Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
She clicked her tongue, walking back over to the sofa to fold onesies, as if she couldn’t just stand there.
I followed her stiffly.
“Your father didn’t expect it. Any of it” She kept folding, periodically glancing up at me. “He didn’t know the reality of it, and he, well, he couldn’t handle it. So one day, he packed a bag and left.”
I gaped at her again, unable to fathom the words coming out of her mouth. My father abandoned me and my mother. That absolutely could not be true. My father was kind, caring and had adored us. He didn’t so much as raise his voice to us, not once. He never wanted to hurt us.
As complicated as my relationship with my mother was, I knew she would never lie either.
“He came back, obviously,” she continued. “When he realized what he’d done, what he was doing.”
“And you took him back,” I said numbly, trying to reconcile a man who left his wife and newborn baby with the man who coached my soccer team, who read to me nightly, who gave me my love of food.
“Of course, I did,” she said. “I loved your father. Even if I hated him for a while for doing that. And of course, I loved you more than I could’ve hated him. The reality was, I needed him. His help, his support, his financial contribution to give you the life you deserved.”
I tried to digest all of this. Tried to put myself in my mother’s shoes. If Kane left me and Mabel because it was too hard for him… My blood sizzled at the mere thought. Panic clutched me at how deeply that wound would cut me.
Kane would never do that. But if he did, there was no way I could take him back. Though I was financially solvent, had a profession, a name for myself. My mother had been a stay at home mom since I was born. She hadn’t had anything to fall back on.
“I didn’t tell you this for many reasons,” she said after a long sigh. “First, because you were too young, and maybe because I was trying to forget myself. And because your father was your hero, I would never take that from you, never take him from you.”
I stared at my mother. I took in the softness to her eyes, the delicate lines on her face. The kindness that she had never let the world carve from her.
“You let me believe he was the hero when it was really you,” I choked out. “You are the hero, Mom.”
She smiled back at me, and the emotion between the two of us was almost impossible to handle. I couldn’t go from being Avery Hart, ice queen, childless and loveless to Avery Hart mother, in love with Kane Rhodes, to also having somewhat of an emotionally healthy relationship with my previously-estranged mother.
Too much.
Way too much.
Luckily, my sister was the queen of timing, the thump of her music as she pulled up the driveway announcing her arrival.
“That’s why there’s such a big age gap between me and Maisie,” I realized, hearing the closing of her car door.
Mom looked toward the door, nodding. “I wanted another child, but I couldn’t do it alone. It took a long time for me to trust him again.”
“Does she know?” I asked quickly, knowing Maisie would be in the room in moments.
My mother shook her head. “I didn’t think she needed to, that she should. You’re both strong in different ways. Maybe it’s a mistake telling you this now, maybe it’s a mistake keeping it from her. I’m just doing my best.”
I saw it then, the look I saw in the mirror every day, what I’d never recognized in my Mom. Doubt. Fear over failing as a mother.
I reached over to squeeze her hand. “You’re doing great.”
The moment lingered between us, and I felt the connection between us grow, something that was just ours. It always felt like her and Maisie had things I couldn’t have, but now we had this.
The front door slammed shut.
“I come bearing sugar!” Maisie cried. And thankfully, the moment was broken.
Twenty-Four
Kane and I didn’t have much time to talk those days. Well, we talked plenty. We talked about Mabel’s bowel movements, the amount of diapers we needed, bath time, wake windows, naps, when her last feed was, how long a particular bottle had been left out. I primarily breast fed, but Kane urged me to pump every now and again to get a break. Not that it was a break. My breasts would get engorged if I missed a feeding.
We didn’t have conversations like we used to. Long, soulful discussions about our dreams and our demons. He didn’t wax on about his feelings for me, though he still made a point to tell me he loved me at least once a day.