Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
My aunt hugs her a little tighter, and they both laugh together, but my mom's face falls as they laugh and tears spill out of her eyes. It’s then that I can’t help myself and the tears I’ve been holding back fall too.
We spend the afternoon together and while we do my phone pings. I checked it thinking it was Mags asking me if everything was all right. I didn’t tell her every detail, but Mags knows how this goes. Mags did send a message just telling me that she loves me and letting me know she’s there if I need anything. But I also got a message from Griffin.
Griffin: Wish I had off with you today. What are you doing?
I stare at the text knowing damn well he’s too kind for me. Too sweet and completely unprepared for the fucked-upness of my life. I don’t have the energy to answer, and I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything at all. In the back of my mind I know he deserves an answer, but I told him, it’s all pretend with him. And right now, my reality is sending me on a spiral I’ve been on before too many times. I’m not taking him down with me.
After a while my mom excuses herself to the spare bedroom to lie down and apologizes too many times as she does. My aunt and I move quietly into the kitchen. She pulls out the box of tea bags and sighs as the cupboard door closes shut.
“I've been drinking too much coffee. Want another cup of tea?”
“I'd love one,” I answer solemnly.
I watch her move about the kitchen in a baggy sweatshirt that might be older than me and a pair of plaid pajama pants. She’s always been the caretaker of the family and when I went no contact with my father, she supported me in that decision even when it killed my mother. I know Mom’s racked with guilt and just wants it all to be better, but I can’t talk to him, think about him, or see him. I want nothing to do with him and Aunt Laura agrees.
With my mug in my hands, I sit at the round kitchen table and straighten the small round tablecloth that my aunt keeps under her sugar dish. It's white with white lace around the outside, and when the spring comes she'll switch it out for one that's green and yellow. She has a matching dish cloth that goes on the oven handle.
It's the tablecloth that suddenly makes me want to cry. My mom does some of the same things as her sister, but it feels like her life is constantly being disrupted by the ever-changing mood of her husband. It seems like a trap she can never get out of no matter how hard she tries.
I'm angry about all the things she can't have, all the things I want her to have. I can picture my mom being happy here for a few years or a couple decades. I can picture her and my aunt cooking dinner together and laughing about their days. As sisters, they've always been close. I don't know what it's like to have a sister, but if I did, I'd want to have a relationship like theirs.
When my mom went back the last time, my aunt had to come to my rescue too. I couldn’t believe it. How could she go back to him when he treats her that way?
My aunt says she understands, and we should just be there for her. But I don’t. I don’t know how you can love someone more than you love yourself. Well I know how but I also know what it does to you, and my mother knows that even better than anyone else.
I can't help but think that I played a part. I'm a big reason that my mom's in this situation in the first place, he even used my name last time. Come back to me so we can be a real family for Renee, my father said. I heard him say my name on the phone. I heard him myself and I saw how my mother’s expression fell. That’s when I decided he could never be in my life again. I thought in that moment my mother agreed. I thought she could see the manipulation as easily as I could.
I was so wrong.
My aunt pours water over the tea bags in two mugs, then leans on the countertop and looks at me, her expression patient.
“Do you think she'll really leave him this time?” I ask, keeping my voice quiet so I don't wake my mom...and so she doesn't overhear. This isn't a question I can ask my mom today, or maybe ever. The only way I could even see her again after she went back the last time was if she promised to never mention him to me again.