Page 12 of Embers in Our Past

“Don’t start with me. What is going on?” she continues, and I hear my dad in the kitchen cleaning up behind me and decide to at least start walking further in to make myself useful if I’m going to start a yelling match with my mom.

“First, let’s start with the fact that I had no idea Edith, her fiancé, and Freddy were coming today. You never told me, so I wasn’t aware I had to inform you of anything.” I look at my mom as I start throwing away empty plates. “Second, this is all too much, Mom. I told you when I was in Boston, I was feeling like I needed a reset. I told you everything I was going through. The news from the doctor and the infertility struggle were a lot to bear, so this is just too much, too soon. The thought of dating isn’t something I have given much consideration to, especially dating on that level.”

“What does that mean,dating on that level?” My mom just doesn’t get it.

“Mom, let’s say I started dating Freddy. Think about it! It’s like starting at date ten, not date one. I would be jumping in from a few steps in. It’s not like he doesn’t know me at all. He might be thinking about kids. He might be a few steps ahead. Dating someone with this kind of baggage isn’t really something he would like to sign up for. Please don’t make me spell it out for you. I just don’t want to deal with that. Maybe going out, going dancing, getting drinks, sure. Not something serious. You have to understand how this feels for me. Plus, have you thought about the fact that he might want kids? What about that? And how that might feel for me? I have to deal with that whole conversation then.”

My mom is watching me as I’m explaining everything, and I can see the lightbulb go on as I take the time to explain.

“I’ve overstepped, haven’t I?”

No shit.I don’t say it, but I think it. Sometimes, it takes a moment for her to get there, but finally, she does. That’s when I see the woman I came running to when I returned from Boston, crying and needing my mom to take my pain away. There’s the woman who stood at the airport waiting to hug me and give me endless moments of her time so I could cry on her shoulder.

“Yes, Mom, you have. You’ve crossed the line from comforting to smothering. And it’s just too much. I can’t do this, and I think I need to go back to Boston. I think being here was good for a little while, but I now know I took on too much by running away,” I confess.

“Does this mean you’re going back tohim?” my mom asks. It’s obvious she was never a fan of me marrying Clay. I knew that, but since I left him, it’s only become clearer. I think it’s time to nip this in the bud. He was always good to me. He’s always been kind and loving and never showed anything but his best to her.

“No, Mom, I think I really messed up with Clay. And I think he deserves something better than the way I treated him,” I say right as both my parents pull me in for a huge embrace.

“I doubt that, ladybug,” my dad says as he kisses the top of my head. My dad loves me and embraced what I had with Clay. “Clay loves you no matter what. But we stand by whatever and whomever you love. Right, Collette?”

My mom clears her throat. After a beat of hesitation, “Yes,” she finally confesses.

I pull away. “I know that was hard to say out loud, Mom. I wish you would be kinder to Clay. He really is a good person, even if he isn’t with me anymore. Why do you hate him?” I wipe away a lone tear that falls down my cheek.

My father clears his throat. “Collette, speak to her. Just tell her how you’re feeling and explain your side of things.”

I look between them, trying to understand what’s going on. “Tell me what?”

My mother relents and moves some hair away from my face. “You know I was married to Frankie’s father before your own father came into the picture. And you know how hard that was for me. How hard it was to get by?”

I nod.

“Well, I know I was pretty candid with how that was for us, but I didn’t tell you everything. Franklin Sr. was my high school sweetheart, which I told you. I mean, I loved him so much. In my opinion, he could do no wrong. My parents begged me not to marry him, but he was the most handsome boy in school.” She laughs and looks down at her hands as she twirls her wedding band around, lost in thought. “He couldn’t even buy me a wedding ring, so he got me a ring pop and said that one day he’d replace it. I thought it was romantic. Can you believe how stupid I was back then?” She laughs, but it holds no humor.

“I got pregnant, and I thought it was going to be the start of forever. But Frankie came along, and it was so much harder for us than I ever imagined. Babies are so expensive. The moment he arrived, the fighting started. He had colic, and breastfeeding wasn’t something he tolerated, and he needed special formula—another huge expense. This just added to the stress. Franklin, my husband, he couldn’t provide for us financially. We lived paycheck to paycheck. What I didn’t tell you is we sometimes had no food. We went weeks without any food.” The moment she says this, I take in a breath, sadness overwhelming me, knowing my mother endured that kind of life.

“One day, when Franklin was off doing God knows what, I packed my things, ready to leave him. I had a whole plan for the next day, but he never returned. Another day passed, then another, yet he never came back. I swear he just never came home. I don’t know if he just realized he wasn’t fit to be a husband and father and couldn’t provide for us or what. Maybe he believed he wasn’t the man he wanted to be and just left. I honestly can’t say. But the day he never came home was the best and worst of my life. Being a single mother was hard. But not raising Frankie in that type of environment was a blessing all the same,” she says, holding back the tears I can see threaten to spill from her eyes.

“Don’t get me wrong, when I look at Clay, I don’t see Frankie’s father. What I do see is someone who has a tough job. Clay is charismatic, a good-looking guy who captures hearts. Most of all, I see the two of you together, and it reminds me so much of my first marriage. You two are literally so much like the two of us. And when the fertility issues started and you mentioned the fighting, the parallels were there to when I had a new baby and I had issues with Frankie’s dad. It’s not exactly the same, but for some reason, it resonated with my past.

“I know, it’s wrong to project. Your father has told me it’s wrong for me to do what I’ve done. To compare Clay to Frankie’s father because he’s been nothing but amazing. He’s provided and done the opposite of him in every way, but I’ve let my anxiety take over. I don’t know why. I am so sorry. I wanted something better for you because no matter what, I don’t want you to go through what I did years ago. Then, today, when I invited Freddy over, I let his ability to provide for you overpower everything. I just want you to be happy and comfortable. I think I’m trying to make you live a life without any discomfort. You are more than capable of providing for yourself, and I need to remind myself of that instead of worrying so much.” She finally looks up at me and gives me a sad smile.

“Mom, Clay gave me so much. We never lived paycheck to paycheck. And I contributed too. I never said anything to make you think otherwise, did I? And the fighting wasn’t ever yelling matches. It was strained because we were sad. There wasn’t love lost between us because of our struggles to conceive though.” I try to think back if I had insinuated something in my calls.

“I think early on, you had made a comment about him being a new firefighter and how much work he put in to not make much. You two were recently married, and my heart broke. Then, down the line, you mentioned starting a family, the fertility issues and the tension you were feeling, and it all sounded so familiar. So yes, I took it upon myself to worry. And it was my fault to make this about me. I’m sorry, Abigail.”

“And I’m sorry, Mom, that you felt you needed to worry about me financially. It’s completely normal for couples to have less money when they first start out. We were figuring things out in the beginning. We always knew it would be a lot of work for little return when he first started firefighting,” I say.

I probably made a comment without thinking. I should have never said anything out of respect for Clay. But I was probably in shock seeing how much he earned after all the hard work he put into his training and shifts, and it took a moment to get used to it. We found our groove, and with time, he started to get raises. Had I known the extent of my mother’s past, I would have understood what a trigger it would have been for her as well.

“As for our fighting, you have to understand, we were navigating something incredibly personal for us. We did the best we could. You can’t judge us for something you have no personal experience in. And you can’t put all of that on Clay. He was incredibly kind and was doing everything to be supportive. He wanted to do everything to ensure I was loved, when all I wanted to do was run,” I explain.

My mother nods and stays silent, realizing the extent of her actions and her judgment toward my ex-husband.

“I’m going to work on improving my meddling skills though.” She winks.

I laugh. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

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