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“Don’t you have a game tonight?”
“Yeah.” My eyebrows lift in surprise that she knew that. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” Her expression turns wary. “It’s cold out. Let’s go inside.”
In the foyer, I kick my shoes off and set my jacket over the back of the couch while she zips around, flicking lights on with nervous energy, darting glances at me.
“What can I get you?” she asks. “All I have is water and almond milk, unfortunately. I didn’t know you’d be dropping by.” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Tea. I can make tea.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. We can just talk here.” I take a seat on the couch.
“How’s Hazel?” she asks when she takes the seat across from me, crossing her legs.
“Good. She’s subbing for another teacher tonight at a studio so she won’t be at my game.” She offered to come here with me, but this is something I need to do on my own.
It feels weird, talking with my mom so casually like this. My gaze lands on a framed photo on the side table, and my heart jumps into my throat.
It’s me and my mom on a hike when I was a kid. Joffre Lakes outside Whistler, with the turquoise lake behind us. Her arm around me, both of us wearing big smiles.
“That wasn’t there for the Christmas party,” I tell her, frowning at the photo. My phone buzzes with a text in my back pocket but I ignore it.
She shifts with embarrassment. “I put it away because I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
She thinks me knowing she cherishes those memories of us would make me uncomfortable? “Why would it make me uncomfortable?”
Her mouth tightens. “We don’t have the strongest relationship.”
“You’re my mom.”
The words hang in the air between us, and the embarrassment fades from her eyes, leaving pain. “I know.” Her throat works. “What did you want to talk about?”
There’s no gentle or easy way to say this, so I blurt out the question that’s been sitting in my head for years as my phone buzzes again.
“Why did you leave me?”
She freezes, staring at me a long moment before her gaze drops to her hands clasped in her lap.
“What was it about me and Dad that made you want to leave? What did I do?”
“Nothing.” She gives me a shocked look. “You did nothing wrong, Rory.”
“Then why did you leave us?” The words are strained, and I feel sick. “Why don’t weknoweach other anymore?”
“At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.” The living room is silent except for the ticking clock in the kitchen. “Your father wasobsessedwith making you into a better version of himself, but you were a kid. You were going to five a.m. practices and working on your slapshots out in the driveway for fourteen hours a day on weekends, but I didn’t want every hour of your day to be about hockey and getting drafted when you were twelve.” Her eyes move over my face like she’s wading through memories, and she shakes her head. “It was all you cared about, though. You and your dad?” She crosses her fingers. “You were like this. All you talked about was hockey this, hockey that, and then there was me on the periphery, trying and failing to be a part of your life. I didn’t want to sour something you loved so much. And by that time, my relationship with Rick was in pieces. I loved your father, I still love him, but he was always just waiting for me to leave.”
I think about Hazel, and my skin prickles at the similarity—how, for a long time, I was waiting for her to realize she didn’t want me. My phone buzzes again and again. And then it starts ringing. I haul it out—it’s my dad calling, fucking perfect timing—and turn it on airplane mode to block the rest of the world out before I set it face down on a side table.
“And I told myself that when I asked if you wanted to come with me, I gave you a choice—”
“I was twelve!” The words come out sharper and louder than I meant, and my mom flinches. “I was twelve years old. And you wanted me to choose between you and Dad? That’s really fucked up.”
“I know.” She nods, taking a deep breath. “I hate myself for that, Rory. I think about it every day.” She glances at the photo of us with a sad smile, throat working. “When you stayed with me, you wanted nothing to do with me. I thought you didn’t need me. Your dad told me the both of you didn’t need me, and I believed him because I wanted the best for you. But now I realize you were just being a preteen. I should have fought back. I shouldn’t have given up custody.”
“You gave up so easily.” My chest aches. “Like you didn’t care.”
“I thought it was the right thing to do.” She swallows, staring at her hands again. “If I could do it all again, I’d do it differently. I know that doesn’t erase anything, though.”
“I did need you. I still do.”
