Page 131 of Hound Dog
“My boyfriend, John. He and I were together for years when you were in middle school.”
I shot Mom a skeptical look. “Is this a George Glass situation? Are you making up a boyfriend to try to prove some point?”
Mom stopped rubbing my back and instead smacked my arm. “JohnCarter! He and I were together for six years before he passed away.”
“UncleJohn!?”
Again, she rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t really your uncle. You guys just called him that because he was around so much. He was practically part of the family.”
I sat there, shell-shocked. Mom had a boyfriend. Mom had a boyfriend for six fucking years, and I had no clue?
How had I been so blind?
Sure, I knew John wasn’t blood related to us. I knew he was just a good friend of the family. But I never in a million years thought he and mom were together.
I waved my hands in front of my face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.Hold up. You and John were boyfriend-girlfriend? Why didn’t you two ever act affectionately? Why didn’t you kiss?”
“When we started seeing each other, you were all still so young. It felt inappropriate.”
“Okay,” I half-snorted, half-laughed in spite of everything. “What about the other five years?”
“Well, he lived out of town, and he would come to visit a few times a year. That’s why he stayed with us so much.”
“But he always slept on the couch!”
“Finn.” Mom arched her brow at me, and I suddenly felt both queasy and elated for my mom all at once.
“He never slept on the couch, did he?”
Mom simply shook her head.
“Wow,” I said. “Well… good for you. This whole time, I thought you were living like a nun since Dad left.”
Mom chuckled at that. “It took me a while to trust and try again. And John had his own trust issues. What we had really worked for us. I’d send you kids to camp for a month every summer, and he and I had that time all to ourselves.”
I scrunched my nose. “You sent us all away so you could get some!” I wasn’t sure why that was so damn funny to me, but it was.
Mom started laughing too, and we sat there, coffees in hand, shoulders bouncing for a good twenty seconds until we had tears in our eyes.
Slowly, my laughter dulled, and the ache behind Mom’s story throbbed to the foreground.
“Would you have ever told us about Uncle John? Moved in together? Remarried?”
Mom’s smile faded and a far-off look glassed over her eyes. “That was the plan. But a year into our relationship, John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It was progressing fast. We talked about it, and John felt strongly that it wasn’t fair to you kids to let you get attached to a stepfather, only to lose him in a few years’ time.” She sniffled as a single tear escaped, cutting a line through the makeup she’d so carefully applied.
The lump in my throat grew, remembering when Uncle John passed away. Remembering how, in the year leading up to his death, Mom had us stay at our friends’ houses so that she could go take care of him for a few weeks when he got really sick.
My mom had a whole second life I knew nothing about. “Mom,” I whispered and threaded my hand into hers, giving it a squeeze. Then, reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a napkin I had grabbed in the coffee shop and handed it to her.
She sniffled, taking the napkin and dabbing her eyes before looking at me through blurry tears. “Don’t think for a second you come from two parents who can’t commit. Because when I love someone, I give them my life.”
Her words sliced into my heart.Being able to love isn’t genetic.I’m not predestined to fail at a relationship just because my dad left us.
Even if the percentages of divorce were higher if you came from a divorced family.
I could choose this for myself.
I could choose to be happy.
