“Kit!” she yells again, but I can’t hear her. The anger is too loud and fuzzy, like radio static. White noise on white noise.
“I wish it was you who died. Not Dad. You. It’s not fair,” I say, and then I curl into a fetal position and cry, because though I have just said the most hurtful thing a daughter can say to a mother, and even though I saw the words land like a punch on my unflappable mother’s face—she actually flinched—I feel no satisfaction. Even worse, as soon as the words are out I realize that they are not true. I loved my dad, maybe even more than I love my mother. But still, despite myself, I need her more. Always have.
My mom puts her hand to her mouth, as if she is trying to stifle a silent scream. She’s more ashen than usual, pale enough that she’s almost the same color as me. And just like that, her composure dissolves.
“Oh God,” she says, and then starts sobbing into her palm in large gulps. “Oh God, you’re right. It’s not fair. He’s really gone. And he died without knowing how much I still—have always—loved him.”
“Mom,” I whisper, but I make no move to comfort her. I just unfold my body, sit up, curl my knees back in. I’m still fetal, though at least I’m upright.
“I get why you’re punishing me. I know I deserve all of it. But just know you can’t hurt me any more than I’m already hurting. He was my husband, the father of my child, we were together my entire adult life. I don’t even know who I am without him,” she says, and clutches at her chest. “The love of my life died—he died, Kit—at pretty much the only moment in twenty-six years when he doubted me.”
And there it is. For the first time, my mother says three simple words—he died, Kit—and at least that part, the he died part, is the truest thing she’s ever said.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask, and the tables flip once more. I’m the one sounding like the grown-up again. “Don’t tell me you were lonely. I want to know why you were willing to sacrifice everything.”
She sighs, closes her eyes, and then opens them, as if gathering herself.
“I was lonely. That’s not an excuse. It’s just the truth. Part of it, anyway. Your dad had his books and his practice and you. He wasn’t the type to say to me, Hey, honey, you look beautiful. He didn’t often even say I love you. He just wasn’t that kind of man. I knew that when I married him, and in the beginning I never really needed it. I felt good about myself. Not just about how I looked, but about everything—our marriage, you, my work. For years, it all hummed along nicely. It seemed, I don’t know, so greedy and American to ask for more than that. Then one day I looked in the mirror and suddenly I was forty-five and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time anyone, including Dad, had paid any real attention to me. I felt…taken for granted. Like I was invisible,” my mom says. “You are too young to know what that feels like. At your age, every day is like being center stage.”
Of course my mom would think that’s what sixteen is like. In high school, she was a clear-skinned Indian goddess among pasty, pimpled white girls. She was like a Lauren Drucker, not a Kit Lowell.
“I talked to Dad about how I was feeling and he dismissed it and told me to get my nails done or go get highlights, which felt so condescending. He said I was making a big deal out of nothing. Things were fine. We were fine. All marriages go through shifts. I don’t know. He wasn’t hearing me. It felt like more than just a lull; I was scared things had permanently shifted. Middle-aged doesn’t mean it’s all over, right?”
I don’t answer. Middle age seems an eternity away.
“Jack was feeling depressed about his divorce, and Dad thought it would be good if he spent more time with us, to cheer him up. Sometimes we’d talk, and he became my friend too. I really needed a friend then. This life can be so lonely. You have no idea.”
I want to tell her she’s being condescending, but I’m too tired to talk. My anger has curdled into something sour. Suddenly I don’t know why I asked my mother to explain. I don’t want to hear about her loneliness. About the truth of adult life. I don’t want to know any of this. I want to ask her to stop, but she keeps going.
“One night while your dad was away at that dental convention in Pittsburgh and you were over at Annie’s, Jack and I had dinner and got stupid drunk. I don’t know, for a moment it’s like I equated your father with my parents. I got that ridiculous adolescent feeling of needing to rebel, needing to shake things up, no matter the cost. I made a mistake. One time. Still, one of us should have stopped. I should have said stop.”
“That’s not a mistake. That’s a betrayal,” I say, finding my voice. “You didn’t just betray Dad, you betrayed me too. Our three-person family. And your explanation doesn’t undo that damage. Lots of people are lonely. Maybe everyone is. They don’t go around—”
“I know. Again there’s no excuse. We were drunk and stupid and thought—no, we didn’t think. We just did. We immediately regretted it and, for better or worse, I told your dad. I had to tell him. I’ve never not told him anything. And that’s when he filed. Before I even had a chance to explain.”
I take a moment to rewrite the story I made up in my head. The old version had my dad coming home early from work one day and finding my mom and Jack in their bed. I imagined tears and punches, soap opera levels of drama. The old version had an ongoing affair, not a onetime drunken hookup. The old version did not leave room for remorse and confession. The old version involved that terrible, terrible word love.
“You’re too young to understand any of this. Look at you. My baby. You are too young to have lost your father, and in such a cruel way. You shouldn’t have to even know about my ridiculous midlife crisis. You are just too young for all of it. I want to throw myself in front of you, I want to stop all this life from happening to you. But I can’t. I just can’t.” My mom wipes her eyes. “I know you will judge me and maybe hate me, and you have every right to. But I love you no matter what. I was stupid and selfish and one day when you’re older you might understand—I think your dad was beginning to—but for now I can’t ask you to understand. I can only ask you for your forgiveness.”
She lifts my chin so I’m staring her straight in the eye. Both of our faces are wet, and our bodies are trembling with pent-up grief and rage and regret. She’s not wrong. I do judge her, I do hate her for what she’s done—but I also love her, and I don’t know how to reconcile those things.
“You know the part that makes me saddest of all? I can’t protect you anymore. I can’t fix this for you. Any of it,” she says.
“I don’t need protecting,” I say. I don’t say I forgive you. I don’t say I love you. Instead I repeat the words again: “I don’t need protecting.”
The trouble is we both know that’s another lie, just like everything else.