“The point is, she’s desperate to see you.”
He looked at me, his eyes welling up with tears. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”
“Why don’t you stop thinking about her and go and see her? Or start with a call, even.”
He started nodding, slowly. I could see he was taking this all in, listening to every word I said.
“I had this idea of what my life would be like,” he said. “I imagined hot Sundays by the river, my parents playing with their grandchildren. I imagined family holidays and birthdays, and I imagined that my children would grow up in Willow Bay, like I had. But that all changed when my father kicked me out and disowned me. He killed my dream, that day—killed the dream of the life I wanted to have. Everything I’d ever hoped and dreamed of was taken away from me, that day. All because of him,and her—even if she didn’t want it, she was still complicit in it and never said anything to my father. I’m not sure that is totally forgivable, either,” he said, and my heart plummeted. This wasn’t going to be as easy as telling him his mother was dying and wanted to see him one last time. This man had a lifetime of anger and resentment inside him.
“They had no right to do that to me. To take the story I wanted for my life and to rewrite it without my permission. Do you know what it feels like to live a life you never wanted to live?” he asked me, and I nodded. Because I knew exactly what he meant.
“I . . . I actually do know what it’s like. I also know what it is like to be estranged from your mother, not sure if you can forgive her for what she did to you, for the life she forced you to have, without asking your permission.”
The man nodded as he looked at me. I understood him. And, suddenly, I understood everything. The truth about my entire life was laid out in front of me. And the truth was that I was living in someone else’s strange version of what I thought my life should be like.That wasn’t really my story.That wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t living the life I’d imagined for myself, and that’s how I’d found myself here, plagiarizing someone else’s story because I’d lost sight of my own. And, in that moment, I knew what I was meant to do.I was meant to write my own story.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. He looked at me, our eyes met and I mirrored back to him the emotion I was also feeling.
“Thank you,” he said to me. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” And then he started closing the door on us. That was it.
When it was closed, I turned to Mike.
“Do you think he’ll contact her?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied. Because I didn’t. I hoped he would contact her before it was too late, but a part of me didn’t think he would. Too much pain had passed between them and maybe everyone doesn’t get to have a happy ending. But, fuck it, I was going to get my happy ending, or at least something as close to a happy ending as possible. I wasn’t going to become like the Van der Merwes and live with a lifetime of regret because I hadn’t lived the way that I wanted to, because I hadn’t lived a true and authentic life and spoken my truth out loud, like Edith hadn’t. Suddenly, I smiled and I threw my arms around Mike. I pulled him into a hug and we held each other tightly.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
I pulled away and looked at him. “I know what to do,” I said. “I know what to write.”
“Really?” he asked, looking excited.
I nodded. “I need to write my own story. Not someone else’s story.”
“What story is that?” he asked.
I smiled again, and then I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s the only story I need to tell. And I have two weeks to tell it, so we better get back.”
