four and a half if you speed.”
“I shouldn’t have to chase her.”
