Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 87856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
And I need to show her I understand too.
Chapter Forty-Eight
IMOGEN
Patrick texts I'm sorry. Can we talk when you're ready?
I reply I'm not ready yet, then I turn off my cell, close my Hearts and Thorns email, bury myself in swimming and schoolwork.
All week, I stay busy.
All week, I keep my mind occupied.
Until I'm in my car, parked outside my parents' place.
The second I turn off the engine, my thoughts hit me.
All the things I want to say to Patrick, to Julie, to Mom.
How the hell do I do this?
It's easier, throwing my thoughts into the universe. Even knowing the universe is there, knowing he's reading.
Is he reading?
Or did he stop?
I don't know.
I want to turn on my phone. I want to check. I want to read every single comment, asking myself if any of them are his. And what does that mean?
How long has he been reading?
Instead, I get out of my car, I gather my purse, I walk into the house.
I see Mom on the deck, staring at the ocean, vaping.
Mom vaping.
It's absurd.
She looks so sad and hurt, and I don't know what to say.
For once, I don't do what she did to me. I don't turn away and pretend I don't see. I move through the living room. I join her on the deck.
I stand next to her at the railing, letting the ocean breeze mingle with the strange bubblegum scent.
"It's your sister's." She exhales a cloud of vapor.
"So you're trying to convince her it's not cool?"
She laughs.
The sound hits me somewhere deep. It's been such a long time. Since before the incident. She laughs sometimes, now, but never like this. The full-throated, musical laugh.
The one she shares with me and me alone.
Because I'm her oldest. Because I understand things my sister doesn't. Because we share things our father doesn't.
Because she loves me and trusts me.
And I love her and trust her.
We never say any of that, but it's there, under the easy laughs.
"It's working." She laughs again. "No more vaping."
"Maybe she hides it better."
"No. She still smokes with her girlfriend. I smell the pot everywhere."
Her girlfriend? Julie told her?
Mom shakes her head. "You think I don't know anything because I'm older. But I was your age once. I was in love once."
"You don't love dad?"
"It's different. Softer. Safer."
"You do?" I ask.
"Of course. We're partners. But there isn't the passion I felt when I was your age."
Do she and Dad still seem in love? Sometimes. Other times, they're business partners first. But that is safer. And I…
Well, I never thought of her that way, as a woman who would choose between passion and stability.
As a woman who decided to marry my father.
"You're upset," she says. "School?"
I shake my head.
"Another white boy?"
"What's that matter?" I ask.
"Wealthy parents?"
"Mom!"
She laughs. "You have wealthy parents. Why does he need them?"
"He does… I think. I don't know. I haven't met his parents."
"You love him?"
"Yes."
She hesitates. "Does he know?" It's there, in her voice. Not does he know you love him? It's does he know what happened last year?
I nod.
Her face softens. Her entire body softens. "You told him?"
"It's complicated."
She understands immediately. "I'm sorry, Imogen." She looks to the sand. "I thought it was better to look away from these things. I thought looking gave them power. I was scared. Too scared to face it. But that's my job. I'm your mother. I'm supposed to be ready to face anything."
A tear rolls down my cheek.
"It's my fault you're this way."
I shake my head.
"No. Not there. Here." She taps her forehead. "I had the same problems. I never talked about them. I thought… I was like my mother, so you were like me."
"Did Julie talk to you?"
"Yes."
"Does she know?"
"I don't know," she says. "I didn't tell her. But she saw something in you. Maybe she feels it too. Or maybe she takes after your father. He's different. That's why I loved him, why I love him now. He breathes joy. It always looked impossible to me, like a fish breathing water. But you're a fish, Imogen. You breathe water. So maybe you can do it."
"I have no idea what that means."
She laughs. "You're the best parts of me. And the worst too. But we're in a different place now. We're Americans. And what's more American than therapy and medication?"
"Mom!"
"What? You know it's true. You're a future shrink."
"Behavioral economist."
"Economics is for business." She shakes her head. "Psychology is for people. For watching people. For you."
It is?
"When you were little, you watched everyone and everything. I worried you were like me there too, resigned to the sidelines. But you're like your father, drinking knowledge the way he drinks joy. And you use it to move toward better things."
"I'm not going to be a shrink," I say.
"But you can, if you want. I understand now. Julie… she talked me into it. Therapy. It's good. It helps."