Ruffy licks my hand. His version of comfort.
“You’d probably tell me to go back. To apologize. To try again.” I shake my head. “But what if I can’t? What if this is just who I am, the woman who runs, who keeps hurting people no matter how hard she tries not to?”
The question sits there, unanswered. Dad can’t answer it. He’s been gone for a year, and I still haven’t figured out how to have a conversation with someone who can’t talk back.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out, expecting another text from Levi that I’m not ready to read. But it’s not Levi.
It’s Mom.
I stare at her name on the screen. We share locations, so she knows exactly where I am.She’s been watching my little dot move across the state all night, wondering what on earth I’m doing.
I should let it go to voicemail. That’s what I usually do.
But something makes me answer.
“Hi, Mom.”
“You’re at the cemetery.” Not a question.
“Yeah.”
“With your father.”
“Yeah.”
Silence on the line. She sounds tired. Of course she’s tired, she’s been up all night worrying about me. Because that’s what she’s always done, even when I was too angry to notice.
“I found your note,” she says finally. “When I got home from bridge club.”
“I’m sorry. I should have...”
“You should have talked to me. But you didn’t. You ran. Just like you always do.”
The words sting. They’re supposed to.
“Mom...”
“No, let me finish.” Her voice is steady. Not angry, exactly. Just…tired. Bone-deep tired, the kind that comes from thirty years of watching your daughter make the same mistake over and over. “I’ve watched you do this your whole life, Delilah. Every time things get hard, every time you feel scared or hurt or overwhelmed, you pack a bag and you go. At seventeen. At twenty-seven. With your marriage, every job and relationship in between.”
“That’s not...”
“Last night, I came home from bridge club expecting to have dinner with my daughter. Instead, I found an empty house and a note that said you were sorry. Again.” Her voice cracks, just slightly. “Do you know how many notes I’ve gotten from you over the years, Delilah? Do you know how many times I’ve stood in an empty room wondering where you went and when you’d come back?”
I don’t say anything. I never thought about it from her side.
“And every time, you end up exactly where you are right now. Sitting alone, talking to someone who can’t answer you, wondering why you can’t seem to make things work.”
The words hit like punches. Soft ones, delivered with love, but punches all the same.
“When your father and I divorced, you blamed me,” Mom continues. Her voice is steadier now, like she’s been rehearsing this. Maybe she has. Maybe she’s been waiting thirty years to say it. “You decided I chose this town and this flower shopover you. And I let you believe that, because I was exhausted and heartbroken and I didn’t have the energy to fight about one more thing.”
“Mom...”
“But here’s the truth, Delilah. The truth I should have told you thirty years ago, even though you weren’t ready to hear it.” She takes a breath. “Your father and I weren’t happy. We hadn’t been happy for a long time, years before the divorce, if I’m being honest. We stayed together for you, and all that did was teach you that love looks like two people who can barely stand to be in the same room.”
I stare at Dad’s headstone. BELOVED FATHER. He was a good dad. But Mom’s right, he and Mom together were miserable. I remember the silences at dinner. The way they slept in separate rooms at the end. The relief on both their faces when they finally called it quits.
