Page 138 of The Cost of Forgetting You

I haven’t even gotten there yet. What happens to me in all this? Where do I end up?

“One step at a time,” Alicia murmurs as though she can hear my thoughts.

“Is someone with you?” Mom asks. I picture that thin little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. Something so familiar that for a minute I can’t breathe around the wound missing it opens.

“No.” I shake my head, though I know she can’t see me. “Mom, I’m not calling because I’m coming home. I’m calling because I need help.”

“Help?” Her tongue curls around the word in disgust. “What do you mean, you aren’t coming home?”

“I didn’t say that; I just—” Heat rises up my throat. Fills my cheeks. I feel ill with a fever all of a sudden, like my entire body is revolting against this conversation. I want to give in. To say never mind and tell Alicia I’ll figure something else out. Anything else but this.

But then I think of my dad, sitting beside me on the bench at Lucy’s grave. His wide, somber gaze as he told me he was ready.

And I decide if he can be, then so will I.

“You know the money Grandma and Grandpa set aside for my wedding?”

“What?” She pauses. I’ve tilted her off axis, and it takes her a second to recenter. “Is this some kind of joke? Who the fuck are you marrying? Lucy’s kid? Delilah, so help me God?—”

“I’m not marrying anybody, Mom. That’s exactly the problem.” I lock eyes with Alicia. Hers brim with courage I don’t feel. Tears that I very much do. “I’m not getting married any time soon, but Dad needs to go into care, and I could really use the money to help him.”

“Sell the damn house.”

I blink. Alicia doesn’t.

“I can’t, Mom.”

A chair scrapes against some faraway floor. She’s pacing now, which is how I know I’ve really pissed her off.

“And why the hell not?” Mom bites.

Something cuts loose inside me, and suddenly everything I’d been holding so tightly comes unraveled in my hands. “Why not? How about because it’s my father’s? Or because I still want to be nearby in case he needs me. I can’t dump him at a home and then abandon him.”

“Sure you can. He did the same thing with us, dumped us for Lucy like?—”

“All he did was kiss her!” I push off the swing and brace my hands on the railing, gaze trained on the spray of flowers. Alicia’s brows hit her hairline. “Jesus Christ, Mom, all this time you made it out like they had some wildly sordid affair, but they just fucking kissed. And I know that’s wrong—I do. But you watched me suffer for years, and all you ever did was double down, heaping coals on top of his head. You wanted me to hate him as much as you did, so you wouldn’t be alone. You told me he didn’t love me or miss me. But he did, Mom! He does. He loves me and I love him. He’s my father. And what happened between the two of you never should’ve been my business in the first place.”

Silence deadens the line. I don’t think she’s breathing, but neither am I. We’re in a standoff that spans hundreds of miles and all the years I’ve spent burying my feelings inside to keep the peace. Her peace, while my own heart was torn to shreds.

“That money was meant for you. For your wedding. Your future. You’re not gonna shack up with some dumb hick in a plain church with no one around to care.” Hurt beads on the surface of her words. It spills through the line, and I’m drenched in it. “I will not let you throw your life away for that man. Not like I did.”

I close my eyes. Squeeze them so tight stars burst in the darkness. “That man is my father. And I’m sorry that your life didn’t go the way you planned, but that’s not my fault. I don’t care about some theoretical wedding that I may or may not one day have. What I do care about is taking care of my dad, the same as I’d care for you if the situations were reversed.”

I bite hard at my bottom lip, drawing blood. It’s sharp and metallic on my tongue, and so bittersweet. All of this is so damned bittersweet. Realizing how much I didn’t understand, how much my father loves me, just as I’m running out of time. Finding Truett again, falling for him all over again…but not having the courage to let him in.

Finally standing up to my mother, while knowing it may very well mean I lose her, too.

I’m here now. Might as well go for broke.

“Mom, I love you. I do. But if you want to have any kind of relationship with me when this is all over, then you need to think really carefully about what you decide.”

“Are you threatening me?” she bites out.

I turn toward Alicia. She’s watching me carefully, a fight lighting her eyes that reminds me I’m not alone. It’s weird how anger gets such a negative rap. It can be such a source of power, of drive. And having someone be angry for you? That can change your life.

“Not a threat, Mom. The truth. My grandparents left that money for me. And if I want to use it to help my dad, then that’s my choice. But if you decide not to cosign on that? Well, you can keep it. Because whatever wedding I have one day, you won’t be invited to it.”

“Delilah—”

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