Never Let You Go(93)

“Hey! Stop that or I’ll leave you outside with Angus!”

I’m glad someone is having a nice time. I spent all morning scrolling through my saved text messages on my phone, thinking about Jared.

“Can you grab some towels, Sophie?” Mom says.

“There are some old ones under the sink for Angus,” Marcus says.

I find the towels in the washroom and bring them out. They’re both sitting on the hearth now, so close that their shoulders are touching. I towel off Angus and he trots into the house.

Mom and Marcus are holding hands. Jared always holds my hands when we drive. Sometimes he blows on my fingers when they’re cold. I touch my phone in my pocket, wish I could pull it out and read his texts again, but Mom will wonder what I’m doing. I glance at her and catch her looking at Marcus. She’s got this silly sort of smile on her face.

“What’s up?” I say. “You’re acting weird.”

“Nothing. I’m just happy we’re all here together. I love this place.”

“Yeah, it’s nice. It would be fun to come every summer.”

Mom flicks another glance at Marcus and he squeezes her hand. She looks back at me. “We were just talking about maybe moving to the lake next year.”

“Oh.” I’m looking at them and they’re looking at me, and I swear even Angus is looking at me like he’s waiting for me to say something really profound. I can see the tiny lines around Mom’s eyes, and I’m wondering when she got those and it feels like maybe it just happened in the last couple of months, and it seems as though every one of those lines is pointing to the hopeful excited expression in her eyes, saying, See how happy I am! Please be happy for me!

I don’t know why, but suddenly I am thinking of my dad’s face when he used to talk about Mom, how it was different for him. He wasn’t excited, it was like something deeper, like he needed her to breathe. Now my eyes are blurry and I quickly make my lips move into a smile.

“That’s cool,” I say. “I’m only home a few more months anyway. Then it will just be weekends.” I smile at Marcus. “Don’t let her clean my room.”

I’ll have to travel over to the island now. I might not get to see Mom as much, but I can’t be selfish and tell her any of that. I have to happy for her. Maybe they’ll even get married.

I glance at her hand, try to imagine what kind of ring Marcus would buy her. Something big, probably. I liked the simple set she wore when she was married to my dad. When we cuddled, I would roll it around on her finger, playing with it, and sometimes she’d slide it onto my finger, and I’d pretend we were married. She’d tucked that ring away and said I could have it one day. When is one day? When I get married? Will I want it? I think about my dad, shopping for her, and how she was only nineteen. How did she know she wanted to marry him? How come she didn’t know what was going to happen? I think about Jared. Done. Done. Done.

“We won’t make any changes for a while,” Marcus says. “We want you to be comfortable with everything. We know this has been a tough year.”

A tough year. Is that how he describes it? He has a kind expression and he looks concerned like he wants to make sure I’m okay. If they get married, he’ll be my stepfather. He’ll be at every Christmas dinner, every holiday. He’ll come to my graduation.

Not my father. It will never be my father.

And then I want to talk to Jared so bad I can taste my want, like this bitter aching thing in my mouth. I want to spit out, but it’s too late, I’ve already swallowed it.

They’re waiting for me to say something. “This is big news. Should we do a toast?” I get up and head into the kitchen. “Let’s have some wine.” I have my hand on the bottle.

Mom is following behind me. “Whoa,” she says.

“I’m almost nineteen. Come on. Let me celebrate with you.”

“You just turned eighteen a couple months ago.” But she’s hesitating and I can see that she wants to do it, wants to do anything that will prove to her that I’m really okay with this.

“Maybe just this once.” She reaches up to grab the glasses from the cupboard.



They’ve gone to bed. I’m sitting in my room, looking out the window. Angus is with me. He doesn’t sleep with them as much anymore. I guess he knows three is a crowd.

I can hear the low hum of their voices traveling through the walls, or maybe it’s through the vent. I wonder what they’re talking about. Maybe they are making plans, talking about how much they love each other. I wonder if Mom even thinks about my dad anymore.

Marcus is nice. He treats Mom well. He doesn’t get drunk, he doesn’t hurt her—and he doesn’t make her cry. So why do I feel angry at him? I dig deep through my thoughts, try to isolate the feeling, but it keeps scampering back into the corner, hiding from me.

Then I put my finger on it. There’d been a sneaky little part of my heart that hoped my father and mother would get back together again. All those times I told my father that he needed to let go and accept that she had moved on, it was really me who needed to move on.

I take a sip of wine. After Mom and Marcus went to bed, I snuck back out and grabbed the last of the bottle. She won’t remember. I was the one who kept filling their glasses.

Now I feel warm and hot and sleepy drunk, but it’s not cheering me up. I pick up my phone, scroll through my messages, read Jared’s messages again and again.