And maybe it’s wrong that I’m reaching out to Kath, because I know that unless she’s dealing with a client or on the phone, she likely isn’t all that busy. A lot of the time she’s sitting at the front desk, she has her nose in a book. But what do I know? Maybe she was in the middle of something important.
“Is this a bad time?” I ask, wincing at my own selfishness.
“Hmph. You know it’s never a bad time, ma love.” Kath calls everyonema love.“What’s going on?”
I sigh and then tell her about Harry. I’d love to also tell her about this morning and the underwear fiasco, but that conversation will require tequila, and I haven’t had a drink in months.
Not since—
But I shove that unbearable thought aside and focus on a woe Imightactually be able to deal with.
“If there’s anything I know without a doubt, Kath, it’s that I’m not Mom. I’m not eventryingto be her. That would be…” I grip the steering wheel with my free hand and watch my knuckles go white. “Well, that would be a joke—”
“Oh, c’mon, Millie,” Kath scolds gently. “Give yourself some credit. I’m sure you’re a lot more like your Mom than you realize, who sounds like she was awesome, by the way.”
“She was awesome.” I close my eyes and picture her, hold her in my mind. The ache of it clogs my throat, and tears burn my eyes. I blink them open, wary of letting the tears fall. Emmett will be home soon. “So awesome,” I rasp.
“You’re awesome too,” Kath says softly.
I clear my throat. “Huh, well, I don’t know about that, but I’m doing the best I can,” I say, forcing the words out. “I know he’s just a kid, but I wish Harry could see that. I wish they all could.”
“He sees it, Mil, trust me. Kids don’t miss much.” Kath has a six-year-old son named Daniel. He’s on the autism spectrum, though most people wouldn’t know it to look at him. Not until they get to know him or see him in a situation with too much stimuli. Kath, of course, is great with Daniel. But she’s had lots of practice. Her husband Jake is offshore twenty-one days a month.
“I just wish he understood that I’m not trying to be Mom. I just want to respect her and Dad’s wishes. Raise the kids the way they would have.”
“Wellll…” She stretches this word out too, and the lilt of her voice lets me know she’s about to impart a hard truth. As kind and compassionate as she is, Kath has no problem telling it like it is. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a winning combo. Friendship jackpot material. “You can’t raise them the way your parents would have.”
“I know. I’m not them. I just—”
“No, it’s not that you’re not them. It’s that your lives are not the same ones anymore. You can’t compare the life y’all had with your mom and dad to the one you have now. This life is on a totally different path.”
I frown at this. “I disagree. I think it’s up to me to keep it on the same path.”
Kath’s laughter on the other end of the phone has me shifting in my seat. It’s like someone’s plucking the baby hairs on the back of my neck one at a time. I let go of the steering wheel and scratch my neck in agitation.
“Millie, it can’t be the same path. It’s like the multiverse theory.” Kath is a science fiction addict. She can talk about time paradoxes and causality loops and the rise of the machines all day. “All the possibilities that can exist do exist, but distinctly. Separately.”
“So, you’re saying there’s a universe where my parents didn’t die in a boating accident, and they’re raising my sister and brothers as if nothing happened?” I hope for all our sakes that this is true. The thought of one happy Delacroix family out there somewhere gives me a warm glow in my chest.
But I wonder if in that universe I’m still with Carter. And if I’m still carrying his baby. If so, I’d want to warn that Millie.He’s not what you think. You’re better off without him.
“What I’m saying is, if so, the universe we’re in, right here, right now, it’s uncharted territory, no longer connected to that universe where the accident never happened. They split off. Irrevocably.”
Irrevocably.What a shitty word.
“You can’t possibly raise your sister and brothers exactly the way your parents would have. The lives they’re leading, even the world they’re living in isn’t the same.” Even though she speaks firmly, her words are cushioned with compassion. It’s the only thing that makes listening to her manageable. “They have struggles and scars they never would have had before. Your job is to help them survive this and adapt.”
Survive this.
A cold chill trickles down my back. Helping them to survive and adapt sounds so much less promising than raising them the way my parents would have.
But it also sounds more achievable.
“Yeah, but what about my parents’ values? Their wishes? Their standards and rules?”
“Hmmm,” Kath muses into the phone. “I don’t know. Let me ask you something. If your parents had known that they’d die so young, do you think it would have changed the way they raised all of you?”
Her question wallops me over the head. I’ve never considered it. “Y-yes. It would’ve had to.”
