Before I Let You Go(107)
I drag details out of her over the next few hours. She has—for the first time in over twenty years—disobeyed Robert. She has left the community against his will.
“But—what about when you go back?” I say blankly. Mom winces, and for the first time, she actually looks a little uncertain.
“I don’t know. But I’ve made the decision to come, and I can deal with the fallout—on my own. Got that?” I stare at her blankly, and then I nod because her tone is so authoritative that I’m not even tempted to argue. She stares down at Daisy, and a smile breaks over her face again. “I should have come—so many times. I couldn’t live with myself if I made a mistake like that again. Let me be here now.”
Mom’s arrival doesn’t make everything better. What it does is much more complex, and somehow more beautiful even than that. Her presence gives me distance from all that has overwhelmed me. With Daisy close by, she gets straight to work on sorting through the mess that the house has fallen into.
And I just stop. There is no frenetic energy to burn off, and no exhaustion to cloud my thoughts. I still meet almost all of Daisy’s care requirements—but now, when I need to go for a walk or to take a nap, I can leave the baby with Mom. This means that for the first time in weeks I get some time to myself—space to hear my own thoughts clearly, and decent stretches of sleep.
I’m like a new person within a few days. I think of all of the newborn mothers who have come to me in tears, struggling to cope with sleep deprivation, and I think about how unsympathetic I’ve been. “It’s just a phase. It will pass.” Or, “All new mothers find it difficult. Hang in there. A few months from now and this will all be a memory.”
I had no idea what I was talking about. I vow to be much more understanding when I return to work.
Space to think means space to really consider my relationship with Sam. There’s no denying he’s been endlessly patient and supportive through all of these weeks, but I also start to realize how unfair I’ve been to him in withholding parts of my history. Sam knows enough about my life to know that my childhood was atypical, but I never really went into any detail.
I never warned him that I have spent most of my life being responsible for things that weren’t actually my problem. I just had no idea how much that would impact me. Have I even told Sam about that year when Mom was too grief-stricken to move? Does he understand just how little she participated in all of my efforts to get Annie well over the years?
He knows plenty about the parts of my life I have chosen to share with him. Those parts that I rarely visit myself, though . . . the darkest days of my history . . . they are a mystery to Sam, and maybe he won’t actually understand me until I completely open up to him. So I start to talk about the times I’d rather forget. We sit up at night while Daisy sleeps in the bassinet beside our bed and we talk—really talk, about grief and hope and the past and the future. One day, I surprise him at work with lunch. We sit in his office and talk about Dad’s death, the way that Mom struggled to cope and the role that I had to play to keep us all together. It’s hard to talk about—hard to even think about—but instead of clamming up, I tell him that and Sam listens intently and he says all the right things. When I’m leaving, he thanks me.
“What for?” I ask him blankly, and Sam smiles at me—a proper smile—the unguarded one I haven’t seen for weeks. I can’t help but smile back, especially when he says, “I said ‘thank you’ because you trusted me with something that was hard for you to share, and I didn’t even have to drag it out of you. That’s progress, and I’m happy.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, and then he kisses me properly—not the polite, public kiss he’s been offering me at home in front of Mom.
Sam and I have always had love, but as I open up to him more, an emotional intimacy grows between us that I’d never even thought to hope for. I get a glimpse of what life is going to be like with someone who truly knows me . . . and a taste of parenting with someone who’s committed to sharing the load.
After two weeks at our house, Mom tells me that she needs to go home. She says this just as we sit down to enjoy the pie she cooked for dinner, and I’m so startled I drop my fork. She and Sam both stare at me.
“So soon? I didn’t realize—I mean—I didn’t realize you’d be going so soon. I thought—maybe you’d stay until—” I trail off, because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Mom did say she’d be here as long as I needed her. Things are much better, and I’m feeling much better but—I still need her. I feel like I just found her, and I don’t want lose her again. Do I have to say it? Is this some kind of test? Mom looks down at her plate.
“I have responsibilities back home. There are lessons to write, exams to mark, and the children at the school really need me. And Robert needs me—he is my husband.”
“When are you thinking of leaving?” Sam asks.
“In a few days. Robert has booked me a ticket. He said if I come back now, everything is going to be okay.”
I can see her reluctance to return, and it’s maddening.
“Mom,” I say, “why do you let him control you like this? You obviously don’t want to go, and I still—” I stumble over my words, then I force myself to say them. “I still need—I still want you to stay.”