Page 107 of Things We Fake
“I wanted to protect her,” I said at last.
“Was that your only reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“You really don’t?”
Her gaze always cracked me open. I wanted this. If I voiced my feelings, maybe I would understand them, once and for all.
I cleared my throat. “At first it felt like a safe game. But afterward, as I got to know her… I wanted it to be real.”
Mom’s gaze roamed my face, filled with unconditional love and pride. “How does she feel about you?”
“I have no idea.”
I meant it from the bottom of my heart. Sue was still an enigma to me, almost as much as she’d been the day I met her.
I looked down at our linked hands. I traced my mom’s wedding band with my thumb.
“Will you ever take this off?”
“Never,” she said.
“You’re young. You shouldn’t be alone, Mom. You should start dating again.”
She gave me a soft smile. “My answer hasn’t changed since you, Craig, and Becky had ‘the talk’ with me and gave me your permission to date again.”
I met the memory with the ghost of a laugh. It was right before I’d left for MIT, when I thought I was mature enough to know what love was, and generous enough to accept my mom moving on.
She never had. I loved and respected her for it. Not once had she gone on a date after my father passed away. Instead, she had dedicated her life to us and to her job. I hated her loneliness, but I understood her choice.
“Your father was the love of my life,” she said simply, just as she’d told us twenty years ago. “Some people can only have one. I am one of those people.”
We were quiet for long moments before I finally voiced it. “I think Sue’s my one.”
Mom squeezed my hand. “Then you need to tell her that.”
There was an unbreakable knot of anxiety in my gut. “What if she doesn’t feel the same?”
“Then it means she’s not your one. And you’ll know, and you’ll move on.”
God, she made the most complicated matters seem simple. No wonder people paid her big bucks for it.
I reached out and drew her into a tight hug, burying my face in her hair in that same way that would never change.
“Thanks, Mom. I miss you.”
Her eyes shone as she drew away to look at me. “I miss you too, honey. Now go and talk to Sue.”
“What about you and Becky?”
She smiled knowingly. “We’ll stick around for a couple more days. See how the movie ends.”
I was still smiling as I watched her walk into the hotel.
As I put the car in gear I realized I couldn’t face Sebastian’s apartment yet. I was too restless. Instead of turning toward his building, I turned west.
The city blurred around me—yellow cabs, headlights, neon signs blinking intermittently. I didn’t have a destination, just a need to not be anywhere yet.
