“You won’t be here much longer,” I said. “Just tell me what you came here for and you can get back into your air-conditioned car and leave.”
“Jill!” That was about as speechless as Mom was ever rendered and I reveled in it.
“Mom!” My tone was mocking and her face crumbled before smoothing out again.
“Do you hate me so much now?”
“No.” I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. My voice was even, blasé, like I was giving my opinion on the merits of one ice cream flavor over another. “I don’t hate you. I don’t anything you.”
I could almost see inside her head, see her realize she was losing control of the situation. So she went straight for the kill.
“I didn’t want any of this. Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Yeah, you seemed real broken up about it in the Post-it note you left.”
I’d meant to hurt her with my words. Spark some semblance of remorse from her with the memory, or at least relieve some of the pressure in my chest. But she didn’t react at all the way I wanted. Instead of being cowed, she advanced on me.
“I couldn’t stay any longer. I was suffocating. You can’t know what that felt like.”
I wanted to laugh at her audacity.
“I was unhappy.”
“And now you’re happy? Good. Because Dad and I aren’t. I’d hate to think you did this to us and got nothing for yourself in return.” I was breathing heavily. Sweat was dripping off my face and my fingers were digging into my arms so hard that the skin was turning white at the edges. Painful as this situation was, I was glad to finally be telling her this. I couldn’t unload on Dad. He was dealing with his own pain. And he didn’t even know about Sean. But I could let it out on her. Every last vestige of hurt. She should know exactly what her happiness cost.
But instead of answering me, she pulled back. “Maybe this is a bad time. I should come back later.”
She was so predictable. She wasn’t happy in her marriage, so she left. I was making her feel uncomfortable, and once again she wanted to leave. Why actually deal with something when you could run away from it?
I hated that I’d learned that from her.
“No, trust me, your timing is perfect.” And it was, in a sadistic sort of way. My sunburn felt unbelievably bad and it had been just hours since my first vomit-laced kiss from a guy I had started to dream about.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “That was the last thing I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted a chance to be me. Not someone’s wife, or someone’s mother, but just me, just Katheryn.”
She hadn’t even been looking at me when she spoke, more just staring off at…something. Her dreams? I didn’t know and I so didn’t care. And that was fine. All of it. The sunburn would fade and peel away. Daniel and I were done before we even started. And Mom? She was going to do exactly what she wanted anyway.
“Oh, Jill. Sometimes you have to put yourself first.” She put her hand on my arm and squeezed.
I was glad for the pain it caused.
“Sometimes?” I almost didn’t have the energy to tell her how full of it she was. Almost. “That’s all you ever did! You put your happiness, your life above everyone else’s. You took everything you ever wanted! Even if it was mine!” My vision blurred for a moment and I shook my head to fling all those memories away.
My voice dropped to a low hiss. “You broke Dad. Do you know that? You broke the man who loved you, who would have done anything for you, for your happiness. You threw him away. You threw me away. I cannot imagine a more selfish, heartless person than you,Katheryn.”
She was crying in that pretty way of hers, the one that made people want to comfort her, but I didn’t care.
“I’m tired and I’m hot and I don’t have anything else to say to you. Tell me what it is you want, then get out of my house.”
She cried some more, but it didn’t touch me. I’d seen Dad cry. Her tears were nothing in comparison.
Finally she sniffed. “I was hoping you’d have forgiven me.”
“Why? You never apologized.”
