“It’s just for one day,” I whispered under my breath, trying to ease the icy knot of grief in my gut. In my real, normal life Dad was alive and well, presumably puttering around our kitchen, making coffee and catching up on the sports scores, swearing as he burned the bacon and slipping the tastiest bits to Bertha on the sly. In real life, my mom was lying under a patch of lawn at Evergreen Washelli Cemetery. Tomorrow, when I woke, it would be to that real, motherless reality, not this fatherless one. I had to remember that. Today was a gift, a single final day with my mom. I couldn’t waste a minute of it.
Taking several deep, calming breaths through my nose (at least yoga had taught me something), I waited until my heart rate slowed, then headed back to the veranda. I kept my focus on the woman sitting there waiting for me. I was in Hawaii. With my mother. We had so little time, I resolved right then and there to make the most of every second.
21
Back at the table,I sank into my seat, trying to regain my equilibrium. I felt so off-kilter. I took a big swallow of mai tai, letting the cold, sweet, strong punch of the rum trickle down my throat. When I looked up, Mom was watching me. She leaned forward and studied my face, frowning a little.
“Lolly, my girl. Are you okay?”
I firmly put all thoughts of the wooden box out of my mind and focused solely on her.
“I’m great,” I assured her hastily. “I’m here with you. We’re in Hawaii. What’s not to love?” It was an honest answer, though not a complete one.
She took a sip of her mai tai and made a little hmm sound of agreement. “Yes, it’s paradise here. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you. Are you happy? Are you sleeping well, eating enough? You’re looking worn out and a little... on edge. What’s weighing on you?” Her eyes never left my face, assessing. She had always had that motherly sixth sense about both Daphne and me, an instinct whensomething was amiss. It was hard to put anything past her. She had a nose for the truth.
Gazing across the condo’s scrubby green lawn to the ribbon of white beach and the rolling ocean beyond, I pondered my answer. I had no idea what sort of life I was supposed to be living in this particular reality. She’d mentioned me running the diner. So apparently that was still happening.
“Just tired I guess. You know how it is running a restaurant.” I shrugged. I went for generalities.
“It’s a heavy load,” she agreed. “It’s hard to have any other life when you’re tied to that place. I worry that it’s too much for you.” She took a bite of buttered English muffin and waited, watching me. I squinted out at the water, weighing my options. I’d come to see her partly for the sheer joy of being in her presence for one more day. I’d missed her every day for the last ten years. But I’d also come for advice, and I’d have to be honest and risk telling her at least the bare bones of my dilemma if I wanted her help. Not the specifics. But the gist of it, the parts where I was stuck. I glanced at her, waiting patiently in the sun for me to speak my mind.
“It’s not the work hours that are wearing me down,” I confessed finally, taking a deep breath. “I found my middle school journal recently. And it had a life goals list I’d written, all the things I had planned to accomplish before I turned thirty-three. I read the list, and you know what I realized?”
“What?” Mom took a sip of her mai tai, listening intently.
“I haven’t accomplished a single thing on it. Not one thing. I’ve kept the legacy of our family going. I’ve kept the diner afloat against some pretty big odds. But I haven’t actually achieved anything I wanted to when I was younger. And that feels... really sad. But I don’t quite know what to do about it. Every choice means I sacrifice something else. I’m torn between what I want and what I think I should do.” Ipicked up my mai tai and took a long swallow. The icy rum and curaçao and lime juice puckered my mouth but went down smooth.
Mom nodded, gazing out at the ocean. I watched her in profile, still dazzled by the reality of her, there in the flesh, sitting across from me in the hot tropical sun. She turned and smiled at me, showing the little gap in her teeth that made her self-conscious but that everyone else found disarmingly charming.
“Sometimes humpback whales breach out there,” she said conversationally. “Keep an eye out. We may get lucky.” She took a big bite of scrambled eggs and gazed at me with compassion. “What is it you want that you don’t have right now? What was on the list?”
I hesitated. “I wanted to live abroad, open my own restaurant. I wanted a horse.”
Mom chuckled. “I remember that phase. You were crazy for horses until you got old enough to discover boys. I think they were more interesting to you from then on. Well, one boy.” She hesitated. “Do you still think about Rory? Some days I still can’t believe it didn’t work out between you.” She sobered and shook her head, pressing her lips together. “He was like a son to me. I really thought you two... Well, it just goes to show you never know what life will throw at you.” She sighed and put her fork down beside her plate.
I was surprised. Apparently, Rory and I were not together in this life either, although it sounded like we had been at one point. I’d always assumed that Mom’s death was the reason he and I were not living happily ever after. The fact that we were not together here or in my life running Toast in Brighton was disappointing. I wondered what it was this time that had kept us apart.
“Yes, I still miss him. Every day. And I wish I didn’t,” I confessed. “If I’m honest, I feel like it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. My life wasn’t supposed to be the way it is.”
Mom blew out a breath. “Life often ends up different than we expect.”
I thought of the little wooden box on her side table. “What do I do now?”
“My best advice?” Mom squinted at me appraisingly. “Let it fall apart,” she said simply.
“What?” I stared at her in astonishment. This was not the answer I expected from my never-say-never, can-do-attitude mother.
She was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke, her voice was soft and thoughtful. “You know what I’ve learned in these last few hard years since your dad died, Lolly? I learned that sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes it’s the only way forward. For so many years I worked so hard, trying to make a good life and legacy for our family. I worked myself to a frazzle and did a disservice to your father and you girls by trying too hard to succeed with the diner. Failure wasn’t a word I tolerated. I believed that if I did the right thing and worked as hard as I could, everything would turn out okay.”
A look of profound sadness crossed her face. “But that was a lie. Four years ago, when your dad died, the safe, tidy, sensible world I’d worked so hard to build for us fell apart in one horrible instant. It was nothing I could control. I did everything right, and in the end his aneurysm blew out all my plans. And even then I couldn’t let go of what I thought should have happened.” She sighed and sat back in her chair.
“After your dad died I tried so hard to put our life back together as it was, to make it all work the same way again, but I couldn’t get all the pieces to fit. It had broken so thoroughly that I could not glue it back together in the same way. I could not make it okay again. The moment I knew he was gone, I knew life could never be the same, but I didn’t want to admit it. I couldn’t. I was trying so desperately to make it come right.”
She reached out and plucked the straw from her glass, stabbing aspear of pineapple with it and popping the fruit in her mouth. “It took me a while to finally understand the truth. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we hoped, despite our best intentions. And when they go pear-shaped, you have to let them. You can’t keep holding on, trying to redo the past and stop the bad things from happening. They happened, and you can’t change that. You can’t keep holding on to the vision of the future you imagined you’d have, the way you thought things would turn out. You have to let the present be what it is—broken, flawed, painful, but real.”
I stared at her, ingesting her words slowly. “I don’t know how to do that,” I admitted. “If I let go, everything will fall to pieces. I can’t let that happen.”
“Honey, it sounds like whatever you’re holding on to is probably already broken,” she said kindly, “and you’re just holding the pieces together and praying for some glue.” She paused, considering. “Life doesn’t work that way. If you cling so tight to something that’s already broken, to a life and dream that can never come true, you don’t have space in your life for anything else, for the good and real plan Bs.” She looked me in the eye and said firmly, “Sometimes, Lolly, you just have to let go.”
