Chapter 31

31

"Topher called me," Mom says, smoothing back some of my hair. Through the taxi window, the city trundles past us in fits and starts; we zoom down wide roads, weave through lanes of traffic, move in short bursts near traffic lights, and crawl along seemingly endless lines of cars and taxis. A few raindrops patter against the windows. "He thought, under the circumstances…"

I make a noise that's neither assent nor disagreement.

On the one hand, even though my relationship with Mom has been nonexistent for most of my life and tedious for the last couple of years, having her there to comfort me while my world fell apart was exactly what I needed.

But there's also the fact that my mom coming to pick me up makes me feel even more like I've been sent home from school like some unruly child, which adds to my embarrassment.

"What…" My voice is raspy, throat sore from all the crying. My tongue feels thick and awkward in my mouth. I swallow and try again. I can't quite meet Mom's eyes. "What did he tell you?"

"Enough."

Now I do cut her a look, not in the mood for this vague, misguided attempt at being the protective parent. It doesn't suit her, and it's not helping me right now either.

She sighs slightly, but says, "That you've obviously grown very close with his son and some rather personal emails you'd written him had been distributed to the office, along with a, er, somewhat intimate photograph of the two of you. And paper copies had been taped up everywhere this morning, so obviously it was a nasty little prank and not some silly accident. Although honestly, Anna, using a professional email for that sort of thing—I really thought you would know better…."

"Yeah, all right, thanks, Mom. That's not helping." I scowl, turning back to the window. That feeling of safety and comfort she'd provided not ten whole minutes ago, hugging me in that little room at Arrowmile, is suddenly long gone.

"Well," she says, more lightly, "let's just count ourselves lucky you weren't using your email to sext him or send anything naughty."

"Omigod, Mom."

And to think I thought this whole thing couldn't get more humiliating. My cheeks burn—though I'm not sure if it has more to do with the fact my mom just said the word "sext" or the mere idea that I might've written that kind of thing to Lloyd at all. I sink a bit lower in the seat, covering my face with my hands.

"I didn't realize the two of you were an item," Mom says after a few moments. Her statement is curious, open.

"We're not."

I wonder, if things had been different, if I would've gossiped with her about boys. Would I have been FaceTiming her throughout my internship like I had been Dad and Gina, but instead of telling her about friends or the work, gushing about the cute boy I'd met? Would I have confided in her and sought her advice on whether I should give Lloyd a chance or focus solely on the internship?

Would it have seemed less black-and-white, if things with Mom had been different?

Several beats pass; Mom looks like she wants to ask me more, but is clearly biting her tongue, conflicted. Like she's afraid that pushing me too hard, trying too much to be my mom or my friend or whatever, will burn whatever bridges I have tentatively agreed to start building.

She looks hurt. Hopeful. Scared.

I've never seen her look like that before. When I was little, I remember her being exasperated and exhausted from time to time. Mostly, I remember the fire in her eyes—that look of barely contained excitement she'd get when she was particularly driven about something, which was most of the time. In all the photos and videos of her online in recent years, she looks so composed. A funny little half-smile, like she knows the secret to having it all, her posture confident.

But right now, there are lines pinched around the edges of her mouth, aging her. Her hair isn't as smooth as usual and there's eyeliner smudged beneath one of her eyes, like whatever time she would've normally taken to fix it wasn't worth it in her rush to Arrowmile after Topher's call. Her eyes are downcast; there's a deep furrow between her professionally maintained eyebrows. Uncertainty threads across her made-up face, cloying in the air around her.

She didn't look like this either time I asked her to leave me alone and stormed out on her.

Realizing that, something softens in the hard angles that have spiked up around my heart. The ache in my chest eases.

And I break the silence by telling Mom, "We might have been an item, if…It's complicated. Or, it didn't have to be, I suppose, but I made it messy. I kept making it messy."

"Do you—do you want to tell me about it?"

I expect a sharp retort to be ready on my tongue, out of habit if nothing else. No. Don't pretend like you care. Don't think that being here for me now, just because someone else involved you and you had to save face by showing up, makes up for anything.

But it never comes.

I just hunch smaller into the corner of the car and take a deep breath.

"It started months ago, the weekend before the internship…"

—

The taxi takes us to Mom's hotel suite. A suite, I notice, not merely a room. It has its own designated sitting area. The bathroom must be bigger than my entire bedroom back home, I think, measuring it mentally before I splash some cold water on my face and use one of the luxurious white facecloths branded with the hotel's logo and some of Mom's expensive-looking products to scrub my mangled makeup off my face. I borrow her hairbrush to tidy my hair, too.

In the harsh light of the bathroom, in the humongous mirror above the double sinks, I can't help but stare at the girl in the reflection. She looks like she just had her whole life ripped out from under her; she's strung out. Wrung out. Exhausted. Her white blouse is a remnant from her school days, her pencil skirt awkward and frumpy. Her face is hollowed, ashen—young. She looks like a kid playing dress-up.

Who have I been kidding all summer?

I am just a kid playing dress-up. I'm not the #GirlBoss millennial stereotype I've always secretly looked up to and was trying so hard to emulate all summer, smashing glass ceilings and climbing the corporate ladder, with her houseplants and her whole life together. I'm not a grown-up. In America, I'm not even old enough to drink.

I've been so focused on making sure my life is set when I am older, I forgot somewhere along the way that I'm not actually there yet. That I might not be for a while. That it might be okay, to just…be a teenager, and kiss a cute boy on my summer break.

By the time I return to the sitting room, Mom is fussing about with the little kettle. I wonder how many times she's reboiled the water waiting for me to come out of the bathroom.

"I—I wasn't sure how you took your tea, Anna."

"Oh. Um, milk, no sugar."

"How much milk?"

Again, she looks so uncertain. This isn't the mom who met me for lunch a few weeks ago. This is…this is someone who realizes that, as my mom, she should know how I take my tea and how much milk to put in.

"Just, like…" I try to gesture. "A tiny splash."

A faint smile crosses her face. "Your dad always liked his tea strong, too. Like the milk barely touched it, I used to say."

She finishes making the tea and hands me the mug after I take a seat on the plush sofa, and then busies herself with the toggles and buttons on the fancy coffee machine to make herself a drink. "I've got some biscuits here too…," she mumbles, and sets an open pack of chocolate bourbons on the coffee table. I almost expect them to be some posh brand, too, but they're just regular store-brand ones. Nothing special.

Exactly like the ones that used to live in the bear-shaped biscuit jar in the kitchen at our old house, back when Mom was part of the family.

I reach for one and nibble on it. It tastes like being five years old and sitting at the kitchen table, legs swinging from my chair, blathering on about school while Mom paid half a mind to me and half to her computer. It tastes like innocence, and ignorance.

I'm only able to manage a little of it; the stress of this morning has stolen my appetite. Even for chocolate biscuits.

Mom sits on the sofa beside me, dunks a biscuit in her tea, and eats it whole.

I've already told her all about Lloyd. Our accidental meetings in the empty office. The late-night cake, the kiss at the summer party. That he came to the apartment and stayed the night (although that's all I mention about that one). I tell her how I struggled to figure out who he was and how I thought he was some arrogant, entitled guy beneath it all because that was how he acted around the office…That I pushed him away because I chose the internship over him.

Now, I realize I'm not quite done.

"I just feel like such an idiot. All this time, he was exactly who he said he was. He was never anybody different, that was just…in my head. But I kept thinking the worst of him, even when he kept giving me the benefit of the doubt. I—I liked him. I really liked him. I could've just—had that, you know? Let myself like him. But I didn't, and now I've ruined it, and it doesn't matter anyway."

"Oh, Anna, sweetheart." Mom tucks an arm around me, only seeming to think better of it afterward. I feel her freeze a little, but she relaxes when I don't shrug her off. I might have done so if I didn't feel so completely, wretchedly sorry for myself.

Across the room, my phone starts going nuts. I asked Mom if she would charge it for me, and it's finally come back to life. I can bank on some of those notifications being missed calls and messages from my friends—Monty and Verity and Dylan, desperately trying to get hold of me this morning; the others, probably after they found out and thought they should check in. Maybe some of them are teasing me about it in the group chat, trying to make light of it. I dread to think what the other notifications might be.

I wince. "How am I meant to go back there after this?"

"People will understand. Things like this—well, they don't happen often, but they'll know it was someone being vicious. I'm sure it won't even be all that bad, Anna, really. It'll blow over."

I try to say something, but all that comes out is a wobbly groan. I feel queasy again; I might actually bring up the biscuit and my breakfast this time.

"Do you want me to…I mean, I could take a look at the email. See how bad it is. Isn't, I mean."

I look up. "But Nadja—she said IT was going to retract it. That they did. It won't be there anymore."

"It'll be in your sent folder. It came from your email, didn'tit?"

I cringe at the knowledge that somewhere there's still a concrete record of those emails. But I nod and wave Mom over to my phone and tell her my passcode so she can look. She stands upright, the phone lifted so she doesn't hunch over it, manicured fingers swiping efficiently. This looks more like the version of Mom I'm used to seeing online: cool, calm, confident.

Finally, she pauses, her index finger pulling slowly at the screen as she reads.

I sip my tea and try to eat the other half of my bourbon biscuit. I don't want to see, but I can't take my eyes away. It's like stopping to gawk at a car crash. Some warped, mortal part of my soul is compelled to witness the destruction.

Mom's face remains a mask as she reads—until it's not.

There's a small gasp that sounds so fragile and raw I don't know where it's come from, not until Mom presses a hand over her mouth and I see her eyes fill abruptly with tears. The blood drains from her face, turning her ghostly pale beneath her makeup. Slowly, she sets my phone back down and blinks rapidly, but I don't know whether it's to cover her tears or if she's just trying to get her head around something.

My stomach drops.

I didn't think my emails were that bad. Were they? Unless I've forgotten something truly awful I wrote about Lloyd or Arrowmile…Unless Mom saw something else. Maybe there's something horrible on my phone that she saw, or I've been kicked off the internship after all, or—

"Is this…" She swallows, hard. "Is that really what you think I did? Chose my ambition over you and your dad? Stomped all over you?"

Oh.

Oh. That.

I stare at her, not sure what to say except, "You did."

Mom stares at me. A few tears fall onto her cheeks.

I carry on, my voice steady. It's all fact. It's been fact for years; this is one thing I don't need to get emotional over today.

"We were always secondary to you. To your life. The glamorous businesswoman and self-declared ‘She-EO.' You left us because we couldn't compete with your career and your ambition. You chose to go out there and be Kathryn Jones, instead of my mom." I shrug, starting to feel a bit uncomfortable because of how upset she looks. "I remember you used to skip out on school things with me because you had more important things to do at work. Even when you were at home, you weren't really there most of the time. After you left…Well, you'd left. You were gone. It's not like you came back, is it?"

Mom flinches. After a moment, she shuffles to the armchair furthest from me. When she sinks into it, she looks small. Frail. So…not like Mom.

"Dad says he knew when he married you, he couldn't compete with your ambition. That he used to admire that about you, until it eclipsed everything. I obviously couldn't compete with it, either."

"Oh, darling—no, that's not…"

"It is. It's fine."

It's not fine. It's never been fine. But it's the truth, and I can't change it. I'm not trying to.

Mom shakes her head and hunches forward, pressing her hands over her face. She smudges her makeup when she drags them away.

"Your dad and I had other problems. Mainly mine—I'll be the first to admit that, but there were other things…. It wasn't the only factor in our divorce. I knew I couldn't look after you, but he was so angry with me—much like you are now—that he suggested I stay away until I decided I was ‘settled' enough to be part of your life. It wasn't fair on you, we agreed, if I kept flitting in and out, or not showing up. I…Anna, I wasn't ready to be a mom when I had you. I thought I was, but when it came to it…I had awful postpartum depression. I turned into this husk. Your dad had to take care of both of us, for a long while. When I started to get better, it felt like I'd lost this huge part of myself. Work was the only thing I could cling to that made me feel like my old self. I—I suppose I threw myself into it a little too far, is all."

I stare at Mom. At her pale face and smeared makeup, at the tears flowing down her cheeks and her trembling hands. At this strange, aching creature I've never seen before.

And I whisper, "I didn't know you were depressed."

She looks startled. "Didn't your dad mention it?"

"I—I mean…He said you had a rough time, after you hadme."

The corner of Mom's mouth twitches. " He had a rough time. I was like a ghost. It wiped out a whole chunk of my life. I think, by the time I was better, it's like you said, I let work eclipse everything else. Your father and I agreed I'd let both of you have some space—some stability—and I don't think I ever felt ready to come back into your life. I thought it would only be for a couple of months, but every time I put it off. After this merger's finished, I'd think. After I've got through this probation period, or, once this deadline's out of the way. There was always something."

She draws a shaky breath, and gives me a watery smile. When her eyes meet mine, it's a vise around my lungs, wrapping them in barbed wire and drawing a sharp gasp out of me, tears prickling in the corners of my eyes.

"The plain and simple truth is that I was scared. I didn't know how to be a mom. I loved your dad, and it hurt me that I'd lost him. I didn't want to hurt you both more by coming back if I just ended up leaving again."

"But…" I pause, taking a breath to steady myself. "But you did come back. On my birthday, three years ago. You showed up suddenly wanting to be involved, pretending like you'd never left, like everything was fine."

She turns her hands palm up on her knees and looks down at them, lost. "I miscalculated my approach, and I apologize for that. I always wanted to be part of your life, Anna, I just didn't know how to be. I realized that if I kept putting it off and staying away, I might never know you. I didn't want that. And I'm—I'm sorry that I never stopped to consider whether you might want to know me. You were old enough— are old enough—to make that decision. I should have let you."

I'm speechless.

All I can do is keep staring at her, turning her words over and over and over in my mind. Slotting my own memories and opinions of Mom through this new filter she's given me, trying to make sense of it all.

She looks at me, nervous, waiting for me to say something.

All I can come up with is—

"I didn't realize you were so human."

Mom laughs. It's a wet, snotty sort of sound and she sniffles, wiping tears off her face even as she smiles. "That sounds like something a child would say. What was that I just said, about you being old enough?"

"No, I just—I mean…"

Well, yes, I did mean it like that, a bit.

"You always look so in control of everything," I try to explain. "It's weird to know you're just—normal, underneath it all."

"Oh, darling. We all are."

She moves over to the sofa again, but this time when she hugs me, it's hesitant. So I turn toward her, hugging her back. She strokes my hair and presses a kiss to the top of my head. My throat is thick, and I squeeze my eyes closed.

I think about how often Dad told me I'm like Mom, and how maybe he was right after all. She and I are like ducks: working so hard to look like we're floating along, and kicking hell-for-leather under the water where nobody can see how much effort it takes.

Normal, underneath it all.