Liza’s chest ached as she thought about how her mother must have felt. Her fiancé and her best friend. The betrayal had upended her life in every possible way.
“Had it been going on for a long time?”
“No. It was after the Summer Ball. I was due to go with Adam. Ruth hadn’t planned to go at all. She didn’t enjoy that kind of thing, but then I ate something that disagreed with me—it won’t surprise you to know that I lacked caution in my eating even back then—and went down with a vicious bout of food poisoning. So Adam took Ruth instead.” There was a pause, and the sound of her mother taking a breath. “And that was it. They didn’t tell me right away, although I suspected something because they both behaved differently around me. And then a few weeks later Ruth discovered she was pregnant. And in those days being a single mother was greeted with horror and judgment of course.”
“Oh you poor thing.” Liza found it hard to imagine. “How did you cope?”
“It was hard. I’d lost my lover and my best friend. Ruth was distraught. She was worried about telling her parents. Worried about how she would survive. Guilty at having hurt me. Adam came to see me and begged forgiveness. Until you read the letter, I didn’t know he’d told Ruth. He said it was a silly mistake.” There was a hint of irritation in Kathleen’s voice. “But that ‘silly mistake’, even if that’s what it was, couldn’t be easily undone. Ruth was pregnant. She needed support. Her parents wouldn’t give it. I could hardly give it. That left Adam. I told him he had to do the responsible thing. Then I packed up all my things and left. I didn’t believe their relationship would sustain, or even that Adam would be there for her, but I knew there was more chance of that happening if I wasn’t in the picture.”
Liza closed her eyes. As a child she’d seen her mother as being apart—almost detached—as she pursued her own life, with her family an adjunct to that life. To her great shame she’d often considered Kathleen to be bordering selfish in her decision making, and yet here was an example of the most selfless behavior Liza could have imagined. Would she have been as strong willed in the same circumstances? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she now had a very different view of her mother. “Did Dad know all this?”
“Yes. I avoided close relationships after that, as you might imagine. Both male and female. I was fortunate to fall into a job that I found exciting, and then came The Summer Seekers. I had a life that didn’t allow me time for more than the most superficial of friendships, and that also absolved me of all need to reflect on my life. Had your father not been the steady, persistent man he was, I doubt I would have married at all.”
“I’m glad you told me. I’m glad we’re reading these letters together.”
“I should have done it before, but I preferred to keep the past in the past. I’ve given you the impression that it was easy, and it wasn’t. It really was the most terrible mess. Of course in those days we didn’t have mobile phones or email, so communication wasn’t as instant and continuous as it is now. That made it easier. Martha has Steven’s name popping up on her phone all the time. I didn’t have to handle that. No wonder the poor girl needed to escape.”
Martha had been escaping from a bad relationship?
Liza had suspected there was something. She also knew that her mother probably shouldn’t have told her something so personal, so she didn’t pursue it. Everyone had their own story, didn’t they? Things were rarely as they appeared on the surface.
Her mother was obviously enjoying Martha’s company, and Martha had made this trip possible. For that, Liza was grateful.
“I’m sure you’re right that it was easier to make a clean break.”
“I worried about Ruth terribly. I was angry of course—I’m not a saint, but I did worry. I was afraid Adam would leave her alone with that baby. Maybe she lost the baby. I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. But now—I suppose I’m about to find out—”
Liza heard her mother’s voice wobble and tightened her grip on the phone. “We’re about to find out.” She was part of this story now. She wanted to know how it ended.
“I’m afraid reading them might be something I regret. What if I did the wrong thing, Liza?”
Her mother, who never asked or even seemed to value her opinion on anything, was asking her opinion and looking for reassurance.
Liza considered her answer carefully. “Whatever is in these letters doesn’t change the decision you made. Regret achieves nothing, and it isn’t even valid because looking back with distance, isn’t the same as looking forward when you’re close up.” It was advice she intended to take herself. There was no point looking back and wishing she’d been a different type of mother. There was no point in wishing she’d spoken to Sean sooner. She’d done what felt right at the time. “You did what was right for you and we’re going to remember that as we finish reading these letters.”
“Yes. You’re right of course. Thank you. You’ve always been sensible. You’re like your father, and that’s a good thing.”
Liza had never heard her mother like this. After her father had died, she’d been sad but practical. After the intruder she’d been feisty. But now, facing her past, she was showing a side of herself that Liza had never seen before. A vulnerable side.
“Maybe we should take this slowly.” She looked at the little stack, and wondered what other shocks and revelations lurked in those folded pieces of paper. “We could do a few a day. Or I could read them all and summarize them for you.”
“Oh Liza—” Her mother’s voice wobbled. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a daughter like you.”
The words unlocked the emotion Liza had been trying to keep under control. “You should have had an adventurous daughter, someone who wanted to travel the world. I wanted you to stay home and read to me.”
“You deserve a mother who doesn’t give you constant anxiety attacks.”
Liza managed a smile. “I’m working on that. Given time I might even become what Caitlin would describe as ‘chilled’.”
“Don’t change too much. I admire the way you are. I know I was absent a great deal when you were young. The reasons for that are complicated. Yes, I loved my career, but it was so much more than that. Part of me has never stopped being afraid of loving deeply. Of course that doesn’t mean I don’t love deeply—I do. But I was always afraid to give that love too big a place in my life. Like being afraid of heights, and not looking down when you’re standing on a cliff edge.”
She’d always thought she was to blame for the fact that she wasn’t close to her mother, but she could see now it wasn’t anything to do with her.