Page 77 of The Story Of Us

She sighs before getting up to take her plate to the sink where she rinses it and then washes her hands. I can see her through the door, but she doesn’t turn around as she grabs a towel to dry her hands.

“I just don’t understand why you want to stay away from me.”

“That’s not what it is. This isn’t an easy decision for me to make either. But I’ve done the research, and the best universities are the ones further away and in London.”

“Is that the only reason you want to go there?”

“What does that mean?”

I get up and go to the kitchen, tired of having this conversation from a distance. I lean my hip against the counter, and she turns to face me, doing the same with her arms crossed across her chest.

“So this decision has nothing to do with Isaac?”

I haven’t told her that we’re back together, so I have no idea where this is coming from. In her mind, we’re still broken up, so why would he affect my decision?

“What does he have to do with it?”

“I was your age once. I know how it feels to be so blinded by love that it seems like you need to give up every part of yourself for it. But it won’t last forever, and you can’t make such a big decision based on a passing fling.”

“That’s not what it is,” I tell her, trying my best to keep my voice as neutral as possible because I can feel myself start to become whiny as I plead my case. “Yes, we’re talking again, but this decision has nothing to do with him. I want to do it for me, for my future. And, if anything, he’s the one giving stuff up for me.”

“That’s what you think now, but it’s all the same either way. I just don’t want you to make such a big decision that you might regret later.”

The crease between her eyebrows is deep, and so are the lines surrounding her mouth as she frowns. I don’t know why it’s taken me until now to realise that while I’ve been getting older, so has my mum. I’ve lived away from home for six years now, and I never thought about what that might have done to her, how much she must worry about her only child being so far away from her. A pang of guilt hits me, but I can’t let that stop me from following the choices that I want to make.

“If that happens, then it happens. If I regret it later, then you can say, ‘I told you so,’ and I’ll come right back home. But I can’t live my life only thinking of the worst-case scenario.”

“Your dad was exactly the same,” she says quietly as she pushes off the counter and goes back to the living room. I follow her and take a seat next to her on the sofa.

“It’s not fair when you do that, Mum,” I tell her.

My dad has been a constant thorn in my side, a life filled with comparisons from her of a man I don’t even remember. Appearance-wise, I’m my mother’s daughter through and through, but she must see some traits of his in me.

“I hate what he did to you, to us, but it’s been sixteen years, Mum. We have to move on. You have to move on.”

“I never told you how we met, have I?”

I shake my head and shuffle closer to her, placing my hand on top of hers that’s resting on her knee. Mum has been sparing with the details of my dad, only giving me small bits of information about him - I’ve never even seen a picture of him. I’m nervous to find out something so important about him, about their relationship, but I know it will help me understand my mum’s hesitancy.

“I was in my first year of university when we met, and he was in his last. There was a mishap with the library, and we’d both ended up booking the same room at the same time so we decided to just share it. A friendship developed from there, and then that turned into something more. I’d never been in a relationship before. My parents were quite strict about things like that, so I never even entertained the possibility of it while I was at school. But university felt different. I was an adult and thought I could do whatever I wanted.

“I knew my parents wouldn’t approve of him because he was White, but I thought we could overcome that and that they’d get over it eventually. But when I told them…”

She lets out a shaky breath, and I squeeze her hand three times.

“They kicked me out. He was there for me, of course, and I moved in with him. He told me everything would be fine, that we’d make our own family together, build a life together, and I believed him. He graduated and started working, and he supported me while I finished university. We got married a few years after I graduated and we were both working, and I was happy with our life, so happy. Two years after we got married, I fell pregnant with you.”

Mum turns her hand around so she can lock our fingers together and squeezes three times. I do the same back to her.

“I was over the moon when I found out. I couldn’t wait to have my own little family, and I thought your dad would be the same, but something changed about him. He said it was too soon, that we’d only just settled into working and having that kind of life together. He wanted more time with just the two of us before we had children. He wanted to travel, see the world, have experiences. I just wanted to be a mum.”

“You’re the best mum,” I tell her, trying to hold back my tears as I see hers start to fall.

“I thought once I had you, he would realise that nothing was better than holding you, that no amount of travel or fun would surpass how it felt to see you grow every day. But it wasn’t enough for him, and he left before you even turned one.

“I’ve tried my best to give you the world while also protecting you from it. I only want the best for you.”

“Do you know I’ve never once wished that I had a dad? It’s never mattered to me that he hasn’t been here because you’ve done everything for me, and I’m so lucky to be your daughter. I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you to let me go when I was eleven, but you did, and I’m so grateful for it every day.”

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