Page 41 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
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Later, as she tottered home, only slightly tipsy, with still no reply from Jack and yet still holding on to the feeling that all was okay with the world, Jenna had the sudden, surprising thought that maybe she’d call her mother. She couldn’t even remember the last time they’d spoken; it had been months, at the very least. Over dinner, Zach had mentioned he’d had a video call with her that morning, and, thinking of Henrietta’s oblique comments about her parents’ relationship, Jenna had felt a sudden pang of—something. Longing or regret, she wasn’t sure which, but she knew she wanted things to be different with her parents.
And so, as she let herself into the house, she reached for her phone. Nope, still no text from Jack, which wasslightlysoul-destroying, despite her insistence on optimism. It had been over twenty-four hours now, and the radio silence was starting to feel a little hurtful. Never mind. Life went on.
Defiantly, she swiped to call her mom.
“Jenna…?” Her mother sounded hesitant and a little incredulous that she’d called.
“Hi, I thought I’d wish you a happy Thanksgiving,” Jenna greeted her in a tone of slightly forced joviality. “Zach mentioned you guys were spending the day with golf friends?” Somewhat weirdly, her parents had discovered golf upon their retirement and become semi-obsessive about it.
“Ye-es, some friends of your father’s.” Jenna didn’t miss the emphasis, like they weren’t her mother’s friends. What exactly did that mean? Did it relate in any way to what Henrietta had said, or was Jenna reading way too much into offhand comments? Her mother let out a little uncertain laugh. “It’s so nice to hear from you.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner,” Jenna said, and her mother let out the same little laugh.
“Well… I wasn’t expecting it,” her mom told her, and instead of feeling stung, as she might once have, and snapping something back, Jenna just sighed.
“I know,” she said quietly. “I’m… sorry.”
“Oh, Jenna.” Her mother sighed too, the sound full of sadness. “You don’t need to be sorry.” She paused. “If anything… I’m the one who should be sorry, and I am.”
Well, this was brand-new territory for them, Jenna reflected wryly. Her conversations with her parents had tended to be staccato-short, snapped-out phrases rife with unspoken hostility, at least on her side. On her mother’s side she’d assumed indifference, but now she wondered.
She wondered about a lot of things.
“Why, Mom?” she asked quietly. “Why should you be sorry?”
“Oh, just…” Her mother’s voice wavered. “I know you’ve been angry with us for years now, and I’ve never really done anything about it, even though I know I probably should have.”
Also brand-new territory, and it left Jenna momentarily speechless.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said at last, because she really didn’t.
“I’m not sure I do either,” her mother replied, and they were both silent for a moment, in a way thatdidn’tfeel hostile. Finally her mother spoke. “I suppose… I just want to let you know that I’m glad to hear from you. After talking to Zach recently… I realize maybe your dad and I… we hurt you without meaning to. I did, by being so…”
She stopped then, and Jenna wondered how she might have finished that sentence. She decided not to press. “I just thought you didn’t care all that much,” she admitted, an ache in her voice because it felt exposing, to say that much.
“Oh, Jenna.” Her mother gave a soft sigh. “Of course I cared. I still care. But I let… other things… get in the way of that. Of us.” She paused, seeming like she was going to continue in that vein, before suddenly switching to a new tack. “I suppose,” she said, “you always seemed so independent to me. You were scheming to get out of Starr’s Fall since you were tiny. You had such big dreams about seeing the world, going places…”
That had all come crashing down. “I know I did,” Jenna replied, “but you and Dad, Mom… you’ve always seemed like you had this fairy-tale romance, and somehow that didn’t translate to a fairy-tale family.” She felt her throat thicken and she forced herself to plow on. “You and Dad have always been… your own unit. Totally contained and… consumed with each other. Zach and I felt like we were on the outside, looking in, rather than part of something.” She’d never verbalized how that had felt, and saying it now only made her feel sad. Did it even matter anymore?
Her mom was quiet for a long moment. “I never meant to make you feel that way,” she finally said, sounding unhappy. “But I accept that I—we—did.”
Which wasn’t all that much of an apology, really, yet Jenna recognized it was perhaps all her mother could give in this moment. She thought of Laurie, willing to give her biological mother so many chances, because she didn’t know the full story. Maybe Jenna didn’t know the full story with her own parents. Maybe loving someone was about loving the worst or weakest part of themselves and not just the strongest or the best.
It was a lot to think about.
“I’m glad we’ve talked,” she said at last, and her mother clutched at her words like a lifeline.
“Me, too. And I… I hope we can talk again. I love you, Jenna. I know I haven’t said it nearly enough, but I do.”
Jenna was silent for a few seconds, absorbing the throb of emotion in her mother’s voice that she didn’t think she’d ever heard before. “I love you, too,” she said.
They said their goodbyes, and Jenna stood there for a moment in the darkened kitchen, the phone in her hand. She glanced at it again, out of habit rather than hope. No reply from Jack.
And that, amazingly, really was okay at last. Mostly. She wasn’t going to let it define her, or them, if there evenwasa them, which right now it didn’t seem like there was. Which was also okay.
Mostly.
