Page 51 of Just Like This
“I have less than a year, Alicia,” my father said solemnly.
A sob escaped from my mother’s lips, and she covered her mouth to suppress the rest. Valerie went over to her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. My father extended his hand and grasped hers. Seeing them act as though nothing happened, as if she had never left, was too much for me. I turned on my heel and headed for the door, ready to run, but strong hands reached out and stopped me.
“Stay,” he whispered.
“I can’t,” I replied with a shaky voice.
“He needs you,” Garrett reminded me.
Tears started to stream down my face, and I could taste their saltiness on my lips. “I can’t watch this. Let me have this one moment of weakness. Please.”
With a nod, Garrett released his hold of me, and I escaped, rushing through the corridors of the hospital, searching for an exit. Why should we comforther? Who was there to comfort us when my dad was first diagnosed? Who did we have to lean on? Only each other. I’d suppressed every fear and spent many lonely nights crying because my father needed my strength. I was strong for him and for Valerie, but I wouldn’t be strong for that woman. She didn’t deserve it. My mother didn’t deserve to cry in the hospital room like her entire world was crumbling around her because she had left everything behind the day I turned eighteen.
My mindless escape led me to the front of the hospital, and I sat down on a familiar bench. This was not how I should be spending my last moments with Garrett and my last few months with my father.
“There you are.” Valerie’s voice was breathless as she sat next to me. “Why did you run out like that?”
“Are you kidding me right now, Valerie? Did you see that show Mom put on?”
“It wasn’t a show, Cami. She’s upset. We need to be there for each other.”
I was one second away from blowing my top. “I don’t understand how you can forgive her so easily, Valerie. I just don’t get it.”
Valerie sighed next to me. “I’m about to lose one parent. I don’t really want to lose another.”
I understood Valerie’s point, and I wanted to agree with her, march back up to my father’s room, and hug my mother hard and forgive her. But her leaving that day—my eighteenth birthday—was the act of ultimate betrayal.
I remember waking up on my eighteenth birthday, eager to celebrate with my friends. My parents were letting me stay home from school, and my mom promised to take me to Seattle for a day of shopping before coming back home for a girls’ night with my best friends. The thought of macarons from Le Panier and Beecher’s world-famous macaroni and cheese made me practically giddy. I raced through my morning routine and then downstairs where my mom sat quietly at the kitchen table.
“I’m ready,” I announced eagerly.
My mother looked up from her coffee cup solemnly and motioned for me to sit down across from her. “We’re not going to Seattle today, Cami.”
“We’re not? But we’ve had the whole day planned for weeks! Did something happen?”
My mother sighed and sat back in the kitchen chair. She clicked her perfectly manicured red nail on the side of her mug and looked up at me. “I know you won’t understand this, but for the past twenty-five years, I’ve given you and your sister everything I possibly could. I’ve sacrificed so much for you both, and now that you’re eighteen, it’s time for me to start living.”
I was so confused. What exactly was my mother telling me? The house was quiet because no one else but us was home. And then I spotted them—the suitcases stacked neatly by the front door. I glanced back at my mother whose expression remained stoic. Cold even.
“Are you going on a trip?” I asked, hopeful that those suitcases were meant for something more benign than the reasons that were starting to form in my thoughts.
“No, Cami.”
I didn’t want to say the awful truth out loud. “You’re leaving,” I whispered. I held her gaze and demanded the answers to questions that I wasn’t brave enough to ask. For a few seconds, I thought I saw something waver in her armor, but it was gone in an instant.
She glanced away, the muscles in her jaw tense, and stood. She gripped the back of the chair and was quiet before she spoke again. “I want you to know that I do love you, Camille. I love your father and Valerie, too. But sometimes, love isn’t enough to keep a person where they don’t want to be.”
And then she was gone.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” I murmured, echoing the last words my mother said to me.
“What?” Valerie asked.
“Nothing.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Garrett standing close by, watching us carefully. I stood, resolved. I loved my father and Valerie, but it wasn’t enough to forgive my mother. “I can’t handle this right now, Val. Garrett is leaving tomorrow, and I feel like my heart is going to split in two. Mom has had seven years to come back. She can wait for me.”
