Page 91 of XO

The sun is peeking over the horizon when I walk up the garden path and smash my fist against the glossy white door. When there’s no answer, I continue the banging, until the damn thing finally pulls open.

“Rosie?” my mother says, tying her robe tighter.

I swing, my open palm connecting her cheek with a force I didn’t know possible. Mom’s head snaps to the right and while I try to tame my breathing, she slowly looks up at me with a knowing remorse. She looks older than I remember. Perhaps it has something to do with guilt she rightly deserves.

“Is everything Jacob told me true?”

“If it’s what I’m thinking he’s confessed, then yes.”

I take a moment to let her words sink in. “Did you have an affair with Mr. Lynch?”

She nods.

“For how long?”

“Just over a year.”

My hands ball into fists by my sides. “So, all those times you said you were out of town, you weren’t. You were with him.”

Again, she nods. “Why don’t you come in. I’ll put the coffee on. We have a lot to discuss.” My mother turns and heads down the hall into the kitchen. I feel like a heathen about to cross the holy threshold, except it’s the other way around. I’m about to step into hell. Closing the door behind me, something catches my eye, and I swallow hard. I see the hole Jacob punched in the wall, done when Jacob last saw my father alive. When I had inquired about it, Mom said the damage had been done by the paramedic gurney.

In the kitchen, Mom busies herself making a pot of coffee while I stand with my arms crossed. Sensing my anger, she takes the lead.

“Ask me anything.”

“Did you love him?”

“No, it was just sex.”

“I wasn’t talking about Mr. Lynch,” I seethe. “Dad! Did you love Dad?”

She stirs the coffee. “In the beginning, yes. I adored him. Toward the end, no. I didn’t have any love for him.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “Rosie, your father and I were two very different people. We simply fell out of love.”

“You fell out of love. If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have killed himself. So,youfell out of love withhim!”

“That’s unfair.”

“Is it? You broke his heart, Mom. And you did it in the worst possible way. You treated him worse than shit on your shoe, I’m not surprised he did what he did.”

“Don’t you dare say his suicide is on me, Rosie. Your father had issues. I may have been one of them, but I wasn’t the catalyst. He’d been fired from work and struggled—”

“So, you’re saying losing a job was the catalyst over finding out his wife was cheating on him with hisfriendacross the road? The same man Dad welcomed into his house. You were cheating right under his nose, Mom. Practically rubbing it in his face and kicking him when he was down.”

“That’s an unfair assessment—”

“You know what’s unfair? Letting a teenage boy carry the weight of a lie for a decade. Pretending that him having to cut Dad down from his noose was a normal fucking experience.”

“It’s not normal.”

“No, it’s fucking not. But you were too caught up in your sordid life to give a fuck about him and what he had to go through. And why? You convinced him to say it was a stroke to protect your dirty little secret? That’s disgusting!”

“You’re right. But I was also thinking of you. You were still so young, Rosie, with your whole life ahead of you. I didn’t want his poor choice affecting your life.”

“His poor choice?” I rage, swiping at the ceramic fruit bowl on the counter. It flies off and smashes into the fridge, shattering, just like my soul. “The man is dead, Mom! Can you not be such a bitch for half a second and listen to how you’re sounding?”

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