Page 81 of The Americana Playbook

“Of us?” I laugh, not daring to tell him how Honey used to tease that Fitz and I would marry one day. “Oh, she’d love it. She’d tell me to take my mother to the bank.” I twirl the stem of my glass for a minute before bringing it to my lips.

We both lean back when the waiter comes to remove the now-empty plates.

Fitz thanks him before addressing me. “I mean… I can’t really remember Honey hating your mother, but I guess I never really had a reason to see them go toe-to-toe.”

“Hate is an understatement,” I say.

“But she loved you. A lot,” Fitz tells me before dropping his voice to whisper. “Probably more than Madeline.”

I laugh because this is true. Honey loved us differentlyandloved me more.

“There’s something different in you, honey.”I’d curl up against her on the couch in the salon as she listened to Frank Sinatra.“You don’t belong in this family. Just like me. But you should be better than me. Do something with your life.”

“She probably was onto something though,” Fitz says, pulling me from the memory. “About your mom.”

“You think?” I ask sarcastically.

It’s only now, after stepping away from the family and returning, that I understand it. Honey, in some ways, was jealous of my mother, who quickly became an important part of my father’s political career. Mom wasn’t the kind of congressman’s wife who made appearances only during campaign events, like I’m doing now. She was the wife who pounded the pavement, who shook hands with my father’s constituents, who knew his district better than he did. She carried all his campaigns. Shestilldoes. Honey never had that chance with my grandfather, and the truth is, in another place and time, I’d admire my mother’s work ethic and commitment if she wasn’t such a ruthless, evil bitch.

But a work ethic and determination do not a mother make. What makes a mom is someone who is around, who tries to understand you, who lets you be yourself. My grandmother might’ve been outlandish and often inappropriate. But she was what my mother wasn’t—genuine and loving despite it all.

“When Honey died, it’s not that I just felt like I had no one,” I begin softly. “It’s that no one cared I felt that way.”

“Enough sulking.”

“She was old. You need to get over it.”

But as I tried to get over it, I got stuck in the quicksand of trying to get through it on my own. And then, as my parents normally do, they expected me to somehow pick myself up by my bootstraps and behave like an adult when I was still a kid. A very hurting kid.

“I know I didn’t handle it well. I just didn’t really know any other way.”

Across from me, Fitz’s eyes soften.

“What’s with that face?” I ask.

“I’m just really sorry,” he says quietly. “I feel like I abandoned you.”

I shake my head. Was I hurt at the time? Of course. Does it still sting remembering how devastating it was to lose not one of the most important people in my life butboth? Of course. But that was so long ago. And who we are now couldn’t be further from who we were then.

“We were kids, Fitz. I wasn’t your responsibility. But I liked seeing you that way today.”

“Like what?” he asks.

“Looking out for others.” I smile softly. “I bet you made a lot of core memories for those students. It’s nice to see how much of a role model you are.”

Fitz flinches awkwardly. “I’m not much of a role model. I?—”

He’s interrupted by his phone, which he silences. It’s Mr. Foller.

“Answer it,” I tell him.

Fitz slides his phone into his pocket. “No, he doesn’t matter as much as you.”

For a second, right on the dock, the world stops. It must be my brain taking a snapshot. Fitz has given me a core memory too, one I’ll want to hold onto when I’m on my own again.

I look down at my lap.

“What’s wrong?” Fitz asks.

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