Page 116 of How to Walk Away

Kit nodded then. “Actually, we have plenty of time.”

My dad looked at my mother like,Really?Then he sighed, set down Kit’s suitcase, and headed out—while Kit and I frowned at each other.

My mother watched him go, and only after he’d boarded the elevator at the end of the hall did she turn around to face us. Her expression was solemn. She took a deep breath and swallowed. Then she closed the door and took a step toward Kit.

“His name,” she said, “was Derin Buruk.”

Kit held her breath. She glanced at me, then back at my mother, who glanced back at the door, as if confirming the coast was clear.

“He was Turkish. An exchange student. Devastatingly handsome. Black hair and green eyes rimmed with black lashes. He showed up on our first day of senior year, and he was all any girl could talk about for months. I didn’t talk about him. I ignored him. I was dating your dad—since ninth grade—and I wasn’t looking for dates, but I couldn’t help but notice him. He had a movie star quality. He was magnetic. And for some reason, he fixated on me. He passed me notes, flirted with me in the hallways, snuck flowers into my locker. I told him over and over to knock it off, but he said he couldn’t. He stared at me constantly in the cafeteria and at football games. He called me almost daily. He professed love—obsessive love—and begged me to break up with your dad and go out with him.”

I looked at my mother’s hands. They were trembling.

“Turkish men are famously persistent,” she went on, “did you know that? They are very determined about love. Your dad—your wonderfuldad, the love of my life—he’s not really like that. That steadiness, that easygoing nature—they don’t lend themselves to mad passion. He was kind, he was good-hearted, but he was also a high school boy. He got a lot wrong. He knew next to nothing about romance, or wooing, or how to make a woman flutter. We were the best of friends. But I had never come up against a force like Derin. I had no defenses. I did my best. I pushed him away and pushed him away, but he just kept coming back—harder and stronger. The truth was, I liked it. I liked that he noticed me. I liked that of all the girls in love with him, I was the one he chose. I never understood why he picked me. I still don’t know why.”

My mom looked very shaky. I patted the bed down by my knees. “Come sit down.”

Absentmindedly, she did. “That year,” she went on, “over Christmas vacation, your father went away to visit family. He was gone for a week. Somehow, Derin heard that he was gone, and he started climbing the tree outside my window at night and tapping on the pane. I turned him away two times, but on the third night, he said he was leaving to go home soon, and he had to tell me something before he left.” She closed her eyes. “God forgive me. I let him in.

“For the rest of the week, I let him in every time he knocked. He would stay until just before dawn, and then sneak away. The night before your father returned to town, I forbade Derin to ever come back—and he never did.”

“What did he need to tell you?” I asked.

My mom frowned. “You know what? I don’t remember.”

Kit let out a long sigh.

“When school started up again,” my mom went on, “Derin had gone back to Istanbul. I never saw him again. By spring break, I had figured out that I was pregnant, and by summer your dad had figured it out, too. He assumed the baby was his, and I didn’t correct him. It could have been. He was so happy about it. He proposed, and I accepted, and I pretended that Derin Buruk never existed.”

“Until I had my blood tested,” Kitty said.

My mom shook her head. “Until the moment I first saw you. Right then, I knew.”

“Do you hate him? The guy?” Kit asked then.

“No,” my mom said. “I don’t hate him. Not anymore.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No!” my mother said.

“But when you look at me, do you see him?”

“Sometimes. You got his eyelashes.”

“You always said they were Huron.”

My mom gave a littlesorryshrug.

“Does it make you feel guilty?”

“Sometimes. Or afraid.”

Kitty nodded. “That Dad might find out and not love me anymore.”

My mom shook her head. “That he might find out and not lovemeanymore.”

I nodded at Kit. “You never did anything wrong.”

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