Page 107 of Thaddeus

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m okay. I’m in San Diego.”

“San Diego?”

“I’m sorry it’s been so long since I called,” I told her, ignoring her question. “But I wanted to tell you I saw Autumn.”

“Autumn?” she screeched. “You found her?”

Guess I hadn’t hidden my quest from my mother as well as I thought I had. Though she’d have no idea how I’d gone about doing it.

“No. She actually found me. It’s a long story. One I’d like to do face-to-face. But I wanted you to know right away that I saw her and, so, well, she’s alive.”

My mom dissolved into tears and I gave her the time to gather herself, though I figured finding out your missing child was still alive would take longer to fully comprehend then a few minutes of crying.

“Is she… is she with you?”

“No, Mom. I spoke to her and she needs more time.”

“How did she look?”

I’d thought about this, what I would tell my mom if she’d asked. I’d never tell her the truth but I wouldn’t commit fully to lie and say she looked great either. I decided somewhere in the middle was the best. “She looked tired. She looked like she’s had a rough go of it. But she also looks like she’s healing. So that’s good. She just needs some more time, then I’m sure she’ll reach out to us.”

“And you? My sweet Emmy. How are you?”

This I could answer honestly.

“I’ve never been better. Remember Thaddeus?”

“Yes. The boy in the Navy.”

I wanted to chuckle at my mom calling Thad a boy. Even at twenty-one he’d been all man.

“That’s right. We…um…found each other again. Actually, we’re… I’m… we’re getting married today.”

This, too, made my mom burst out into sobs.

“I prayed for this. For you to get everything you’d given up back. I prayed so hard for you to find happiness.” She stopped, and with an audible swallow, she started again. “Will I get to meet him?”

“Of course. We’ll come see you.”

“Or I can come to you. Whatever is easier,” she rushed out. “No pressure though. When you have time.”

Shit. I closed my eyes and hated that I made my mom so unsure. I’d done that. I pushed her away and she thought it was about her. Something she’d done wrong.

“Listen, Mom, I have a lot to tell you, all of it I want to do in person. But right now, what I need to tell you is me leaving had nothing to do with you or Dad. It was my own guilt. I let Autumn walk out the door that day. I sat on the couch and barely gave her my attention when I saw she was leaving. That’s something I have to live with but I was so—”

“Emerson Isabella, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Autumn had been threatening every day to leave. She’d storm outside, sit on the porch and sulk, then come back in. If I’d been sitting there, I wouldn’t have stopped her either. My sweet, sweet girl, we asked too much of you. We blamed you, we should’ve demanded you go back to California. Back to school and back to Thad. I saw how sad you were. It was so selfish of me to beg you to stay. I did it because I was scared. Autumn had been kidnapped and I was so terrified to let you out of my sight in case it happened to you, too. I was wrong about all of it.”

“Mom, I understand now none of us did anything wrong. None. Of. Us. We were all reacting to a bad situation and none of us knew what to do. That’s something else we need to talk about. I know it’ll never be the way it used to be, but we’re still a family. We all need to heal and move on. One day when Autumn comes home, and she will, we need to give her her family back. That means we need to be ready for her.”

“I’m glad you got your father’s smarts,” she joked.

“But your looks, right?”

“Yeah.” I was happy I could hear her smile.

Every year when report cards came out, my dad would review them and announce, ‘Damn proud of my girls. Smart like their father, gorgeous like their mother. My unstoppable girls.’

My mom didn’t take offense that dad implied he was the smart one in the family, and it was probably because my mother had a degree in biochemical engineering, and arguably was the smarter of the two.