Halfway to You(18)

But my mother surprised me. “Annie, you must go to Greece. You must.”

“I—you’re not angry?”

“Angry?” She sounded so surprised—but then again, her sober self might not have known the depth of her drunken cruelty. I heard her take another clanking sip and realized it must’ve been her first drink of the day. A screwdriver, probably.

“Hasn’t Greece always been your dream?”

“A mother can live vicariously through her daughter, dear. Go to Greece. One of us ought to, and you’re already so close.”

A brief flash of empowerment darted through me like a hornet—and then a sting of doubt followed. “But . . . this isn’t just about Greece. It’s about Todd. Am I crazy for trying to track him down?”

I should note here, Maggie, that I had forgotten the magnitude of my mother’s romanticism. I’d forgotten that she was even more sentimental than I was, at least within the context of men and true love. So when she said what she said next, it bowled me over like a bus through an intersection—I didn’t see it coming.

“Life is about risk, Annie, and there’s no better risk than love.”

My mother: she could be wise—when she wasn’t a complete and utter mess.

I wiped the moisture from my eyes, stunned by the smack of her sentiment.

“Do it. Go to Greece. Track him down. Make the grand gesture. Then tell me all about it, all right? Take pictures.”

“All right,” I said, still uncertain, but I owed her this, at least. I owed her pictures of Mykonos.

She giggled again, and I heard kissing.

“I’ll let you go,” I said.

“Oh! While I have you: Can you send money? I’m behind on some payments.”

“Payments for what?” Before I left, I had paid off her double-wide and car, and given her a sizable nest egg.

“Just little things. Phone, utilities.”

The fracture in my heart filled with liquid heat. “I don’t understand. How could you possibly be behind?”

“I spent it all.”

“You—what?”

The night manager of the hotel—who had been reading on the couch in the tiny lobby—was watching me now. She probably sensed that the conversation had turned sour, even if some of the English was gibberish to her. I turned away, hunching over the receiver, trying not to make a scene. I felt like a dirty, low-life American—like I was sullying the elegance of this place.

Mom explained, “I gave Bill some funds so he could start his own car shop. But he’s still getting things set up, so—”

Fuming, I growled into the phone: “I left you fifty thousand dollars!”

“Don’t sound so smug,” my mother hissed.

Just like that, all the connection I’d been craving drained out through my feet, leaving me brittle. “But how could you have spent it all?”

“Excuse me?” she said, and suddenly her voice was no longer Glinda the Good Witch—it was wicked. “All your money should’ve been mine. All of it! The sacrifices I made for you, the freedom I lost. Don’t you dare scold me for asking for more of it, while you . . . you . . . whore around in Europe. While you steal my dream. Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”

There she was. The mother I knew so well.

“Dad sent you plenty over the years,” I bit out. “This just proves that I was right! That even with that small fraction of my money, the money that he left me, you’re too goddamn irresponsible to make any use of it.”

“I’m irresponsible?” My mother barked out a single, cruel laugh. “Look where you are, Ann. Look around and tell me you’re not a hypocrite.”

My shoulders quivered with rage, with hurt. “You can’t blame me for running away from my shithole of a life.”

“You’re right,” my mother said, but her voice was slippery and mean. “I blame myself. I blame myself for raising such a little—”

I hung up. Or rather, I dropped the phone into the cradle.

My ears were ringing, my cheeks burned, and my eyes blurred with tears. I swiped a knuckle under my nose and slipped off the chair. Calmly, I thanked the night manager for letting me use the phone. Then I slunk back to my room.

The next morning, I packed my things.

I would wire my mother more money, but then that was it. She wouldn’t get another dime from me, no matter how much she thought she deserved it. No matter how much she cursed or yelled. That morning, I promised myself that I would never go back to Colorado.

Instead, I was going to Greece.

I came up with a million excuses not to go—most of them relating to me seeming obsessive, stalkery, or immature—but despite my mother’s wrath, she was right: life was about taking risks. And what else would I do? I had no home, no plan, nowhere else to be. Of all the people I wanted to talk to, to find comfort in, Todd was it. If I found him in Greece and he told me he never wanted to see me again, I would respect that. But first I had to try, because if I didn’t, the endless wondering would eat me alive, and I would regret it for the rest of my life.

Those stakes were too high to ignore.

I don’t know how else to explain it, other than to say: I just had a feeling. And remember what I said about feelings, Maggie? Going to Greece was no less than divine intervention.