Page 99 of Something Borrowed

As the week passed too quickly, Vic tried to broach the other deeper, more serious topics lying between them, the ones he’d referred to the evening he first saw his bedroom. Each time she did, however, Michael made a joke or changed the direction of the conversation in some other easy, light way. Until the last night before he was due to fly out.

They ordered burgers and fries and ate with Audra, then watched NCSI.

“You’re still into this show, Gran?” Michael asked incredulously, and Vic remembered she’d been a diehard fan even when Vic and Michael visited when he was a kid.

“Watched the first episode of the first series when it first aired in ’03 and never looked back,” Audra said. “I haven’t missed a spin-off.” She looked at Vic. “Not like this one. A lot of them are new to her.”

Vic shrugged and waggled her eyebrows. “Just one more way I’m a disappointment to my mother.”

Audra scowled. Michael laughed. “That’s actually pretty cool, Gran.”

“It is a really good show,” Vic agreed, and Audra seemed mollified.

It was then, after Audra had gone to bed and Vic was thinking that she would turn in too, that Michael said, “That comment you made about just one more way you’re a disappointment to your mom. That’s how I’ve always felt.”

For a moment Vic was struck dumb. No. No. That couldn’t be . . .

“What?” The word, shrill and incredulous, was out before Vic could clamp it back. Even she could hear the pain and disbelief in her voice.

“No,” she said, this time out loud. “No.” The pain—the shame—she felt was almost unbearable. All the distance she’d felt between them was because he felt he had somehow let her down?

“You were never a disappointment. Never.”

Michael’s shoulders bounced in a shy shrugging motion she recognized, and decades seemed to fall off him. Her glib, answer-for-everything, charming man son was suddenly her awkward adolescent boy child. He even seemed more gangly or something.

“Okay, so maybe not a disappointment so much as . . . as an obstacle.” He nodded, affirming he’d found the word he’d been searching for. “Having me so young, then always having a kid in tow . . . It held you back. I always felt like I stood between you and what you really wanted. Like I ruined your life or something.”

“Oh, no, Michael. No. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Come on . . . you probably, no, you would’ve, married if not for me.”

“What? No. I—as you know firsthand—have abominable taste in men.”

“From some of the things you said, Cal seemed all right.”

“Okay, yes… Cal was, is, all right. And the exception—which brings us to the things I was alluding to when I wrote that I needed to apologize to you.”

Regret—and horror at how Michael had misread all her stupidity—overcame her for a moment. She sniffled a few times before she could continue. “I have always, always, loved you so much and felt so grateful—almost in awe, actually—to be the mother of such a smart, talented, amazing son, but I was . . . weak and dumb and didn’t understand that our little family of two was enough. I was always chasing someone to make me feel like I was lovable, or valuable, or something.” She shook her head. How misguided that way of thinking was—that someone else finding you valuable would make you feel valuable—was so clear now. How could she have been so dumb?

You weren’t dumb. You were craving connection.

“I also always thought I had more time with you, but then, blink, your childhood was done and you, still always so kind and polite, were done with me too.”

Michael shook his head. “Nah . . . I was just a brat doing his brat things without wanting his mom to know what he was up to.”

Vic wanted to say more, but she was still feeling too wrecked over Michael’s revelations. How could this be? She had somehow made Michael feel way too close to how Audra made her feel. She closed her eyes, focused on controlling her breathing, slowing her heartbeat. She didn’t want to melt down and start sobbing, or he’d feel like he needed to shield her, not keep talking.

His next comment made her open her eyes again.

“I always knew you loved me, don’t worry. I just . . . felt the weight, I guess, of all your disappointment in life, not having the man, the 2.2 kids, the white picket fence, the dog . . .”

“I’m more of a cat person,” she said when his silence stretched. The little joke fell short though, and she reached out for his hand.

“I hate that you grew up feeling exactly how I felt—like I was the reason my mom was miserable, that I’d ruined her life. I can’t believe I passed that on.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Michael interrupted. “Yes, to some of what you said, but nah to way more. You are not like Gran. I don’t think you have a mean bone in your body. I knew you loved me,” he repeated. “I also just knew, or felt anyway, like your life would’ve been different without me.”

“Different,” Vic rasped, still feeling crushed, “but not better.”