Page 189 of Movers and Shakers

“I’m handling it.”

“And I just . . . I just got worried,” Mom added. “Like I always do.”

“Your therapist said this might be too much,” Dad reminded her. “And it’s okay if it is.”

I blinked, still not understanding this new side of him.

He sounded . . . like a dad. Like the man I wanted to bemydad.

“Wh-why are you doing all this?” I asked him slowly. “For years, you were fine with traveling all the time and letting Mom stay alone.”

“H-honey,” Mom said. “Don’t be mad at him, I—‍”

“It’s okay. She needs to know what happened.” He turned to me and my heart kicked into high gear as I thought of all the words he could say. We didn’t do this. We didn’t confront each other. We just pretended things were fine. “I didn’t know how bad your mother was. Whenever I talked to her, she said things were fine. You said they were fine too.”

“Because you didn’t seem to care.”

“Rosie, I always cared. I answered all of your calls. I would have come back if I knew how much you were doing for her. I always said I would be here if you needed me. It was the deal I made when your mother told me no to taking you with me.”

“W-what? Taking me with you?”

Mom looked at her hands. “Rose, he . . . When he left, he told me he was worried it would be too much for me, that raising you after the divorce would be difficult, and that you would be better with him, either half the time or all the time.”

“But you said he didn’t want to be a dad. He wanted to travel.”

Dad looked at Mom, his lips pursed. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“I-I know, but I thought you were lying when you offered.”

He sighed and then looked back at me. “Sure, I wanted to travel, but I was a parent first. I thought you two were fine, and the minute I saw how Linda really was, I came back to help her find the help she needed.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around this. He wanted me to go with him? And Mom had told him no? All my life, I’d thought he’d leftbecause he didn’t want to be a parent. It made his sudden return impossible to believe.

But this changed everything.

“You really said no because you thought he was lying?”

Her face crumpled. “That, and I thought you would be better off with me. I thought I could handle it, but as time went on, and you wanted fame . . .‍”

“Hey, it’s not because she wanted fame,” Dad reminded her.

“Well, what else could it be?” I asked. “This all started getting worse right after I became Lila.”

“There were hints of it when you were born,” Dad said. “But we all thought it was postpartum depression. Instead, it’s something else. Have you ever heard of borderline personality disorder?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a mental disorder that makes it very difficult for her to manage emotions, especially her anxiety. After you told me what happened with Juno, I knew she needed help, and now we know why.”

“But I’ve been going to therapy,” Mom said. “I did everything they said and I’m still so scared. I’ve done so many stupid things because of my own emotions, and I want to be better.”

“I don’t think that’s how getting better works,” I said.

“It’s not,” Dad agreed. “And while I wanted you to enjoy your time in LA, if you’re not, then it’s okay.”

“I liked part of it, but the minute I met those people—‍”

“Ruth and Tom?”

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