Before I Let You Go(64)
Sometimes when I’m low, I wonder what my life would have looked like if I’d stopped that day. Oh, we were still relatively new to each other after only a few months—but you know, I like to think that I might have married Todd one day. He probably runs some big IT department now, and he’s probably got some nice house in the suburbs and a couple of adorable, healthy kids.
Todd was so gentle and so smart—maybe almost as smart as Lexie—far too good for me anyway. Our relationship was young and fragile—and so it should have been, because that’s who we each were at that stage of our lives. You love like that only once in a lifetime—you can love from a place of innocence only once. It always leads to the deepest hurt, and after that, you’re changed and hardened by it.
So I walked away from Todd, and I went back to my apartment and I cursed him loudly to my roommates. I told myself it was inevitable—hadn’t I doubted Todd’s feelings for me anyway? But my relationship with Todd had brought me out of my shell and I’d had a taste of how good it felt to connect with people, so I didn’t fall back to keeping to myself.
Although he obviously didn’t think so, I had been using a degree of restraint with my drinking when we were together, and then he was gone and I was hurting and terrified that it wasn’t the partying that scared him away, but that he’d seen too much of who I really was.
So suddenly, I had a whole lot more to escape—because now I was convinced that anyone I loved would flee as soon they got to know the real me. It was just as Robert had said.
This is all you are good for.
Once Todd was gone—all bets were off, and my foundation began to slip.
27
LEXIE
Another week goes by with no word from Annie. I don’t want to call Luke again—he unsettled me so much with that last conversation. But I do want to know how she’s doing, so I email him early one morning as I’m dressing to go to the hospital.
Luke, could you please let me know how Annie is doing? I don’t need details, just want to know that she’s okay.
Later that day I hear my cell vibrating in my handbag, but Daisy is unsettled, so I ignore it until I manage to convince her to sleep. It is almost an hour later that I rest the baby in the crib, and after I breathe a sigh of relief and stretch my tired arms, I check the phone.
One missed call—Mom and Robert.
I stiffen and my heart starts to race. In the seven years since Mom and I reconnected, she has never once called me—it’s always been me calling her.
Something must be wrong.
I fly out of the NICU and into the corridor as I return the call. My mind is racing—What now? What else can possibly go wrong? What if Mom is sick?
Mom answers with a light, “Hello?”
“Mom? It’s Lexie. What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Why? Why did you think something was wrong?”
“You called me, Mom! Why did you call me?”
“You said you’d send a photo of the baby,” she says, then she adds weakly, “I just thought you might have forgotten. I was really looking forward to seeing her.”
I’d laugh if the situation weren’t so maddening. With all that I’m dealing with here, Mom thinks to call only because she hasn’t received her photo? I clench the phone in my fist and my jaw tightens. I close my eyes and try to suppress the rage.
“Do you know what I’ve been doing today, Mom?”
“No,” she says warily.
“I have spent the whole damned day trying to soothe your granddaughter. I’ve been rocking her, and pacing the halls with her, and singing to her—and nothing has worked. And Annie is too sick to get on the phone and ask how she’s doing, and then you think you can just call me and instead of asking how we all are over here, you ask me for a fucking photo?”
“Don’t speak like that, Lexie,” Mom gasps. “You know I can’t tolerate profanity!”
“Mom. You should be here. You shouldn’t be calling me asking for photos, you should be on a goddamned plane, coming to do your part. Annie needs you and the baby needs you and—”
“Alexis, I’m going to hang this phone up right now. You’re just lucky Robert isn’t home to see how upset you’ve made me.”
“I’ll send you a fucking photo when the day comes that I get more than six hours of sleep and I don’t spend every waking hour trying to help your granddaughter get better. Until then, you can damn well wait.”
Mom hangs up, and I growl and press my fist to my forehead.
“Tough day, huh?”
Sam is there behind me, and it’s like he has radar for the exact moment I need to see him—but it’s also a moment when I don’t want to see him. I can’t bring myself to explain that call, and the worst thing is, I’m not exactly sure why. Sam would empathize—he’d say all the right things, and he’d be angry with Mom, just as he should be.
In all of this, Sam has never once judged me. Maybe that’s why I can’t tell him. He’s been so perfect in all of this. What’s going to be the straw that breaks his back? When am I going to see the moment when it’s all just too much?
“I have a spare hour today,” Sam murmurs as he pulls me close for a hug. “Want to get some lunch out of this shithole?”