“Sure, sure,” she says. “You’ll forgive me by tomorrow and life will go on.”
I close the office door and head into the living room, where my brothers are eating lunch. Without saying a word, Riley passes me a plate and a beer, and turns the TV on. It should be awelcome reprieve from Cass hounding me, but her words are all I can think about as we watch the game my brother puts on.
In the evening,after I’m done helping my mom make dinner and Riley and Cameron are cleaning the kitchen, I head to bed early, determined to get a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, I toss and turn, unable to get comfortable, my mind racing. I still can’t stop thinking about what Cassandra said to me, and as I turn her words over in my mind, I worry that she’s right—that I ran away when I should have stayed.
I sigh and get out of bed, rubbing a hand over my face. There’s no way I’ll be able to fall asleep now, so I leave my room and wander aimlessly through the quiet house and into the kitchen. Maybe a snack will take my mind off things. My mom is sitting at the kitchen table, a crossword puzzle spread out in front of her, and a mug of tea at her elbow.
“Hey Ma,” I say.
“What are you doing up? I thought you went to sleep hours ago,” she says without looking up from her paper. She studies it for a moment longer and then fills in another answer.
“I went to bed but couldn’t get much sleep.” I grab a bowl and some cereal from the cabinet, and sit down across from her.
“That’s unlike you,” she says, looking up at me and setting her pen down. “What’s on your mind?”
While I chew, I think of what to say to her. It’s not that my mom and I aren’t close, it’s just that she and dad fought so much when I was little, that I learned to bury my problems down deep, so as not to bother her with them. She always had enough on her plate, with Riley and Cam misbehaving, and with my father cheating and starting fights, so I tried to be a good kid. Maybe Ishould blame her more for staying with him as long as she did, but I can’t find it in me to harbor any animosity towards her.
She was a good mom to me—kind, gentle, patient, present. She was all of the things our father never was.
“I worry that I’m like him. Like Dad,” I say. My mom just looks at me with an open expression on her face, encouraging me to keep going. “And I worry that I’m not,” I admit. “I worry that I wasted years of my life believing I was like a man who couldn’t commit to anything—to anyone—only to realize that I’ve got it all wrong. And where the hell does that leave me now?”
“You know, you’re the child I worry about the most, Natey?” my mom says after a moment.
I shake my head.
“It probably seems surprising. You’ve been so successful, and you’ve helped us out so much over the years. But you also keep everything inside. I can rely on Riley and Cam coming to me as soon as they have a problem. And I’ve gotten good at reading your sister’s moods. But with you, I always worry that there are things you aren’t telling me.” She smiles at me and pats my hand. “That alone makes you completely different from your father.”
“How?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“Because, you keep everything inside to avoid burdening others. You know how to be selfless—how to make things easier for people, even to your own detriment sometimes. Your father was selfish to his core. He cared about himself, first, in every possible way and in every situation. He couldn’t put our family first anymore than you could put us second. So you see, you’re nothing at all like him.”
I sit with what my mom has just told me for a moment, and then say, “But I’ve still wasted so much time believing that I’m fated to be like him and now that I’m realizing I’m not…I mean, where do I even go from here?”
“You’ve wasted nothing,” my mom says. “You are a good man. And the people who you’re close to know that, which is what really matters. Don’t beat yourself up over what you could have been doing. Decide what you want to do with yourself right now.” She laughs and shakes her head, her bangs swishing from side to side. “Listen to me, I sound like a corny self-help book or something.”
“It’d be a best seller though, Ma, I’m sure of it.”
“None of you are like him,” she says, her tone serious again. “I made sure of that. Just don’t hold too much of yourself back from people, Nate. They deserve to see all that you are.”
“Thanks, Ma.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Want me to help you finish that crossword?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Together, we fill in the remaining spaces until it’s past one and my mom heads off to sleep. I stay in the kitchen, staring at the dregs of my soggy cereal and thinking about who, exactly, I want to be.
I know I don’t want to be the man from a few days ago—the one who offered Candice a relationship and in the same breath said I had to leave. I didn’t put a lick of thought into confessing what I felt for her. I acted the way she expected me to act—the wayIexpected me to act—and in doing so, I confirmed all her fears about me leaving.
I think I could be someone better.
I know, at least, that I’d like to try.
41
CANDICE
I spendthe days after Nathan leaves working with the horses all day, and eating in the evenings with Beau. He doesn’t ask me why Nathan left so abruptly, and I assume that’s because Nathan must have let him know. I’m sure he’s also trying not to pry—he knows when I want space.
After dinner on Saturday night, I pull out the photo album we have of our parents and grandparents. I spread it out on the coffee table, and sit on a throw pillow on the ground, wrapped in Grammy’s blanket. Beau is in the kitchen washing dishes. I offered to do them, but he told me to sit my ass down and relax. I flip through the photo album page by page, lingering over each one for a moment, until I get to my favorite. It’s the one that has pictures of Mom and Dad in Paris on their honeymoon together. There’s one of Mom in front of a bakery holding a croissant, and another of them together, smiling in front of Notre Dame.
