If You Only Knew(111)

“It’s so nice to have you here,” she says, and it’s odd, not having a guilt trip attached to those words. We’re sitting on the porch on Saturday night, watching the highly gifted children of Hedgefield zip by on their bikes and scooters, all of them appropriately helmeted and chaperoned.

“Will you make me tuna casserole tomorrow?” I ask.

“Oh, sure, honey,” she says. “It’s so bad for you, though.”

“But good for the soul.”

Mom smiles. “So is it Owen? Are you jealous? Has him becoming a father finally hit you?”

“No, Mom. I fell for someone else. And it didn’t work out.”

“You never did choose that well,” she concurs.

“Oh, come on. You think of Owen in the same league as Jesus and George Clooney.”

She laughs. “I don’t know about that. He was always a little sanctimonious, don’t you think? Owen, that is. George Clooney is perfect.”

I stare. “Um...yes, actually, that’s a fantastic word for him.”

“I was going through some of your father’s things the other day,” she begins.

“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

“No reason. Just to see them.” She looks at her hands, seeming embarrassed at her devotion.

But now that I know about Leo, I understand better, and shame pricks my conscience. I never did cut Mom a lot of slack when it came to Dad. I always thought she should move on.

“You must miss him so much,” I say.

“I do.”

“A friend of mine lost his wife and child.” Predictably, my eyes fill. “I don’t think he’ll ever get over it.”

“Of course not,” Mom says. “You don’t get over it, ever.”

“So how do you keep going?”

She sighs. “Some days, you don’t. Some days, you’re just stalled.” She takes a sip of her iced tea. “You know what I miss? I miss complaining about him. There was such a guilty luxury in calling up a friend and telling her just how aggravating my husband was.”

I wipe my eyes surreptitiously. “I thought Dad was perfect.”

“No husband is perfect. Not even Adam.”

My glance flickers her way. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, sometimes I think he looks at other women a little too long,” Mom says.

Well, well. Mom is more observant than I gave her credit for.

Since I seem to be staring at her, she shrugs. “All men do, I suppose.”

My decades-old secret stirs. I wait a beat, then ask—finally. “Did Dad?”

She doesn’t answer for a minute, just swings her foot, clad in its ever-present sneaker. “Well, no. But there was a time when... I don’t know.”

“What, Mom?”

She shrugs. “When I thought he might’ve had a little...thing for someone. A crush. A midlife crisis.” She’s carefully not looking at me.

“What if he did?” I ask.

She takes a long sip of her iced tea. “He probably didn’t,” she amends. “And even if he did, he loved me.”

I look at her, my mother the widow, who has let that one loss define her as nothing else. She’s sixty-five years old. If I tell her Dad did have a thing for someone, what would it do to her? Would it free her? Crush her?

“He sure did love you,” I say. “But you know he would’ve been remarried two weeks after your funeral.”

She laughs. “Yep. You’re right about that. He was helpless outside of that dentist office.”

A hummingbird hovers at her hanging basket of lobelia, the buzz of its wings low and sweet. “Mom, did you ever think how that day might’ve been different? How, if you could’ve changed one little thing, Dad might not have died?”

She looks at me sharply. “All the time. You know, I almost called him at the office to ask him to pick up the dry cleaning. But I forgot. If I hadn’t, he’d be alive today.”

Well, holy crap. Seems I’m not the only one with a little guilt. “I...I thought something similar. If I’d said something, then he wouldn’t have gone to that store.”

“Don’t feel guilty, honey. The only people who were responsible were those idiots who shot him.”

Suddenly, I’m crying before I even knew I wanted to cry. Mom scootches over on the glider, and I sit with her arms around me and bawl like a little baby. “I miss him,” I say, and she kisses my head.

“I know, honey. I know,” she says, and for once, she just let me have my grief without trying to up the ante, and I cry and cry and cry, and honestly, I can’t remember when I’ve loved her more.

A hundred memories are unchained all at once—Mom taking care of me when I had the pukes, Mom coming to get me at school when my period came for the first time and I almost passed out from cramps and the evil gym teacher wouldn’t let me out of class. How I hated when my teeth were loose, and she—not Dad the dentist—would be the one to gently tug the baby tooth from its bed.

“Mom, I hate thinking of you living the rest of your life on your own,” I say, wiping my eyes and nose on my sleeve like the classy person I am. “You’ve never wanted to date?”

“No!” She says it as if I’ve just asked her if she’s ever wanted to eat a baby hedgehog. “Your father was enough for me. Some of us are better at being alone than others. Rachel and I, for example, are fine with our own company.”