Just One Year(71)

“Are you stressed?” my mother asked. “Just take it one day at a time. She came for you, not for any other reason.”

“I still struggle sometimes, Mum—feeling like I don’t deserve to be happy.”

She nodded. “It’s hard to break out of the habit of destructive thinking. Maybe you need to stop worrying about whether you deserve something and just accept it as a gift.”

“What if I slip up again?”

“You mean start drinking?”

“Anything—push her away, start drinking again, just mess up somehow. She came all this way. I don’t want to fuck it all up.”

“You realize that questions starting with what if are futile, don’t you?”

I blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

My mother had been so supportive. I knew it wasn’t easy for her to be living away from my father after all these years, and wondered if it was only a matter of time before he ended up back home again. That was definitely not something I wanted while Teagan was living with us.

“Do you think you and dad will work things out?”

My mother looked away. “Over the past few months, I’ve learned it’s possible to love someone and not be able to have them in your lives. Things were toxic for so long, and I’d just accepted it. Deep down, your father has a good heart, but he doesn’t know how to deal with his own child. And to be frank, you’re more important to me than he is.” She sighed. “There are lots of other things that made it impossible to live with him, too—like the way he treated me. So right now, I think it’s best if things stay the way they are.”

My mother’s happiness mattered to me more than my own, more than anything. If she was happier with my father not living here, I needed to accept that—and perhaps be grateful for it.

“It’s a new era for us, Caleb.” My mother reached across the table for my hand. “You know it’s okay if you’re not perfect, right? Even if you handle things wrong from time to time, as long as you treat the people you love with respect, most of the time they won’t leave if they love you back. Your father stopped respecting me. And that’s why I had to leave him.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

It made me proud that my mother had the courage to stand up to him.

After I drank my tea, I went back to my room to see if Teagan was still asleep. To my surprise, she was standing in the middle of the hallway, wrapped in a towel after having apparently come from the shower. Water droplets streamed down her arms, and her hair was damp. I wanted to rip the towel off of her, but that wouldn’t have been wise.

She’d been standing in front of a photo of Emma and me taken when we were toddlers. My mother had taken down most of the photos of Emma over the years so as not to upset me. But as part of my most recent therapy, we’d been advised to put some back up.

Teagan held her towel closed over her breasts as she continued looking at the photo. “I’d never seen her before.”

I placed my hands on her shoulders as I stood behind her.

Expelling a long breath, I said, “That’s my beautiful sister, Emma Louise.”

She reached up to touch my hand.

My mother came down the hall to get to her room and saw us standing there.

“You’ve found my Emma,” Mum said. “She’s our little angel, always guiding us.”

Teagan turned to my mother. “She was so beautiful.”

I swallowed, feeling the pain creep up my throat to choke me. I tried my best to stay strong.

“Caleb normally refuses to look at any photos of her. I think you being here is giving him strength, Teagan.”

My mother patted me on the back before continuing toward her room.

Taking Teagan’s hand, I led her into our room. Our room. That still sounded strange.

Closing the door, I prompted her to lie down next to me. Still wrapped in her towel, she curled into my arms.

“For years, we couldn’t have Emma’s photos out. It was too much for me. But recently we put them back up, and I’ve been dealing with it, but I haven’t actually looked at her face until just now.” I kissed the top of her head. “My mother is right. Having you here is so good for me. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”

She rested her head on my chest. “It feels so surreal to be in England with you. I’d always had this idea in my head about what it looked like here, the dynamic between you and your mother. I know things are a lot different now that your dad is away, but there’s a serenity I wasn’t expecting. There’s a lot of love here, too—and a lot of pain that lingers. I can feel it all, everything that lies within these walls. I’m just so happy to be here, to have an opportunity to experience a new life, new adventures. But really, it wouldn’t matter where I was as long as I can be with you.”

This girl—this beautiful woman—breathed life into me every second we were together. I needed to find a way for us to stay together for more than just these next six months. I needed her forever.

***

A week after Teagan’s arrival, the information I’d been keeping from her became hard to contain.

In the months before Teagan’s move, we’d spent a lot of time on the phone. She’d told me she’d decided to Google her birth mother, Ariadne. She’d explained how that led her to realize how important Maura was in her life. I loved hearing that she’d finally given Maura the credit she deserved.