I follow him down the hall to the kitchen, where he begins unloading his bag of groceries.I notice canned tomatoes and some sort of ground meat before he asks if I’ll put the kettle on for tea while he puts things away.
We move around each other in the tiny kitchen, somehow managing not to bump into each other.Once I’ve switched the kettle on, I get out the tea, along with two mugs and a plate, because I know Graeme will have cookies of some sort.He proves me right when he reaches over my head and takes an unopened package of Chocolate Hobnobs from the cupboard.
A few minutes later, we sit at the small two-seater table with cups of tea and the plate of cookies between us.We never sat in the kitchen when I stayed here before, and as our legs bump under the table, I understand why.Our eyes lock as Graeme’s knees bracket mine, pressing lightly.
“So you didn’t think of staying in Toronto after...everything?”he asks, picking up the conversation where we left off, the way we always used to do.
“No.It would have been easier for me to get another job in publishing if I’d stayed, but I felt like my time there had run its course.”
“Why do I get the sense you’re leaving something out?”he asks, peering at me from over the rim of his mug.
I sigh.“How do you still do that, even after all this time?”
One side of his mouth curves up.“Because I know you, Pumpkin Spice.”
Warmth rushes through my body.I take a sip of tea, buying time as I ponder whether to work up to what I’m about to say or jump in.Graeme’s steady gaze makes me decide on the latter.“About a year ago, I was out shopping one day, and I ran into my mother.”
Graeme nearly chokes on a bite of Hobnob.“Yourmother?”
“Yeah.It took me a minute to place her because she looked so different from how I remembered.She recognized me immediately, though, which I thought was weird since I hadn’t seen her for nearly thirty years.”
“Did you speak to each other?”Graeme asks.
“Oh, we spoke, all right,” I say with a mirthless laugh.“She asked me to join her for coffee.After I got over my initial reaction of wanting to tell her to go fuck herself, I agreed.She tried to make small talk, but I told her all I wanted from her was to know why she abandoned me and never looked back.”
Graeme brushes the crumbs from his fingers and lays his hand palm up on the table.I place my hand in it, and his long, warm fingers close around mine.“What did she say?”
“The short version is that she was barely more than a child herself when I was born, and she was an addict with mental health issues.She told me she knew my dad wouldn’t be able to take care of me on his own and would give me to his mom to raise, which was the best-case scenario in her eyes.She couldn’t have known my grandma would die a few years later, and I’d end up in foster care.”
“Did she know about the foster care?”Graeme asks.
“She did.”My mouth twists to one side.Graeme makes a sound of dismay in the back of his throat, tightening his hold on my hand.“The people at Children’s Aid always told me they couldn’t find either of my parents, but she knew where I was all along.The real kicker was that by the time my grandma died, my mother was sober and simply didn’t want me back.”
Graeme’s brows snap together.
“She didn’tsaythat, but there was no real reason for her not to come for me,” I say.“I was too shocked to be hurt, but then she told me she’d been married for fifteen years and had twin eleven-year-old daughters, and I was so filled with rage, I thought I was going to black out.”
“Och, Abby.”The sympathy in his tone, paired with the way he covers our joined hands with his free one, makes my eyes sting.“I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt to hear that.”
“It sounds dramatic, but it was one of the worst moments of my life,” I say, my voice shaking.“As I got older, there was a part of me that almost had compassion for her.She wassixteenwhen she had me, which means she was barely twenty when she left.She wasn’t capable of being a parent, and if she’d stayed, I likely would have ended up hurt or worse.But to know she got sober just a few years later and carried on living her life like I didn’t exist?And then created a brand-new family while I hadno one?”
I shake my head and swipe at the tears trailing down my cheeks.“I mean, that’s not entirely true.I had you guys, but not having asingleblood relative was...I don’t even know the right word.Terrifying?Lonely?And then to learn that not only did my mother know where I was, but I had two siblings out there?It touched on some deep childhood wounds and really fucked me up for a while.”
“How did you leave things with her?”Graeme asks quietly.“Did you give in to your initial instinct to tell her to go fuck herself?”
This draws a half-hearted laugh out of me.“She asked if we could meet again.She told me her husband and daughters didn’t know about me, but if I had any desire to have her in my life, she’d tell them everything.She showed me a picture of my sisters, and they...they look exactly like me at that age.”
When my voice cracks, Graeme shifts in his seat as if he’s going to stand.I can imagine him pulling me to my feet and wrapping his arms around me.Instead, he lowers his head and presses a kiss to the back of my hand.My breath hitches, and I force down another wave of tears.
“As angry as I was, part of me was tempted to agree to meet her again and see where it might go,” I say.“The idea of essentially stepping into this ready-made family was appealing.But then I wondered how her husband and daughters would feel once they learned she’d kept this huge secret from them for years.What if they resented me?Or what if they liked me and we made an effort to get to know each other, and then it all went away, and I was left with even deeper wounds?So I decided to do the one thing my mother never did: I chose myself.My own sanity, my own peace of mind, and my own emotional safety.”
“That must have been difficult,” Graeme says.
“It was, but it was the right choice, and I haven’t regretted it.Weirdly, it was a catalyst for some big changes in my life.I was unsettled for weeks after that day, and it forced me to take a good, hard look at my life.I knew I wasn’t content with my job anymore, but I thought I was at least happy in my relationship.It led to some heavy discussions with my now-ex, and it hit me that my life looked good on paper but didn’tfeelgood.In fact, I’d become so numb, I wasn’t feeling much of anything.”
Graeme tilts his head curiously.“Do you think it was depression?”
“It’s possible, although I think it was more like...apathy.My doctor had put me on anti-anxiety meds a couple of years before, but it didn’t occur to me to go back to him for this.I did get on a wait-list to see a therapist, but I was never able to actually talk to anyone.”I give a helpless little shrug, and Graeme nods in understanding.
