Page 117 of The Affair
“Really?” My eyes blurred with tears.
“There is a lot left on my to-do list. I have another grandchild on the way, and I still haven’t gone to Europe. And then there’s you.”
“Me?”
“I want to see you happy again.”
“Oh, Mom. Don’t worry about me. I’m—”
“Miserable,” she said, interrupting me. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You stare at that phone like its chocolate from Godiva and you’re on a diet. Every time it chimes, I see your face light up and fall, all at the same time.”
“It’s not important, Mom. This is. You getting better—it’s all I care about.”
“Then, go be happy. I can get better all by myself now. I’m ready. I’m determined.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off, “What is holding you back?”
“You, silly!” I answered. “I can’t just leave.”
“I’m giving you permission to go!”
I swallowed my doubt. “I’m not ready to go yet.”
“Why? And don’t saymeagain because we both know that’s bullshit.”
“Mom!” I exclaimed, nearly knocked back by her foul language. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her cuss in my entire life.
What had they given her in this IV?
“I’m calling Sally in the morning,” she announced. “She’s been dying to visit, and this will be the perfect excuse.”
“You’re firing me?”
A slight smile crept across her face. “Yes. Now, go back to your real life and make me some grandkids.”
Now I really wanted to know what drugs she was on.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t go back. I’m too scared.”
Rather than asking why again, she just stared me down. For being so small and frail, the intimidation she could cause with those eyes was truly amazing.
“I don’t know if I know how to trust anymore,” I finally blurted out, feeling like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Trust.
It was the reason I’d clung to the store during my father’s illness. It was the reason I’d run from Sawyer, too scared to see what might be between us.
“I lost something in the divorce,” I explained. “Now I find myself second-guessing everyone, including myself. How do I know I’m making the right choice?”
“You never truly know, sweetheart. Life is always a gamble.”
“I trusted Reed, Mom. I trusted myself that he was the one, and then everything fell apart. Hell, Nana trusted her gut and fell for her brother-in-law, and we know how that ended. Why should my situation be any different?”
“Because you choose to make it different,” she said, still gripping my hand in her own. “Your nana made a decision—that is true—but I don’t think you’re focusing on the right one. She might have walked away from her affair, but it was the decision to rejoin her marriage that needs your attention.”
“But Papa was already gone,” I said. “She spoke at length about how far gone his memory was. It was the reason she strayed in the first place.”
“Yes, but she came back. She remembered. You don’t remember those last few years he was alive, but I do. I remember the devotion she gave him—it wasn’t out of obligation, as you might believe. When he died, she mourned the loss like a woman in love.”
