“Oh, California isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Mom said. She looked tense as she got into the car, and her bubbly laugh was clearly nervous, not humorous. “It’s not as fun as the movies make it look, you know?”
“Really? That’s weird. You seem to like it better than Hamilton. But then again, you like to be anywhere but here, don’t you?”
The laughter died, and the car became silent. Mom started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. Finally, with all of her veils shredded, she whispered, “Bianca, we have to talk about this. I don’t think you understand what I’m going through right now.”
“Yeah, it looks tough, Mom,” I snapped. “Nice tan, by the way. I know Orange County must have been a real hellhole. How did you manage?”
“Bianca Lynne Piper, I won’t take that attitude from you!” she shouted. “Despite what you think of me right now, I am still your mother, and I deserve a certain amount of respect.”
“Really?” I snorted. “Like the respect you showed Dad by sending fucking divorce papers without warning him? Or me! For God’s sake, Mother, what the hell is the matter with you?”
More silence.
I knew this would get us nowhere. I knew I should listen to her, consider her side, and share my feelings reasonably. I’d seen enough Dr. Phil to know we needed to compromise, but I didn’t want to. Selfish, childish, immature… I might have been all of those things, but my father’s face, the empty beer bottles I’d picked up last week, and the stupid divorce papers just kept popping into my mind. Listen? Consider? Be reasonable? How were those even options? She was just as childish and selfish as me. The only difference was that she hid it better.
Mom let out a slow breath before pulling the car over to the side of the road. She shut off the engine without saying a word, and I stared out my window at an empty field, which would be full of high cornstalks when summer finally showed up. The gray February sky said everything. Cold. Bleak. A wasted day. A wasted effort. But I wouldn’t speak first. I would let her be the adult for once in her life.
Seconds ticked by. The only sound in the car was our breathing. Mom gave short, hesitant gasps, as if she were on the verge of speaking but changed her mind before the first word could escape her lips. I waited.
“Bianca,” she said eventually. We’d been quiet for at least five minutes. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m so… so sorry.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t want it to end like this.” The way her voice cracked made me wonder if she was crying, but I didn’t turn my head. “I haven’t been happy for a long time, and after your grandma died, your dad suggested I take a trip. I thought it might help. Like I’d escape for a little while, give a few speeches in different towns, then come back and everything would be better. Go back to how it used to be when your dad and I first got married. But…”
Her long, thin fingers trembled as they closed around my hand. Reluctantly, I faced her. There were no tears on her cheeks, but I could see a misty glitter in her eyes. The dam just hadn’t broken yet.
“But I was wrong,” she said. “I thought I could escape from my problems, but I was so wrong, Bianca. No matter where you go or what you do to distract yourself, reality catches up with you eventually. I came home, and after a few days, I felt it again, so I’d leave on another trip. I’d stay away a little longer, book a few more places to speak, go a little farther away… until I couldn’t go any farther at all. It caught up with me on the other side of the country, and I… I had to face it.”
“Face what?”
“That I don’t want to be with your dad anymore.” She looked down at our hands, still twined together. “I love your dad very much, but I’m not in love with him… not the way he’s in love with me. That’s cliché as heck, but it’s true. I can’t keep lying and pretending things are okay with us. I’m sorry.”
“So you want a divorce?”
“Yes.”
I sighed and looked out the window again. Still gray. Still cold.
“You’ll have to tell Dad,” I said. “He thinks it was a mistake. He doesn’t think you… you could ever do that to us.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
The answer didn’t really surprise me, even though the word just kind of flew out automatically. I wanted to hate her. Not so much for the divorce; as much as she’d been gone for the past few years, the idea of living with a single parent wasn’t all that new or upsetting. And honestly, I’d been expecting them to separate for a while. Really, I’d wanted to hate her for Dad. For the pain I knew she was causing him. For that night he’d relapsed.
But it hit me then. She didn’t cause that relapse. I could blame her all I wanted, but that wouldn’t do any good. She had to take responsibility for her own life, and Dad had to do the same. By staying married, letting things go on the way they had for the past three years, they’d both be living in denial.
My mother was finally facing reality. Dad would have to face it, too.
“I don’t hate you, Mom.”
The sky had been black for hours by the time Mom dropped me off in the high school parking lot, where we’d left my car. We’d spent the afternoon just driving around Hamilton and talking about all that she’d missed. The same way we did every time she came back from a tour. Only this time, she wouldn’t be coming home. At least not to stay.
“I’m gonna go see your dad now… I guess,” Mom said. “Maybe you should spend the night with Casey, honey. I just don’t know how he’ll react… That’s a lie. I do know how he’ll react, and it won’t be good.”
I nodded, hoping she was wrong-though our definitions of not good were different. I hadn’t mentioned his relapse to her, mostly since it had passed without any significant drama. She was afraid of tears and yelling-the things that should be expected with a confrontation of this kind. I didn’t want to make her worry about the drinking, too. Especially since it hadn’t really been that big a deal in the end.
“God,” she whispered. “I feel horrible. I’m telling my husband I want a divorce on Valentine’s Day. I’m such a… a bitch. Maybe I should wait until tomorrow and-”