Tom passed away at 11:17 p.m. Even though we had all been anticipating it, it still hit everyone pretty hard. I could tell that Debra and Julian were relieved to no longer exist in a state of anxious anticipation, but the devastating finality of it still shook them.
I still wasn’t quite sure where I fit in. I kept thinking the universe would whisper into my ear and tell me exactly how I should behave, how I should feel. It seemed like something like this should change you. Make you wiser. Make you understand things better, have a new and sharper perspective.
But I still felt like me. And I felt as clueless as ever.
Of course I was sad. But I didn’t feel like I was as sad as I should’ve been. And again, I felt sad for mostly all the wrong reasons, which made me feel guilty.
I think my feelings of discomfort were exacerbated by my mother. I had expected her to feel even more awkward than I did, but if she did, she didn’t show it. She immediately jumped right in, shooing Debra and Sarah out of the kitchen so she could unload the dishwasher and do other random and routine household chores.
She said she wanted to give Debra and Sarah time to focus on planning the memorial. She volunteered to go with Sarah into town to buy groceries for the memorial, which I found to be beyond weird. When she came back and I confronted her about it, she said, “Taliah. I don’t know what you want from me. You asked to stay, and we stayed. So I’m just trying to be polite and help the Olivers through this difficult time.”
I felt chastised, and maybe rightly so.
But the weirdest thing was how she pretended like Julian didn’t exist. In the morning when she was emptying out the dishwasher, he walked into the kitchen to pour himself a bowl of cereal and was surprised to find her standing there.
“Hey,” he said, and I could tell he was self-conscious from the fact that he kept tapping his spoon against the rim of his bowl.
My mom barely said hello back and sped to finish unloading the dishwasher and then excused herself to the basement, where she was running a load of laundry.
Julian shot me a helpless look and I just gave him a shrug because I had no idea what to say.
It wasn’t until much later that day that I overheard them talking. I walked out onto the back porch and heard my mother’s voice. I looked around. She wasn’t on the porch, but I knew it was her voice. And then I heard Julian’s. I assumed that maybe they were standing out in the backyard, somewhere out of view of the porch.
“You’re going to have to talk to me at some point,” Julian said.
“Did you follow me out here?” Mom said, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that her arms were crossed. I knew that voice very well.
“Yes,” he said, exasperated.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Try to talk with you?”
“I know you’re upset about Tom, but you can’t use that as an excuse to …” Mom went silent.
“As an excuse to what, Lena? Ask you what happened to us?”
I heard my mom sigh. “What happened to us? You know what happened to us. It’s the same thing that happens to everyone. We grew up. We changed.”
“But I wanted to grow with you.” Julian’s voice made something inside me break. He sounded so desperate.
My mom didn’t say anything. That somehow made it worse.
“And I should’ve had some say about Taliah,” Julian said.
“Don’t,” my mom said sharply.
“Don’t? You don’t get to tell me that. I have the right to confront you about why you kept Taliah from me for all these years.”
“All these years?” Mom’s voice was full of defiance. “You don’t get to rewrite history, Julian. You know as well as I do that you knew about Taliah long before you got her first letter.”
My breath caught. I pressed my back against the wall of the porch and slid down to a sitting position.
“That’s not fair, Lena,” Julian said quietly.
“How is it not fair?” Mom’s voice was as firm. “I called you when she was five.”
Five? I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to ignore the panic that was coming over me.
“Exactly! Five! You robbed me of five years,” Julian argued. “And then out of nowhere, you called me.”
“And you robbed yourself of the other eleven,” Mom seethed. “Don’t you remember? You questioned me about whether she was really yours? That’s when I knew I had made the right decision to keep you out of her life.”
Julian didn’t say anything.
“And then when you got her letter, you called me again,” Mom continued, her voice icy. “But not because you wanted to meet her. Because you wanted to know what we wanted from you. And the answer to that is: nothing. I don’t want anything from you, Julian.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You know that’s not fair, Lena,” Julian finally said. “When you first called me, I felt overwhelmed and confused. I hadn’t heard from you in years, and you just sprang that on me. You have to cut me some slack.”
“Oh,” my mom hissed, “I’m sorry I didn’t break the news to you in a more gentle manner.”
“Stop,” Julian pleaded. “I didn’t understand.”
“I think you did,” Mom said.
“That’s not fair,” he repeated. “And not true.” I could hear the anger in Julian’s voice. I wished I knew whether he was angry because Mom was right or because she was wrong.
“I’m done fighting about this,” Mom said. “What’s done is done.”
“I think that’s exactly what we have to talk about. What was done. The decision you made!”
“Just let it go, Julian. I know I have.” Mom sounded tired.
“Lena! Wait. I can’t let it go,” Julian said.
I crept around the porch, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom heading toward me. She quickly adjusted the expression on her face to look normal. She climbed the stairs up to the porch and opened the door.
“Tal, HB,” she said warmly.
I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I heard your fight.”
Her face dropped. She reached out to touch my shoulder, but I shrugged her off. “I don’t like this,” I said. “I feel like I’m being blamed for something that I had no say in. Like you guys are pretending to fight about me when you’re really fighting about you.”
Mom tried to reach out for me again and I dodged her. “Don’t,” I said.
“Taliah. Come on. It’s complicated.”
I pulled open the door to the porch. “You keep saying that, but you never explain anything.” I walked away as she called out behind me. In my mad dash to get away from Mom, I ended up bumping into Julian.
“Tal,” he said.
“Forget it,” I said before he could say anything else. “I heard everything. Including that you wanted nothing to do with me when you first found out. When I was five,” I spat.
“Look,” he said, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. “It’s not like you think.”
“Let me guess, it’s complicated?”
“Exactly.”
I shook my head. “I’m tired of hearing that.” I looked up at him again and felt hot tears building in the corners of my eyes. I walked away.