Page 53 of Peaches

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” I wave at the food. “I can come back?—”

“Oh, nonsense,” Mom retorts, reaching into the cabinet for a third plate, but Mark stops her with a gentle hand.

“I should actually be going,” he murmurs, eyes bouncing to me before resting back on her. “You two enjoy breakfast, and I’ll see you later?”

Mom hesitates with a long look and then she nods. “Okay, yes. Later.” The words are a promise, and I have to hide a smile in the crook of my shoulder.

Mark gives me a sheepish look on his way out of the kitchen. “Sorry you found out like this, kid,” he says, a pinch of regret between his brows.

I pat him on his bare shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry about.” I hope he knows I mean it.

Mom and I wait for him to grab his shirt and a few other items from down the hall, from herbedroom, while the shock of it still blares through me. He presses a chaste kiss to Mom’s cheek on his way out and says he’ll see us both at work.

When the front door shuts behind him, I turn to stare at my mom.

“What?” she asks, smiling through another shrug.

I burst out laughing. “How long?”

She has to think about it. “Short answer? A few months. But the long and more complicated version is the last decade, on and off.”

“Mom! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, honey,” she tuts. Her golden eyes pierce mine, made bright by the splash of red that frames her face. “I wanted to keep you safe from it.”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

She shakes her head, holding her hands out around her. “From the uncertainty and messiness of love.”

“Mom, I’m a full-grown adult woman. I hardly think you need to worry about how your love life impacts me. I’m not even that surprised—I’ve seen the way you and Mark look at each other. But . . . I didn’t think you’d actually take the plunge. I thought you never wanted to be in love again.”

She clicks her tongue, leaning a hip against the edge of the counter as she crosses her arms over her chest. “I didn’t, you’re right. For a long time, I didn’t. I was jaded and naive about the control I thought I needed to have over my life to feel safe. Turns out, love sometimes creeps in whether you mean for it to or not. Mark’s been trying to lock me down for years, and until very recently, I’ve been too scared to let him. I actually think, more than anything, I’ve been scared to admit toyouthat I was wrong.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“Oh, honey, I think I messed up with you in a lot of ways.”

I frown. “How?”

She takes a moment before speaking again, her forehead bunching in that way it always does when she’s thinking something through. “I was so vocal with you about all the ways I’d been hurt. I wanted you to have my story about your father because I thought it would help you someday. That you might learn from my mistakes.” She wipes a finger over her bottom lip before saying, “I should never have put that on you.”

“Mom,” I say around an exhale.

“Let me finish,” she insists. “I think it felt like your story as much as it was mine, to tell you of the kind of relationship that brought you into the world but that also left us alone to face it. I just wanted to keep you safe from all the ways I opened myself up to hurt. I never wanted you to experience anything like it, so I made sure you knew what it was.

“But . . . I think I messed up, Olivia. I didn’t realize that I was forgetting to tell you about love itself. How, unbound by the flawed humanity of the two people in it, love is a beautiful, shining beacon ofeverythinggood. It’s something to strive for, not shy away from. I forgot to tell you that despite the hurt we caused each other, I don’t regret falling in love with your father because it was one of the best years of my life. Sure, it didn’t work out. He wasn’t the right one in the end. But there was bravery in trying, and all these years I spent ashamed about the experience only proved my own cowardice.”

There are tears running down my face when she finishes, but I’m not sure when they started falling. The words are everything I didn’t know I needed to hear: the permission to do something different, the bravery that it takes.

Be brave.

Rhett’s words—and now, my mother’s.

“Well,” I say on an exhale, more tears stinging in the corners of my eyes. “I guess since we’re being honest, I have something I need to tell you.”

Mom’s eyes widen as they trail down my body, like she might be able to find some clue of what I’m about to tell her. “Are you okay?”

Another tear spills over, gliding down my cheek. The proof that all she cares about isme. “Yes, I’m just—I’ve been afraid of hurting you.”

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