Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
My mom squeezes my hand. “I do worry about you.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but I offer up, “Mom, it's okay.”
She shakes her head, new tears shine in her eyes. “I thought I was doing the right thing by you, Renee. I hope you know that you were always on my mind and I’m so sorry I couldn’t see right or think right or—” Her words become breathless and rushed and I cut her off.
“I know you did.” I could see that in my mom's face every time she went back to him. It took me a long time to see everything for what it was. I almost tell her, but the words don’t come. “I just love you,” I tell her, settling on that and squeezing her hand tight.
“I love you baby girl,” my mother says and wipes under her eyes. “One of these days I’ll stop crying and be there for you like I should.”
She still had hope that it would all work out, and that this time he'd change for the better, and my throat closes up with how guilty I feel about that. Maybe she wouldn't have tried to look for the positives if it wasn't for me. Maybe, if she'd been by herself without me to think of, she'd have looked for a better life for herself. All the what if’s pile up in the back of my head and I do everything I can to shut them all down. “Seriously, Mom, don't think about that right now. I'm okay.”
“I loved him.” She presses her lips into a thin line and looks out the window of the lawyer's office. There's a fancy coffee machine with a stack of coffee pods arranged in a pyramid next to it. Somehow the arrangement seems almost like a promise, like the lawyer can fight her way into the kind of life where you have enough money for a coffee machine that costs eight hundred dollars and an endless stack of pods in the shape of a pyramid. And you never get a black eye from a man who's supposed to love you. “I really loved him.”
“I get it,” I whisper, then clear my throat and say it again, loud enough for her to hear me this time. “I get it. But that's not what love is.” I loved him too. I remember loving him and feeling like he loved me back. Those moments hurt the most. It’s like a death. That’s what my therapist said. It’s mourning. And every time she went back to him, I mourned the loss of that love all over again.
My mom parts her lips, and I don’t know what she’s going to say but it seems important. But before she can, a woman who looks about my age in a pencil skirt and a simple but chic blazer comes out into the waiting area.
“Ms. Blair?” she says, crossing the room toward us and offering us both her hand. We both stand up.
“Yes, and this is my daughter, Renee.” My mother’s left hand lands on my shoulder and she stands a little taller.
We both shake the woman's hand. “I'm Janet, Ms. Cane's assistant,” she says. “Let me take you back to her office. Can I get you anything to drink? Tea? Water? Coffee?”
“I'd love a coffee please,” I say. I need the caffeine immediately.
“A tea would be wonderful,” my mom answers and adds, “thank you.” The assistant nods and steps out of the door as the lawyer comes forward to meet us. A tall woman made even taller with heels. She wears a slimming gray pantsuit and has dark, curly hair, a polite and professional smile, and bright eyes.
“Lindsey,” she greets my mother, shaking her hand with both of hers, one on top and one on bottom. Her warmth is obvious, and I already like her.
“Ms. Cane,” my mother greets her back.
“You can call me Donna,” she says softly, and I see her gaze move to my mother’s black eye, but her expression doesn’t falter.
She ushers us to a small meeting table off to the side of her office. My mom and I take two chairs along one side. Ms. Cane takes a chair at the head of the table and spreads a folder open on the table.
“I think we should start with a discussion of your circumstances while the marriage was still intact,” she says, looking my mom in the eye. “Did you work outside the home?”
The corner of my mom's mouth turns down. She looks at her hands in her lap, then back up at the lawyer. “No, I didn't. I tried to get a job a couple of times, but it never panned out.”
It never panned out because my father didn't want her out of the house. Whenever she would leave, he'd find ways to get her to come back, and then it was her job to put things back together at home. I told her he did it on purpose, but she defended him. She didn’t want to see it, or she couldn’t admit it. Admitting something like that would have a domino effect. Once one truth is out, they all escape. I know it’s hard to face and it’s easier to just not believe it. It’s so much easier to just make an excuse.