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“Let me make you a cup of tea, huh?” Drew finally asks.
I let him guide me into the kitchen. He sits me down on a stool as if I’m a tender, fragile creature. Tucks my hair behind my ear. Kisses my forehead.
I love this man so much.
Drew clears his throat as he puts water in the kettle. “Now you know about the night my mom died.”
I look over at him.
“You must think I’m awful.”
I shake my head. “No, Drew. I think you’re human.”
He looks up at me, the blues of his eyes taut and strained. “You’re kinder to me than I deserve.”
“You deserve the world, Drew.”
He begins to rebut but stops himself. “I know I’m not going to win this one.”
I finally smile, humming out a tiny laugh.
“So, you knew about the texts,” he says and puts the kettle on the stove. “Is that what you were coming over to talk about?”
My shoulders fall. “Why didn’t you tell me she was bothering you? By the way, we have to stop by the police station to press charges. Willow needs to get help.”
“We will. And I didn’t tell you because it didn’t have to be your problem. There’s already so much else on your plate.”
“But if you had told me, I wouldn’t have had to worry. I wouldn’t have had to even question what was going on.”
Drew leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m sorry, Dana. I’m not the best at saying everything on my mind. You know that. Better than anyone, probably.”
I remain quiet. And Drew doesn’t speak either. The only noises in the kitchen eventually become the whistling of the kettle, the knocking of a mug on the counter, the shuffling of tea leaves into the strainer.
Drew sets the mug in front of me and sits down. I watch as the tea begins to steep, the water growing darker by the minute. The smell of Darjeeling is intoxicating. I take Drew’s hand and place it in my lap. “If we’re doing this, Drew, really doing this, baby and all, you can’t keep things like that from me.”
“I’m sorry, D. Really, I am.”
“I know.”
More quiet. The tea steam starts to lessen enough that I can actually take a sip. “It hurts too much to know more than everyone else does.”
Drew’s thumb slides across my skin. “What do you mean?”
Deep breath, Dana. You can say it.The entire drive here, my thoughts of Drew were interspliced with thoughts of my mother. And everything that she put my sisters and me through. “I knew about Mom. Maybe even before the others.”
“That she was…cheating on your father?” Drew asks carefully.
I shake my head. “Not in so many words. No. But I could feel her growing further away long before she actually disappeared. It was years of her distance.”
“Oh, Dana, I’m so sorry.”
I bite my lower lip. “When Dad was working and Mom was alone, she was distant. I was left to take care of my sisters. Her mind was somewhere else completely. And when Dad came home, she was the woman we all knew and loved. Bright and loving. I don’t know if it was guilt eating her alive or if she just never wanted to be a mother in the first place, but–”
“That’s not true. You know it. There are five of you, for heaven’s sake.”
I shake my head. “I think it’s easy to get lost in motherhood. To wonder what you are outside of it. Mom had five children in her twenties. She never even had a job even though she managed to get her college degree. All of it hung on Dad’s shoulders. Then we got older and needed her less. At least, that’s what she must have thought.”
“But you always need your mom…always…” Drew whispers.
