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“I never knew you felt like that.”
“I was grieving. Unlike you, a family is all I’d ever wanted. I had the choice taken away from me. Until I met your father.”
“How did you go from that? To being so angry to being who you are right now?”
“I fell in love with your dad,” she admitted. “It sounds fickle, but that’s all it took. It wasn’t like you were a secret—I knew he had you, and although I wasn’t interested at first, the way I felt about him outweighed all my anger eventually. We’d dated for months before he introduced us, do you remember?”
I nodded. “I was pissed because he wouldn’t tell me anything about you.”
“And you made it known.” Mom laughed. “Until that point, I was still in denial about having kids. I was still angry. Then, I walked into your house, and you looked up from your homework, stared at me, then to your dad, and said, “I’m busy. I’ve asked for weeks, so, now you have to wait for me.””
I bit the inside of my cheek, smiling.
I was kind of an asshole teen.
“I fell in love with you there and then.” She laughed again. “And, Kali? The day I fell in love with you was the day I accepted I couldn’t have children. There was no need to, because there was a child out there who already needed me, and that child was you.”
The smile dropped from my face.
“And, if I’d had my own children, I never would have gotten the greatest daughter ever: you.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Weren’t you scared? About how your life would change?”
“I thought you weren’t afraid.” Her lips twitched.
“Hypothetically,” I said.
“Hypothetically, I was terrified. Not only was I entering into a relationship, I was entering into a relationship with a man who had a teenage girl. Jeez.” She winked. “I was afraid you wouldn’t accept me. That…I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to be the kind of person you needed in your life. I didn’t know anything about you except what your dad had told me. It took a long time before I understood what you needed me to be to you.”
I pulled my hands from hers and took a deep breath. “What if…What if I’m not good enough for them, Mom? What if I fuck up because I’m not the person they need me to be?”
“Good enough? What is good enough? How do you measure how worthy you are to someone else?” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how many times your father and I felt like we failed you, yet you turned around and made it clear we hadn’t? That’s part of being a parent. There will always be times you feel like you’re not good enough, but as long as you give it your everything, then you can’t ever be any better than that.”
“It’s just so…different. They’re tiny. They need so much more than I did when we met.”
“It sounds to me like you’re talking through your excuses.”
I took a deep breath and let it out on a shudder. “Maybe I am. Maybe I need to talk myself into it. I don’t know. I just…you’re right. I’m terrified, Mom. Of so many things.”
She stared at me, her eyes piercing into me, seeing right through me. “You’re terrified of never measuring up to their mom in his eyes, aren’t you?”
Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
I nodded. “He loved her, you know? Really loved her. How do you cope with that? Knowing that they lost someone they loved enough to have a child with?”
She folded her hands on top of each other and looked me dead in the eye. “I cope knowing that even after that, even though he sees her every single time he looks at you, he trusted me enough to open his heart to me. Your dad still loves your mom, Kali. Understand that. He’ll ever stop loving her, and that’s okay with me. It’s a different kind of love.” She paused. “And the part you’re forgetting is that both of you are still young enough that you have your lives ahead of you. Just because he loved her a certain way, doesn’t mean he can’t love you just as much in a different one. Remember, he’s the one who was hurt.”
“What do I do?”
“You need to think about what you really want. He’s the one putting three hearts on the line, and he’s trusting you not to break them.”
“No pressure, then.”
“Listen to your heart, Kali. I promise it won’t steer you wrong.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two days later, Dad had installed the kids’ beds, and their rooms were done.
I didn’t know how I felt about it.
On one hand, it was amazing to see the rooms completed. All that needed to be done was bedding, curtains, and unpacking. As far as my work was concerned, though, I was done.
