“Teachers have a prep day. I decided to stay at home. I need a break from that place and the constant stream of complaints.” Mom sets the needles down and pulls off the glasses she began wearing a couple of years ago for reading. “I can’t remember how to do this,” she says. “I thought it would be like learning to ride a bike.”
I kick off my shoes and set my coat down. “Yeah, well, you never really got to the stage where you removed your training wheels.” I move into the living room, grabbing the throw off the back of the couch and sitting on the adjacent couch.
“Hey,” she says, pointing one of the knitting needles at me. “I’ve successfully knitted four blankets, thank you.”
I raise both palms in surrender. “You’re right, knitting master. Move forth and conquer.”
The ghost of a smile makes her eyes shine.
“Who are you knitting a blanket for?”
“Candace.”
“What?” I balk. “I thought they were broken up?”
She laughs. “They are. Five weeks now.”
“Don’t jinx it,” I warn her.
Mom sets her needles down again. “I was going to make you a new blanket. That one I made you is starting to fray.”
“I still like it.” The light pink blanket has sat at the end of my bed since she gave it to me.
She picks up her glasses, sliding them back into place before gripping the needles, and reviewing the book again. This is the longest exchange we’ve shared over the past several weeks, and I’m pretty sure this is her subtle way of giving me her proverbial cold shoulder again.
“Mom,” I say, reaching forward and laying the book face down on the coffee table. “Can we talk?”
She glances at me, her nostrils flaring as her face tinges several shades of red. “Mom,” I repeat her name, this time gentler. “Talk to me.” My thoughts race in an attempt to understand her reaction. Did Dad tell her? Does she know? Is that why she’s home?
“I feel like I failed you. Like I keep failing you.”
“What? Mom, what are you talking about?” I kneel in front of her, gripping her hands in my much colder ones.
“I’m supposed to protect you. You’re my baby, and I couldn’t do anything.” Her chin quivers and my eyes cloud with tears. It’s an automatic response to seeing her upset, a reaction I see from her so rarely.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I want to forbid you from working at the aquarium and ground you so you can’t leave the house anymore. I want to keep you in your room where I know you’re safe.” She sniffs, working to control her emotions. “I know I can’t. I know you’re nearly nineteen, and you need to experience the world, but God, Rae, you scared the hell out of me. I was so worried you were going to leave my world, and I don’t know what I’d do if that ever happened. I don’t think I could live if something ever happened to one of you.” Her chin shakes violently this time as tears streak her cheeks.
I lick my lips that have gone dry with the cold weather, tasting the salt from my tears. “I hate that you’re mad at me,” I tell her. “I hate that we’re not talking.”
She nods. “I do, too. I’ve never been so mad at you. When your heart stopped, I swore to God I’d do anything to have you back, and then when they gave me the all-clear, I was so angry with you, and I’ve been trying to get past it, Rae. I swear I have. I just don’t know how. I keep thinking about what my life would be like without you, how empty I’d feel, and it makes me angry all over again.”
“Poppy says that’s normal. That it’s part of the grieving experience, and I can take it, Mom. I can take your anger, as long as you promise me you won’t hate me forever.”
“Hate you?” She releases a sob. “Oh, Rae, I could never hate you. I don’t even hate you for jumping into that stupid ocean. I know you did what you thought was right. I just hate that it happened. I hate the reminder that I can’t protect you because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I just want you to be safe.” She hugs me, her hair falling across my face, sticking to my tears. “I could never hate you.”
Her scent soothes me, bringing a lifetime of memories that are filled with laughter and warmth. We hold one another for several long minutes, only pulling away from each other when the front door opens, and Pax yells, “Knock, knock!”
He stops, his fist still raised midair. Lincoln’s behind him, two drink trays in his hands that he lowers several inches as he steps forward, his eyes moving with a silent urgency as he takes in me and then Mom, our tear-stained faces and blotchy cheeks.
“We’re okay,” I tell them, sitting back on my feet and wiping my cheeks with my fingers.
“You have a strange definition of okay,” Pax says, still unmoving.
I release an uncomfortable laugh that is only partially fabricated, swiping at a stray tear.
Lincoln hangs back, his jaw clenched as he stares at me.
I release a breath that’s considerably less shaky and stand. “What are you guys doing?”
Pax lifts a DVD case and a bag. “I came to bribe you with doughnuts in exchange for watching some tape.”
I’ve barely seen Pax. I don’t know how to be around anyone right now with the secret I’m holding because I feel like a grenade with the pin pulled, ready to tell someone at any moment. I wanted to tell Lois this morning in the parking lot. I’ve wanted to tell Mom a dozen times, Poppy and Pax, too. I even wanted to tell Lincoln when I saw him earlier this week, and he read the distress on my face.
“You’re lucky. She wasn’t supposed to be home,” Mom says, righting her glasses and turning her attention back to the book once more.
“You ditching class?” Paxton asks.
“At this hour?” Mom asks. “Come on, you know your sister. There’s only one thing that gets her out of bed before nine, and it’s not school.”
Pax’s gaze turns critical. “You didn’t go out onto the Sound?”
“I didn’t sleep well and have had a headache all morning.” It’s a half-truth. I didn’t sleep well, but my headache didn’t start until the tears did.
Pax’s brow lowers. “I didn’t think anything could keep you off the water.” Beside him, Lincoln has a matching look of doubt—one I’m sure I created after giving such a vague and uncertain response regarding his invitation to his dad’s engagement party.
“Everything else good? Classes?” He moves forward, sliding his shoes off.
I nod. “Yup.”
Pax’s eyes cut to me again as he rights a sock from slipping down his foot. My short answers are constructing an entire kingdom of doubt, and I know it, but I don’t know how to stop them. Lying has never been my forte. “It’s getting cold out.”
“I had to turn the heater on,” Mom says.
“Finally,” I add.
She laughs. “You’re the one always pressuring us to reduce our carbon footprints.”
“I was starting to see my breath in the house. I was considering bringing the firepit into my room so I wouldn’t get frostbite.”
She tips her head back, laughing—a real laugh. The first I’ve heard in weeks from her. It feels both vast and relieving, giving me hope that with our brief exchange, we can hopefully move forward, and this time will wane, allowing us to return to a normal rhythm.