Candace returns with two waters.
“Thanks, Candace,” I say.
She slips away quietly, leaving us to our waters and our words.
“So, your parents…” Rachel pauses. “You said they were gone, and I didn’t feel like I could ask you if they were gone as in dead or…”
I sigh, but it’s not heavy. It’s light, because the words are bubbling to the surface not wanting to be swallowed back down. “I don’t know where they are, or if they are dead or alive. My dad left us when I was ten and Lily was four, and my mom…Well, whatever she considered to be trying her best wasn’t good enough. She left when I was fourteen. I didn’t graduate high school. As soon as I could, I got a full-time job to support Lily.”
“You don’t have to…”
“No, I want you to know,” I say. “I want you to know all of it because…” I trail off, thinking carefully about these next words because they have to be right. “My heart, it’s heavy, and before you decide to let me in, you need to know what you’re opening your door to.”
She nods, understanding. “Okay.”
“My mom did try for a while. She worked a few jobs, but there never was enough for Lily and me. We were always hungry, and Lily…She was so little.”
I can see Lily at four. Her bright blonde hair, dirty and matted, framing her chubby face that smiled at me, even when her tummy was growling.
“I had to grow up,” I continue. “Lily needed me. My mom started drinking, and soon she was drowning in the misery she created, forgetting she was drowning us, too.”
Rachel pulls her legs up in her chair beneath her, snuggling in as if she’s listening to a magical bedtime story instead of a nightmare.
“I started walking dogs at first, and as I got older, I pretended to be a handyman to fix leaks and patch drywall, learning as I faked it. And then, by thirteen, I had a fake ID so I could work at a hotel,” I detail out.
“Wait, what? A fake ID at thirteen?” she asks. “How did you get it?”
I can’t believe I’m about to say these words out loud.
“I knew a guy who was a drug dealer that dealt to my mom,” I explain. “Most jobs didn’t pay well when you weren’t of age. There was an opening at a hotel for a house cleaner. It was the night shift, so I could make it work. The fake ID was to show I was sixteen, and it worked since I looked older than I was.”
I take a sip of my water, looking over at Rachel. Her gaze is warm, strong, and steady, as if she’s not letting go but instead holding on and giving me her sunshine.
“But the best job I had was for an old lady. Her name was Ethel. Such a classic name. She had me clean her apartment and grocery shop for her every week. She always let me buy a few extra thingsfor Lily and me.” I say the words to Rachel, but I’m remembering them, too.
She’d even let me buy KitKats. I haven’t had that candy bar in years, but at the time it felt like a luxury item. I’ve forgotten about the way Ethel had cared for me. Thinking about it now, she reminds me of Rachel. Ethel had been warm, too.
I look over at Rachel, and her eyes are wet.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters, wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Don’t apologize for being you, Rachel,” I say. “I love that you can see the good in people even when it doesn’t seem so good.”
She takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I think that’s what got me in trouble.” Her voice is quiet, a gentle hum. “With Andrew. He’s the guy I talked about on stage. We dated through high school and on-and-off through college. Every time I broke up with him, he promised me he’d change, and I wanted to believe him because I saw the good in him. The parts he showed when he needed to reel me back in.”
I stay still, listening.
“I thought if I could just love those parts of him enough…” She pauses and swallows hard. “I guess I thought that loving someone’s best would somehow undo their worst. But his worst kept chipping away at me until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. It’s why I left. Why I went to New York. It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Leaving. And I know that’s probably hard to hear because, someone leaving has hurt you so much.”
My chest tightens, and it’s not from anger, or even jealousy; it’s from sorrow. For her. For the years she felt she wasn’t enough. For the way she still seems to be trying to prove she had a right to walk away. But no one has to earn a right to be loved.
It’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life—believing something is wrong with me and that I’m to blame for my parentsleaving Lily and me. But I was just a kid. I wasn’t the problem, and Rachel wasn’t the problem, either.
I shake my head. “No, Rachel. There’s a difference. You didn’t leave because you were weak. You left because you remembered you were worth more than what he was giving you. You have nothing to prove.”
She nods, just once, but something in her posture shifts. Like maybe, for the first time in a long time, she believes it.
“I don’t go back home because my mom and my sister took his side. They wanted me to marry him. He’s still there. In Magnolia Creek. He’s there every Christmas in my house. He’s in our family photos. He’s in our family stories. He’s part of my story that I can’t rewrite because they’ve made him someone I can’t write out. And well…I don’t want him in my words anymore. He already took so much, and I don’t want to give him more of me.” She pauses, then adds, “And he doesn’t even like my words.”
