Page 79 of Embrace
But I was in a moment that I’d thought I would never experience again. I looked into the eyes of my mother—the woman who had abandoned me. My heart wanted to combust. My eyes filled with tears. All the feelings I’d thought I had lost concerning her came rushing back through me with the velocity of Niagara Falls. It took all the strength I could muster to stay standing and not break down crying. I pulled my shoulders back.Has she always been so beautiful?Itook a steadying breath. But first, I checked over my shoulder. I could no longer see or hear Asher and Julia. I was on my own. I had no option but to make my approach.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Penina Ross
Silently, with my eyes pinned to the linoleum, barely able to feel my feet hit the floor, I followed her to the lobby and out the front entrance of the building. We were lucky enough to find an unoccupied iron bench along the sidewalk. It was a Sunday afternoon. People liked to do whatever they could to avoid a hospital at that time of day. Although the weekend wasn’t over, patients would start rolling in by nightfall. I thought about that as I sat down and she sat beside me, her arms folded against her chest. I wondered if she had smelled like gardenias back when I was a kid too. I didn’t think so. We almost always carried the scent of dirty house and mildewed clothes.
Finally, I faced her. Mary, or Elizabeth, was already looking at me.
“What was going on back there?” she asked.
My lips parted. I considered answering but wondered if she truly deserved an answer. What had been going on back there was complex and messy and deserved an explanation she was no longer privy to.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Her eyes darted around my face as if she was taking in every pore and line. “I, um. Christine, um…” She closed her eyes. It was as if I’d asked her to solve a difficult math equation, but no, my question had been easy enough. “Asher Christmas came to my door yesterday evening. Then I watchedRed Report.” She paused and looked at me as if that was supposed to ring a bell.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what that is.” I was running out of patience as well.
Was her skin always like porcelain?
“It’s a show that gossips about famous people. And”—her eyes expanded—“Asher Christmas is a famous person. They showed him fighting a football player at the airport, and you were with him. On top of that, Britta, one of the mothers at my son’s school, said something about Greg Carroll being in our neighborhood yesterday. He was supposedly with a drunk girl. So I put it all together. It was you, wasn’t it?”
A lot went through my mind. I wanted to know if that was what it took to get her to come see me—a report about a billionaire and a football player fighting.Does she want money? Did she see an opportunity to leave her boring husband and her two bratty kids to hang with her first daughter and get a taste of the good life?
“Okay, so you put it all together. Now what?” I asked sharply.
“Did you come to see me?”
The tears rolled, and that meant I couldn't hide behind a tough exterior. The fact that she was there and said what she had said broke my heart even more. “I did. I wanted to see you, just get a look at you, but here you are. I see you. Now you can go.” I quickly stood.
“Penina.”
I froze, closing my eyes. She spoke my name as if it were her own. That made my heart break even more. My name was hers because she had given it to me.
“I’m sorry. I’m here because I owe you a look at me. If that was all you wanted, I owed you that. But—”
Feet, walk away.
They wouldn’t move. My neck stayed bent, eyes closed.
I turned to look at her.
“I would like to explain. Please let me explain.” She looked so vulnerable and raw as she smoothed her hand over the part of the bench that I had abandoned. “Please, sit back down, please.”
I folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself tightly as I carefully sat on the edge of the bench. I didn’t want to be close to her. It still felt as if she were an apparition.Can I touch her?I hadn’t touched her. Maybe I didn’t want to.
“I knew you had become a surgeon. You’ve been a resident here at Unity Medical Center for seven years. I know your address. The people here call it the boarding hold. I’ve seen you at Bellies, where they have the bourbon wings, after shifts that are really hard. You have a good friend, a beautiful Indian lady with a sultry English accent. She’s like a sister to you. I’m telling you all this because I've never stopped watching you. But, Penina, I can never be me again. She’s gone. She’s dead. And I don’t want to resurrect her.”
Tears streamed down my face. The fact that my mom knew all that about me suddenly made me feel loved and not as alone in the world as I’d thought I was. Finally, I could see that she was crying too.
“I hope you will one day forgive me and understand me.”
I sniffed, and she opened her purse and pulled two tissues out of a plastic package and handed them to me. I hesitated. It felt like déjà vu. I was six, sitting on a bench at some desert park in Victorville, California. I felt scared and anxious. At any moment, our world could’ve crumbled down. I wasn’t safe. I’d never felt safe, not until I met Asher. I closed my eyes and let those childhood anxieties flow out of my body then took her tissue.
“Thanks,” I said then blew my nose and wiped my face.
She gave me an extra one. I used it. It wasn’t until I was finished that I noticed how she was watching me.
