That made me ponder possibly the most important question of all… “If you thought you had it but found out later that it wasn’t the type of love your mom told you about, then really, how would you know before being proven wrong?”
She put her hand on my knee and smiled warmly. “When your grandmother said you’ll just know, she wasn’t wrong. Not in the slightest. As soon as you were in my arms, I knew without a doubt that I had never felt that before—the intensity alone was enough to make everything else feel completely different. And I haven’t felt it since. When it came to your father, I think I wanted it to be true, so I convinced myself it was.”
“What does it feel like?”
Her smile grew wider, and her green eyes shined brighter. “It’s one of those things that you can’t explain. The best way your grandmother put it was…you recognize the person on a completely different level, like you’ve met them before but not in passing. There’s an instant connection, which doesn’t make sense. You simply love this person, without rhyme or reason, without a choice—without wanting a choice.”
Her warm words lit my arms in gooseflesh. “Is that how she felt when she met Grandpa?”
“No.”
When she didn’t elaborate, I leaned forward and asked, “Then how does she know?”
“She didn’t feel that way about my dad, but what she told me was that she experienced it when she was a teen, probably around your age.”
“Wait…” I held up my hand to interject. “How do you know this? I thought she kept her past to herself.”
“She did for the most part, but there were little aspects of her life she would share when she felt I needed to hear them. This particular story was told to me after we moved away. I had started dating a kid from school, so she thought it was the perfect time to explain to me how to know if it’s serious or not.”
I was annoyed that she hadn’t told me these things sooner, but I was too intrigued to say anything about it. Instead, I leaned against my headboard and motioned for her to continue.
“There really isn’t a lot to tell, McKenna. It’s not like she went into great detail or told me personal things about him or their relationship. All she told me is that she loved him from the minute she saw him, but she couldn’t identify that feeling until much later.”
That couldn’t be all the information she had about it. “She never said how they met or what happened to him?”
“No, not that I recall. Just that she fell in love with a boy her parents didn’t approve of, so they planned to run away together. Except, the night they were supposed to leave, he never showed up.”
The tiny blond hairs on my arms stuck straight up, as if I’d rubbed a balloon against them. “This sounds just like the story in the diary. Which means it had to have been your mom’s journal, right?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I didn’t read any of the passages.”
“Well, it has to be, because this sounds identical to what I’ve read.”
“Were there no names mentioned?”
I slid off the bed and ran straight to the duffel bag I’d dropped in the corner of my room when I first got home and hadn’t moved since. Although, after pulling every single item out, I realized I didn’t have the book. I began to panic, having no clue where it could’ve gone. The only thing I could imagine was that I might have left it at the resort. In which case, that would give me the perfect excuse to call Drew. All I knew was that I needed it back. Not having it in my possession gave me anxiety.
“Did you lose it?”
I shrugged and slumped against the headboard, completely deflated. “I must’ve left it there. Either that or I put it away and forgot where.”
“I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
“Yeah, hopefully. Anyway, yes…there were names, I just don’t remember any of them other than Bobby and AC.” I scrubbed my face with both hands, frustrated at the failure of my memory. I had read that diary like a romance novel, yet I could only recall that one.
“No last names?”
I racked my brain yet came up empty-handed. “No, I don’t think so. The entries were always short and vague. And sometimes, she would go days or weeks without writing. At the end, it skipped even more time and had become even more vague.”
“Well, if that was my mother’s journal, then Bobby would be my dad.”
I zoned out and took a few deep breaths. Slow inhale, even slower exhale. I’d always known my grandfather as Rob, so I never once connected the two when reading about a boy named Bobby. Probably because the author and AC weren’t familiar, so I didn’t expect anyone else to be, either.
“Really?” I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of it all.
She shrugged. “Well, I don’t know for sure, but his name is Robert Tisdale.”
I stared at the picture on the front of my new notebook and traced the image of the steeple with my finger. All this talk of names had my mind swirling with unanswered questions. “How come I don’t have your last name? I mean, if my father was never in the picture, why give me his?”
“Your grandmother asked me to. I wasn’t going to put him on the birth certificate at all, but right before you were born, she mentioned that I should just in case you ever wanted to find him—or if I ever wanted to claim child support. After I agreed to that, she said something about wanting the Tisdale name to end. I assumed that was because of how she felt about my dad.”
I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it than that. There were pieces of the puzzle not yet connected, and the nagging thought grew louder and louder. The problem was that I couldn’t ask anything, mainly because I didn’t know what questions to ask. Not to mention, there was a very slim chance that my mom would have any answers. If she did, she would’ve offered them already.
The best thing was to simply move the conversation along and hope pieces either came to me later or vanished from my thoughts so I wouldn’t have to be continually pestered by them. “Speaking of Grandpa…how’s the money thing coming along?”
Luckily, my mom didn’t appear to have whiplash from all my sudden topic changes. “The lawyer’s still dealing with it. From the sounds of it, it’s a legal mess. But at least I don’t have to figure it out myself. From what I gather, the income on his property is measly and paid out once a year, so it doesn’t look like that will help me much. The lawyer’s double-checking the fine print to see if we can sell it and just use the cash for his care.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I hoped this would be the answers to your prayers for help.”
She smiled and squeezed my hand. “I appreciate that, McKenna. I thought so, too…but it seems like one more hurdle we have to clear before things get easier. I’m just thankful to have you. I know all of this hasn’t been easy to deal with, and I can’t thank you enough for sticking it out with me. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you.”
That gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was happy that my mom didn’t have to go at it alone and I could offer her even the smallest support. On the other hand, it made me revisit the things Drew had said to me. Things about college and the ability to do what other kids my age got to do. I should feel lucky I’d been able to go on vacation for a week. But suddenly, that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. More time. More opportunities. More freedom.