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“No,” I answered, looking away. Seeing him, and the clean edges mom cut with perfection as though caring with great detail about protecting that piece of paper, made my coffee and eggs churn in reverse. “Why did you bring this to breakfast?”
“He was like a son to me,” she shrugged, “and I assumed you kept up with him. After all you two went through, how could you not want to know what he is up to?”
“I don’t know, mom.” I waved for the server. “Maybe for my sanity? For my heart?”
Quick to trade my coffee for a mimosa when the server arrived, I pushed the clipping back to her.
“When I had brunch with Anne a week after your sister’s baby shower,” she continued chiseling away my emotions, “she told me he’s donated a large amount of money to some local high schools to grant students an opportunity to study abroad and practice their humanitarianism.” She’d never even spoken so highly of Benji or Sadie, her eyes twinkling while I downed my mimosa and ordered another. “It’s incredible. Isn’t it, Mia? Have you heard from Caleb lately?”
I leaned forward, grounding myself as I tried to remain calm. I thought back to the chapter in her book about loving myself, and really truly trying to find the confidence I felt blossom over the last month. “We tried to have a baby, mom. We thought we’d be together forever, no matter the size of our family. But when Caleb moved to Germany and expected me to give up the life I’d made for myself here, all by myself, do you know what he told me?”
Her painted eyebrows furrowed as she slowly shook her head. I couldn’t tell if it embarrassed her when assuming people could hear me, or if she was really concerned.
“He’d love me forever,” I confessed, resenting the tears blurring my eyes, “but he felt we wouldn’t last if we weren’t able to sacrifice one more thing. As if I should’ve caved and given up everything for him. He loved me, but we wouldn’t last. And isn’t that the strangest thing, mom? Life and love, they’re both about sacrifices, but no matter how deep our love was or how strong the bond Caleb and I shared, me not giving up myself for him was a final straw.”
“Oh, Mia,” mom murmured, reaching across the table for me. She wrapped her warm hands around mine, squeezing as I continued to tell her the truth.
“Part of me still cares,” I told her, “but I can’t care about what he’s doing right now. I’m glad he’s happy and I wish him the best, mom. I really do. But seeing Anne, knowing you two are going to brunch, the fact you’ve given me presents with less pristinely cut wrapping paper than this newspaper clipping, is just not anything I can focus on.”
She didn’t speak of Caleb again for the rest of our time together, although she meticulously folded the clipping before slipping it into her wallet. It wasn’t easy to ignore that detail, but I understood how hard change could be for her.
When I finished cleaning my house after brunch with my mom, including a toothbrush to the grout in my bathroom so my hands were busy and free from the temptation to over-text, I spent an hour in the tub with a glass of wine and silence.
Our relationship seemed different after brunch. Mom wasn’t asking about Caleb, bragging about Sadie, or trying to hook me up with single sons of her book club, church choir, or widowers’ club. I wouldn’t say we were closer, but it felt like she’d taken a page from her book and loved me just a little more.
