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“What are you working on anyway?” I handed the sketchbook to my mom, and she flipped through the pages. “These are amazing, Amelia.”
“I haven’t found the new store yet, but I did find a new source of inspiration from being in town. I’d been struggling with creativity for the last year. I felt like I was recycling all my old designs even though the clothes could barely stay on the rack.” I shrugged and took back the notepad. “But here, without the constant struggle of retail, my brain just unlocked.”
“Maybe that means something.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“Like you should be a bit more hands off with the store anyway.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to find a second location,” she told me. “Or … maybe you’ll find someone to handle the day-to-day and spend more time designing. You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
We were silent for a while. Just enjoying the summer sunshine and the crisp, cold sweet tea. It was a perfect day. And I missed Ash. He’d gone home a few days ago, and though we video-chatted every night and texted all day, it was never enough.
“I miss Ash.”
“I thought you would. You’ve always loved that boy.”
“Always,” I agreed wistfully.
“So, why are you still here?”
“The store …”
My mom shot me a look. “You can’t stay here forever. You’re welcome as long as you want, but you still can’t stay. You love that boy, and y’all deserve to be together after all this time.”
“But I’m not done.”
“Give yourself another week. You’ll find the place if you find the place, Mia. It doesn’t have to be today or tomorrow.”
She was right. That was why it was so annoying. I’d found clarity in the silence of Charleston. But I was running from everything that felt difficult. That put strain on the one good thing that was still there for me in Savannah.
“And you should talk to your father.”
I jerked my head to the side. “What?”
She held her hand up to keep me from continuing. “I know you don’t want to, but we should talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Unfortunately, there is. I’ve let it go on long enough, but we need to talk, Mia.”
“About what? Dad? I don’t want to talk about him.”
She reached out and touched my hand. “It didn’t all happen the way that you think.”
“He didn’t cheat on you?”
“Well, I suppose he did,” she said softly.
I jumped to my feet. “Then, that’s all I need to know!”
“Amelia, sit down and listen to me,” she said, raising her voice.
I slowly sank back into my seat. I’d never heard my mom yell at anyone but my dad. And even then, that had only been before the divorce. She hadn’t spoken to him above something civil since then. This must be serious.
“Okay. I’m sitting.”
My mom took a breath. “Your dad asked for a divorce.”
“What? No, you divorced Dad.”
“I know,” she said. “Eventually. But at first, when you were in elementary school, your dad asked for a divorce. We were over it already. We didn’t love each other. We hadn’t in a long time. Not the way we should have. Just enough to make it work in public. So, he tried to divorce me, and I said no. I wanted to stay together for you and your brother.”
My cheeks heated at that admission. It would have saved us a lot of strife if she’d just said yes. Years of fights and yelling if that had just happened a few years earlier.
“It’s not your fault,” she said immediately.
“I didn’t think it was.”
“Good.” She nodded. “Good. Anyway, I told him I’d stay until you graduated, and then we could part ways. But to stay together, we both agreed we’d have an open relationship.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What?”
She bit her lip. “See why I didn’t tell you this when you were twelve? There was no way to explain this. I feel strange, even telling you now. We promised we wouldn’t tell.”
“Jesus, Mom.”
“I’m not ashamed of it. It was the best thing for our marriage if we wanted to stay together, and I did. So, we both started seeing other people. But we were up front about it. We always knew who the other person was with. The communication was good. I knew he was with Kathy. I started to see the signs that it was getting serious, I think, before he did.”
“You knew he was with Kathy. How young was she when they first met?”
Mom sighed. “Twenty.”
“Holy fuck. Gross!”
“Yes, we … argued quite a bit about it at first.”
“They didn’t get married until she was twenty-three. So, they were together for three years without us knowing?”
“Yes.”
“And you were okay with it?”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“So, what happened?” I asked, unable to comprehend how this could possibly have worked. I’d thought my mom loved him too much to ever let him be with someone else. And now, she was saying that the opposite was true.
