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I look at the boxes, each neatly labelled with what they contain. My heart feels heavier than a cruise liner, but I’m trying not to seem affected.
Trying...and failing.
“I don’t know why you didn’t tell me about the issue with your apartment earlier, Ava.” My mother frowns. “Youalwayshave a place here. This is your home as much as it is mine.”
Guilt twists like a furious dragon in my belly. I know my mother and I have a relationship complicated by our different ideals, but we’re family. We love one another underneath it all and sometimes I don’t give her enough credit.
“To be completely honest, I was worried that us living together might...” I sigh.
“Cause irreparable damage?” she offers and I laugh, surprised her mind went there, too.
“Yeah.”
She looks so different from the day that Daniel came to visit—gone is the styled hair, which now sits like a poufy brown cloud around her ears. Gone is the lipstick and the gold earrings and the neatly pressed blouse. She’s got a smear of dirt on one cheek and a little hole in the neckline of her T-shirt and a pair of shears poking out of the pocket of her apron.
I love seeing her like this, because the garden is my mother’s happy place. She could spend hours out there, tending to her flowers and her hanging plants and the herbs she grows along the fence. It’s like when her hands are in the dirt, every bad memory in her brain gets paused.
“I know we don’t always see eye to eye.” She comes closer and pulls me into a hug. It smells like my childhood—fresh earth and petunias and lemon and black coffee. “Matthews women are stubborn and strong, and that’s why we survive. But it doesn’t always make for an easy living situation.”
I swallow and there’s a big lump in the back of my throat. “Are we too stubborn?”
“No, darling. Because stubborn means we want something, and where would we be if we didn’t want for a better life?” She brushes the hair back from my face the way she used to when I was a little kid.
“I thought you would be mad at me for walking away.” I haven’t told my mother the relationship was for show. I haven’t told Emery or my other girlfriends, either.
Because as much as Daniel and I made an arrangement in the beginning, it doesn’t feel that way to me now. And I don’t think it matters how it started, only what I felt in the end. I don’t know how to label it, exactly... But Daniel means something to me, and this breakup is real and painful.
“You know I want to see you married and secure, but I also want to see you happy.” She pulls away and motions for me to follow her into the house. The entryway is cluttered with my suitcase, overnight bag and two extra boxes of clothes and books and makeup. “I know you think I was wrong to suggest that Anthony might make a good match, but I reallydidbelieve you could be happy together. You used to be friends when you were kids.”
“Do you really think I’d be happy with a man who’s so attached to his mother?” I say, shaking my head. That whole situation is still a prickle under my skin.
“What’s so wrong about a mother having a child who adores her? Some mothers crave that.”
And then I understand it. My fierce need for independence, which was fostered by being raised by two strong, self-reliant women, is the very thing that has driven me to make my own lifeawayfrom her expectations. It’s what drove me away from her when we had fundamental disagreements about relationships and life.
It’s why I sent Daniel’s cheques back and refused to take an apartment in the Cielo, despite that being the entire point of our arrangement. The only thing I did take up was the connection for a job interview, because he could open the door but onlyIcould get them to hire me.
Calling my mum to ask if I could move in while I got settled in my new job had almost broken me. Asking for help always made me feel like a failure.
Maybe that’s why Daniel’s refusal to admit his feelings cut so deep—because it was like being pitied.Iallowed myself to be vulnerable and he didn’t value me enough to do the same. One-way emotion always made me uncomfortable like that, so leaving was necessary.
Even if I miss him more with each passing day.
“You were always a girl with your own mind, Ava. It’s something I admire about you as much as it drives me crazy. I always felt like you did the opposite of what I told you, even if you actually wanted the thing I was offering.” My mother laughs and shakes her head. “I know you want to get married and have a family and sometimes I worry that you shy away from it because it’s what I’ve pushed you toward.”
“You’re right, Idowant those things... But onmyterms. I don’t want a marriage for security, I want it for love. I don’t want to be with someone as a means to an end, I want to be with someone because they truly believe they can’t live without me. And I want to feel that same way about them.”
“And Daniel wasn’t that person?” She looks sad and I feel like the worst daughter in the world for selling her a lie.
“He was,” I say, blinking back the tears prickling my eyes. “He just couldn’t see it.”
“Sometimes these things take time.”
“Well, now he has all the time in the world.” I pull my shoulders back. Irefuseto dwell, even if my heart aches with every beat. I have to keep moving forward. I have to prove to myself that my dreams are worth being stubborn for. That folding and settling is only going to make me unhappy in the long run. “I can’t swim in place simply because he can’t see past his own baggage to what we could be.”
“What would you tell one of your students if their friend was being difficult but they cared about the relationship?”
My mother’s question strikes me, not only because it’s insightful but also because she knows my passion for teaching goes far beyond ABCs and 123s. I care deeply about the emotional development of my students, about helping them become well-rounded little humans who can march off into the world with confidence and positivity and...empathy.
