She ran two hands over her reddened face and shook her head. “No. I was never there for you—you know that. It was bad before he left, and even worse afterward. It’s just… never mind. There’s no excuse, darlin’.”
“What is it?” I asked, wiping a couple wet trails from my cheeks and leaning against the table.
We both smelled the burning eggs simultaneously. She pushed the pan away and turned off the burner, shoulders shaking noiselessly.
I took a step forward. “Are you okay?”
When she turned, a wheezing laugh fell from her lips. It was dry and throaty, rattling through her chest as if she’d only just dusted it off after a decade in storage. A smile twitched onto my mouth even as the tears continued to stream.
“I own a diner,” she explained through gasps, “And I can’t hardly cook anythin’.”
We broke out into a laugh together, doubled over, faces wet and eyes red. To anyone else, we probably looked like a pair of women swiftly losing their minds beside a pan of burnt eggs. For the first time, I wasn’t thinking about the mistakes I’ve made, or how puffy my face would be, or everything I needed to do that day.
“Well,” my mother said, sniffing as she sobered. “I can make us some pancakes.”
“With the mix?”
She grinned and reached into the cabinet above the fridge. Long ago—when I was really little, and things were better between my parents—when we’d all have breakfast together on Saturday mornings. My mother made pancakes from the box and my father would cut fruit and fry bacon while he entertained her with stories about his week. The memory only came in bits and pieces—his animated expressions, the warm glow of fluorescent lights, my mother’s tinkling laugh, the pop of grease.
Sometimes I wondered if it was more of a mirage than reality.
We worked on breakfast in silence, occasionally sharing a giggle when we forgot the oil in our first batch and burned the next. The charred eggs sat on the corner of the stove, glistening, reminding me of the one question that lingered on the tip of my tongue.
I waited until we sat across from each other at the kitchen table.
“What did you mean?” I asked, rubbing the silver of my fork with my cardigan until it gleamed. “It sounded like you were about to say something earlier. About dad.”
My mother finished chewing before she sighed and sank back into her chair. “I never wanted to come between you and your father. I never had one, y’know? I thought that, above anythin’ else, your relationship should be protected.”
“So you never talked about the divorce,” I concluded miserably. I didn’t think I ever asked, either. The thought sent an unpleasant twinge of guilt to my stomach.
“Yeah,” she replied, adjusting her plate until it was centered on the placemat. “Your father’s a complicated man, darlin’. Hewas so much different when we first got married—but then again, so was I.”
“How so?” I prodded.
“He was… well, we were young, didn’t know any better.” She smiled sadly and cleared her throat. “But that’s all done and dusted, ain’t it?”
“Mom, please,” I murmured, the name tasting foreign. “What was he like?”
She cleared her throat, seeming to think of an argument before dropping her chin into her hands in apparent acquiescence. “Your father has a way of makin’ someone feel like they’re the mostimportantperson in the world. He was just so darn charmin’—gifts, compliments, romantic gestures. We got married quick and had you fast, y’know. Thought I was just so in love with him that it was a whirlwind.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and waited for her to continue as she dragged in a breath.
“Then one day… it all stopped. I figured it was somethin’Idid. Nearly drove myself mad tryin’ to figure out what I’d done.” She paused and rubbed her eyes. “I ain’t tryin’ to place blame, sweetheart, I promise. I know it was no excuse. But I didn’t know who I was for a while after that.”
She started crying again, swiping in vain at the rivers streaking down her cheeks.
I felt a piece of my heart break. Not for my bleak childhood or my unstable future, but for my mother, who was as much of a person as I was.
“You’re going to make your pancakes soggy,” I mumbled with a tiny grin.
And when she laughed, it sounded like music.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We talked for hours that morning.
She called her cook, then Janice, who surprisingly had some experience working the diner. I didn’t think she’d really do it, but then she turned off her phone, threw it in a drawer, and sat back at the table like it wasn’t the most monumental thing I’d witnessed in months.
