She stared at the ground, rendered speechless. I knew I needed to continue but the feeling in my gut begged me to stop. I took in another deep breath.
“You put too much on me, Mom. All those years of acting like it was us against Nathan and Dad…it wasn’t right. I didn’t know how to be close to my brother—I felt like I couldn’t be. It was like being close to him was betraying you in some way. Do you know how fucked up that is for a kid to feel?”
She met my gaze briefly before jerking her eyes back to the floor. I half expected her to deny it, but she didn’t. Instead, she finally whispered, “I’m so sorry for that.”
It was like those words opened a floodgate.
“How could you treat him like that?” I demanded. “You ignored him, treated him like he wasn’t even your son. Even now, whenever we talk, I hear the way you subtly throw digs at him. He’s yourson. He deserves better.”
“I know.”
“And I deserved better too. I should never have been your emotional support child, or whatever the hell I was.”
She clasped and unclasped her hands. The silence was enormous. I thought I might suffocate in it, but at least I’d finally saidsomething. Maybe not in the most eloquent way, but I’d gotten the words out.
“Your father and I weren’t always…we weren’t always like the way you knew us to be.”
My eyebrows drew together. My mothernevertalked about my father and vice versa. Growing up, I hardly saw them interact. They didn’t even share a bedroom. I’d realized that when I was in sixth grade.
“We met when I was young. He was older, successful. He was quiet, but I was enamored with him. Thought my flirty ways were getting under his skin, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It was never supposed to be a forever thing. We had a short fling, that was all. He was too different from me. He was cold and calculated. In the short time we spent together, I realized he didn’t want to change. He didn’t think my free spirit was charming, he thought it was irritating. We didn’t work. After we parted ways, I—I realized I was pregnant with Nathan.”
My eyes widened. She’d never told me this.
“I knew I wanted to keep him the second I found out. Your father…he insisted I marry him. Perhaps I hadn’t learned all my lessons at the time because I agreed. I thought it was romantic in a way. He was so harsh, but he was stepping up and doing the right thing. I thought we might be a real family. But walking down that aisle and signing the papers was the only thing he ever did right by me.”
“Mom…”
“I had a hard time after Nathan was born. I wasn’t feeling like myself. I was stuck at home a lot. It was hard. Nathan was the spitting image of your father. He took an interest in Nathan the way he never did me. Wanted to set him up for allthese classes at a young age. Had all these grand plans. It felt like he was turning him into a mini him, and I felt all alone.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I know how wrong it seems. I was his mother. I should have stepped in. Should have bonded more. But I felt so alone. So empty.”
She smiled sadly. “Then you came along. The day you were born, your father was on a work trip he’d insisted he couldn’t miss. Your grandmother watched Nathan while I went to the hospital by myself. You were like this ray of sunshine immediately. Some women would have mourned the fact that their husband was thousands of miles away during the birth of their second child, but I rejoiced that it was just me and you.”
She opened and closed her mouth, searching for the right words. “The older you two got… I knew it was wrong, but when I looked at Nathan all I saw was your father. I couldn’t separate the two.”
“He needed you. You knew how Dad was.”
“I know, and I regret it. But at the time, I convinced myself I saw the same judgment and hatred in Nathan’s eyes that I saw in your father’s. I clung to you instead. My little sunshine.”
I let her words sink in. They made sense in a way. I knew she thought Nathan and my father were cut from the same cloth. For years, I’d thought that too.
Nathan had been forced into that, though. Sure, he’d always been the logical one. He was never going to be naturally warm, and he’d always be a touch socially awkward no matter what. But it hurt to think that the coldness he’d developed was partially because he’d felt ostracized. If I had been left to be raised by my father, I doubted I would have turned out the way that I had.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
“I’m trying to make things right with Nathan. I know I’m probably too late, but I’m trying,” she added quietly.
“I know,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me and taking in my mother.
For all her faults, she wasn’t a bad person. She might have made a lot of mistakes, but hearing her side of things made me falter. Being stuck in a relationship with someone who made you feel that small…it couldn’t have been easy. I knew how harsh Dad could be. He’d never cared for me. I’d grown to accept it, but it had never been easy growing up.
“Why did you stay with him?” I asked, struggling not to fantasize about what a childhood could have been like without my mother underneath his thumb.
“He would never agree to a divorce; said it was too messy. I had no savings of my own. I didn’t know what to do…”
My heart broke a little for her. I knew she’d lost her parents when she was young. The only grandparents I’d ever known were my dad’s parents, and they had always been harsh with my mother. They treated her like she wasn’t good enough for their son.
“Hey.” I reached over and set a hand on her forearm. “You were young. I get that. It must have been hard.”
