The Best Possible Answer(56)

She looks up at me and smiles again, wipes the tears from my face. “How were you supposed to realize? You’re a child.”

“Mama. I’m not. Not anymore. You can talk to me about these things.” I wipe my face and catch my breath. “Is that why you didn’t leave?”

“I suppose so, yes. First, I was worried about leaving you completely alone. Then I was too sick to leave. But also, to be perfectly honest, I thought that any other life would have broken you and Mila for good. I thought that if I walked away from this life, I’d destroy you forever. That little girl looks at her father and sees him as a god. She sees him as good. You’re old enough to know better, but even you are broken now.” She looks at me. “I thought about leaving—believe me. Especially when I was sick.”

“That’s why you went back to school?”

“And that’s why I kicked him out this year.”

“I thought he left.”

“No,” she says with a quiet laugh. “Not at all.”

“Then why is he back?”

“You haven’t been well,” she says. “I thought you needed your father.”

“Oh, Mama, what am I supposed to do now?” I’m crying again. “How can you expect me to trust anyone? Or Mila? What are we supposed to do?”

“Look.” She grabs a box of Kleenex from my nightstand, hands me a few tissues, and then wipes her eyes. “There are good people in the world. Whoever she grows up to love—whoever you grow up to love—let that person be good to you. You will have to. You will have to trust that person. You will just have to make that choice.”

“Mama”—I take a deep breath—“are you going to leave him?”

She drops her head. “Oh, Viviana. I don’t know. I think I will stay with him until I am finished with my degree, until you are done with college and Mila is old enough to understand a divorce. I think we will stay together for the good of the family.”

“Which family?” I’m instantly sorry for saying it.

“Viviana. Do not be sarcastic. Not about this.”

I sit up. “I’m completely serious. Please don’t stay together for the ‘good of the family.’ That’s not a good reason. Not at all.”

She doesn’t respond to this. She bites her lip and then looks at me.

“Please, Mama. Don’t tell me you stayed for Mila and me. It’s not fair of you to put it on us. We didn’t ask for you to stay.”

“Why do you think I’m in school? Why do you think I’m starting over in the middle of my life? It’s so you and Mila can see that starting over is possible. That life doesn’t end just because your heart is broken.”

“Okay, so that means you’re going to leave him, then, right?”

She doesn’t answer my question. Instead, she looks me straight in the eye and says, “You understand, don’t you? That’s why I pushed you so hard all this time. I came here with nothing. I wanted everything. And then, when you were born, I wanted everything for you.”

I think about this. Her life. Her choices. The pressures she’s put on me to be better than her. “You had no right to shame me for what I did with Dean.” I don’t know where this comes from, but I know it’s something I have to say. That I should have said months ago.

“Lower your voice, please.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not fair. You can’t do what you’ve done and then go and judge me.”

“Viviana, please understand. That’s why it hurt so bad, to see you make that mistake. I wanted better for you. I’ve always known you could do better than I have.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Say that you understand. That you understand where I’m coming from.”

I don’t know that I can.

There’s a gentle knock at the door.

“Mama? Vivi? Can I come in?”

My mom looks at me.

I nod. “Let her in.”

She gets up and opens the door. “Yes, honey. You can. Come join us. We’re done talking for now.”

Mila climbs into my bed in between my mom and me. She doesn’t ask what we were talking about. She just cuddles in under the blankets and lets us rub her head. She falls asleep first, and then my mom follows soon after. I lie awake for a while, staring at these two people: my mother, my sister. My father may be gone from my world, but I still have them. They still love me.

I think about everything my mom told me. I want to be angry with her. But I also want to understand her.

I don’t know that I’ll ever understand.

I do know that I love her, even if I don’t agree with what she’s done.

I lean my head against the window. The sky turns dark, and the city lights up.

I’m home.

*

When I wake up the next morning, my bed is empty. I make my way to the front room, but no one’s there. I remember it’s a weekday. My mom’s at work and Mila’s at camp.

There’s a drawing on the table from Mila. It’s the three of us—my mom, Mila, and me—as stick figures. We’re holding hands on a line of grass. There are two rainbows over our heads and heart-shaped raindrops falling from the white puffy clouds in the sky.