“Well, the way I see it, he left the moment he cheated on me.”
The waitress came back with a bowl of granola and a little metal container of milk. She hovered for a moment, but there must have been something about our energy that told her to get lost.
Mom didn’t pour the milk. She picked up two pieces of granola in her fingers and popped them in her mouth.
“I know you weren’t expecting to hear all this, but I do have a point and I’m getting to it.”
“Take your time,” I said. Who knew when this portal would be open again. It felt both natural and unnatural that we were here, having this very grown-up conversation. I liked that feeling.
Mom smiled at me, then her eyes traveled instinctively to the scars on my arm.
“When your father left,” she continued, “I didn’t expect him to go so far. Certainly not all the way across the country. But he had a friend there who offered him a job and he wanted to make a fresh start. I think he did truly plan on being in your life. He was just going to take some time to regroup.”
“So much for that,” I said.
Mom didn’t seem to hear me. “Once he was gone and I was alone, a single parent of a two-year-old . . . I really thought I’d die.” She swallowed hard. “I mean, I really thought I wanted to. For a long time. Three years, give or take. I don’t remember much except thinking that maybe you’d be better off living with your grandmother.”
I turned to look out the window, unable to meet her glance. “Then why are you here, alive, and I’m not sitting with Grandma watching soap operas right now?”
Mom laughed a bit. “A friend convinced me to get help. Then one day, my boss at the bank sent me to an electronics store to buy a DVD player for the conference room. They’d just released the first two seasons of Silver Arrow.”
I turned to look at her now. She was shaking her head.
“Wait, wait. I need to backtrack,” she added. “The Silver Arrow thing. One year in college, there was a guy in my dorm. He was socially, you know, awkward and wanted to be popular. So when the show went on the air, he’d buy beer and snacks for anyone who wanted to drop in and watch with him. At first, only a few people came but eventually, the whole hallway would gather. I got addicted. It was so much fun to share something that way.”
I wanted to jump in and say, Yes! Duh! That is called fandom and that is why there is cosplay. But my mother was now unreeling so much of herself, I didn’t want to risk tangling her up.
“I could only watch it on and off after that year,” Mom continued, “but I always loved it. So the day I went into the store and saw this big display with life-size cutouts of the crew, it was like bumping into long-lost friends. I bought the DVDs and a player to go with them. But watching it again, with you . . . reminded me of that time in my life when I had everything in front of me. It seemed so safe to dream big back then. I hadn’t made any of my mistakes yet.”
She picked up another piece of granola and held it between her fingers.
“It’ll sound silly,” she said, “but Silver Arrow and Satina and all the rest helped me rewind and find that hopeful person again. It helped me start fresh.”
We were silent for a few moments as I processed all that. Mom took this opportunity to eat.
“So why don’t you watch it anymore?” I asked. “Why do we never even talk about it?”
Mom shrugged sadly. “Those years were not a good time for me, Ari. It led me to a better time, yes, but it was so hard. Like I said in my letter, last year I was struggling, too, and couldn’t admit it. Staying busy and focused on moving forward is one of the things that helps me manage my . . . feelings.”
You mean, depression. Why did she have trouble saying that word?
“Why were you so against Camden?” I asked.
“Ah, right. I’m sorry, this all made so much more sense in my head when I was driving.” She paused. “Those summers I spent with your father . . . I was too preoccupied with him. I missed out on other things.”
I frowned. “You mean, other guys?”
“Well, certainly that,” she said. “But also, opportunities. Even then I knew I wanted to work in medicine. Your grandmother begged me to apply for internships that would help me get into medical school, but I just wanted to work at the camp with this boy I loved.”
Boy. It seemed absurd that my father had ever been some boy.
Mom finally mustered up some courage now, because she reached for and took my hand. It was harder than I thought it would be to let her.
“This is the thing, Ari. At exactly the moment where I’ve finally gotten back on the track I should have stayed on, I see you doing a little of what I did. At the exact moment in my own life where I felt I went astray. In light of your . . . that night . . . I was so scared of what would happen to you if things didn’t work out.”