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“I get up every day. I go to work. We had our apartment, and it was never much, but we had something. I felt like I did something by keeping you safe. And making sure you had food to eat. But I suppose I’ve always felt lonely. At least a bit.”
“I’m sorry,” Morgan said. “I’m sorry if I’ve been part of you being lonely. I guess I should’ve been there for you. But I didn’t know if you wanted me to be.”
“I’ve never liked asking for it,” her mom said. “I begged your father to love me. And I’ve never felt so small in my life than when he refused. To ask for someone to care and to have them tell you they won’t...”
“Did you love my father?”
“Yes. Because I was a fool. And I let that decide how I felt every day for far too long. And by the time I decided not to, keeping things closed down inside myself was a habit. I never wanted to ask for more. Not again.”
“I want you to be involved with the kids,” Morgan said. And that wasn’t why she’d called. But she realized that it needed to be why. Because she was lonely too, and she still had her mother. Her mother wasn’t evil, she was just... Sad. And now that Morgan had dispensed with any idea that she was superior, she couldn’t look at her the same way. She was just human. Frail and fallible like Morgan was.
And Morgan didn’t want anger or sadness to dictate the way she was with her own children. And she shouldn’t let it dictate the way she was with her mother, either.
“Well I would like that.”
“I’ll have to tell you the whole story. Sometime. I’m in Greece, though. Well, I think I’m in Greece.”
“Greece?”
“He’s... He’s from a very old family here. Actually, I’m on an island right now.”
“An island?”
“Yes. And...” A big needy feeling opened up inside of her. One that she had always despised. “I do love you,” she said to her mom.
“I love you too,” she said. “I always have. It was hard. Raising you. But I did the best I could.”
She believed it. She believed it then, because it felt right to believe it. She believed it then because what was the benefit of disbelieving? She believed it then because that was how she was going to look at it.
Because she wanted to begin to heal, and she thought this was the best way to do it.
Hanging on certainly wasn’t going to do it. Being caught up in her own hurt wasn’t going to do it. It was just going to keep that hurt fresh. It was just going to keep her right where she was, and she couldn’t afford that. She had to move on. She had to. For the sake of her children. For the sake of herself.
“We’ll... We’ll talk more often,” Morgan said.
“Okay,” her mom responded.
“And I’ll let you know when I get close to... When the babies are coming.”
“Thank you.”
They hung up the phone, and Morgan looked out at the water, and thought again about how far she’d come. But right then, she felt like she still had astronomically far to go. So many complicated things to sort out.
Constantine didn’t want to claim the children as his, and she had talked to her mother about things she had never thought she would.
Her mother had been... Lonely for her father for so many years, and she had been protecting herself. And that gave Morgan pause.
What would it be like to live with Constantine but not have his emotions? Would it begin to wear on her? Would holding herself back and trying to make herself not care affect the way she was with her children? She didn’t want to do that with her mom, not anymore. Didn’t want to hold back because she was hurt, because she had the feeling that that had been part of compounding their loneliness. She didn’t blame herself. There were two people involved in the relationship, after all. She moved over to the closet in the room and opened it. And inside there was a bright blue dress, designed to flow and skim over the wearer’s body.
And it made her want to be the woman that could wear it. That would look beautiful in it. That would tempt a man in it. That was the problem. In the middle of all these questions about motherhood, there was just this whole thing with him, and she wished they could’ve worked it out without... Marriage and children being in the mix. God knew it would’ve been easier.
Maybe that was what she needed to do. Maybe she needed to set aside the conversation with her mother. Maybe they needed to set aside the fact that they had married one another, the fact that they were having children, the fact that... All of the facts, actually. Maybe they needed to put it all away and simply be here. On an island. Two people alone. Perhaps the only people in the world. And see what happened.
And she proposed that she would do just that.
