Page 156 of The Professor's Wife

“Because I’m trying to listen to you, and I’m going to put us in a ditch.”

The answer caught me off guard.

The road curved through the trees before opening onto a small lake. Tristan pulled into an empty gravel lot and switched off the engine.

The water beyond the windshield was gray and still.

He turned toward me.

“Go on.”

A humorless laugh escaped me.

“I learned how to feed him. How to stretch money. How to keep him quiet when people were staring at us. I learned what to say to teachers and doctors so they wouldn’t think I was incapable.”

Tristan watched me.

“But inside, I was still waiting for someone to tell me what to do.”

I wished I hadn’t said it. It sounded pathetic once it was out.

For years, I had thought of that version of myself as exactly that. Stupid. Pathetic. A girl with a baby on her hip who kept waiting for a door to open.

I didn’t want riches. I didn’t dream about a grand house or expensive clothes. I wanted enough money that I didn’t have to count every piece of fruit before putting it in the basket. I wanted to stop pretending I wasn’t hungry so Rowe could finish what was left on my plate. I wanted him to have birthday parties where I didn’t spend the entire time calculating what each balloon and paper cup had cost.

I wanted someone to tell me I was doing all right.

I wanted to rest.

More than anything, I wanted to give Rowe the ordinary childhood I saw other children having.

A bedroom with toys on the floor.

Posters on the walls.

A ridiculous race car bed he would outgrow before I had finished paying for it.

“He begged me for one of those race car beds once,” I said. “I wanted so badly to be able to buy it for him.”

Tristan’s face softened.

“It was stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was a bed shaped like a car.”

“I gathered that.”

A weak laugh left me.

“I wanted to give him one ordinary thing without checking the price first. Without standing there working out what we’d have to go without. I spent years thinking that wanting an easierlife made me selfish. Like waiting for someone to help me meant I had failed to become the kind of mother he needed.”

Tristan’s voice was soft. “Baby, you were sixteen.”

“I know.”

But I hadn’t known. Not properly.