Page 74 of Everything We Thought Was True
Some people said the first days after death were the hardest. I disagreed. Those first few days after my mother died, I was numb. That was how I could plan a memorial service down to every detail and sort through all her belongings—donating some, saving some, and purging others. The numbness was like a morphine drip keeping the pain at bay and my head hazy.
After her memorial service, I returned to California and threw myself into my work, a positive distraction from the reality that my mom was gone. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks, the pain so powerful I wondered if I would survive. The grip that grief had on me was suffocating and made even breathing feel agonizing. Kevin had hovered over me for weeks, trying to soothe me as I fell apart.
Now here I was, five years later, staring down at her final journal—at her words that she’d taken the time to capture. That were important to her. That freed her—and freed all of us.
I ran my hands across the page, caressing her handwriting. “I forgive you, Mom,” I whispered. “I know you did it out of love. You tried your best. You just wanted to protect us. Thank you.”
I turned the page, and the remainder of her journal was tragically blank—a visual reminder of the years she’d lost. The entry I’d just read was the last time she wrote in her journal—the last record of her thoughts and feelings. I gently closed her journal and held it close to my heart.
The door to the garage opened, and Kevin entered the kitchen, carrying bags of goodies from the farmer’s market. He placed them on the counter, took one look at me, and quickly rushed over. I must have looked like a hot mess from all the crying I’d been doing while reading my mom’s journal.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m okay. Just sad. I’ve been... reminiscing about my family.” My face contorted. I started crying again, my body heaving though no sound coming out—an ugly cry I couldn’t stop until it had had its way with me.
Kevin hugged me. “Oh, Lena. Wow, you’re really upset. Let it out.” He rocked me as I cried, shushing me gently.
Atticus tried to wedge himself between the two of us, licking repeatedly, which he did when one of us was distraught.
“It’s okay, boy.”
Atticus wormed his way closer and licked my cheek.
“Hey, big guy,” I said, trying to soothe him.
He was so intuitive—an old soul stuck in a dog. That thought dislodged a memory of the time when I was eight and got in hot water with the nuns in CCD religion class for refusing to believe that dogs didn’t have souls and wouldn’t go to Heaven. The nuns had wanted my mom to punish me. Boy, were they surprised when she took my side, agreeing that dogs most certainly had souls and would go to Heaven.What a mama.
“The last few months have been hard on you,” Kevin whispered. “No matter how happy you are for your dad, I know it’s strange for you that he’s getting married again.”
I felt guilty because he was right. “Planning my dad’s wedding all these months took me back. Made me keep revisiting the past in a lot of ways. My parents, the way they fell apart.” I stopped, trying to keep myself from crying again, my emotions surfacing. Kevin listened in his quiet way, eyes locked on me, not interrupting. “It still feels a little like I’m betraying my mom, even though that’s silly. I can’t help thinking of what she went through. I think of my parents on their wedding day all those years ago, and it just makes me... sad.”
I pictured the photos of my mom and dad at the altar the day they got married at St. Bartholomew Church. They were so young and looked innocent and hopeful.Did they know they’d fall apart someday? Did my father have an idea he would betray my mother in order to be himself? Had she any inkling that the happy marriage she envisioned would crumble?
“I had a feeling.” Kevin hugged me harder and stroked the back of my hair, running a strand through his fingers. “If you weren’t a little sad about your parents now that your dad is tying the knot again, I would think you were in denial.”
Kevin nailed it. I was mourning the demise of my parents’ marriage all these years later. I needed to take a mental snapshot of the two of them—the younger versions of Frank and Teresa, when they were happy and in love—and hold on to it. And then put away the rest. What came after was painful, but that wasn’t the entire story of who they were.
“Thank you for understanding,” I said, giving him a weak smile. I wiped my eyes and grabbed for a tissue to blow my nose.
Kevin took in the table, which was littered with the remnants of my earlier trip down memory lane. “Hey, what’s all this?” he asked, gesturing to my mom’s cards, letters, and journal.
“Oh, I finally read my mother’s journal this morning. The one she kept when she was sick,” I said, and his eyes widened. “It was calling me. I felt ready after all these years. Especially after my dad and I had our bonding session in San Francisco and he told me his story. I wanted to find out the rest of hers, you know? And here’s the thing. She forgave him, Kevin—she really did—for what he did to her, to all of us. And deep down, I’m not surprised. My mother tried not to make us hate our father.”
“Because that’s not who she was. She didn’t want you and your brother to hate your dad—or who he was.”
“But she made us keep it a secret. That she did.” I hesitated, knowing I had to tell him the rest. “And this is the part of her journal that really surprised me. My mom regretted that. She recognized that she was acting out of fear because of the times and that it forced usall to live a double life. She was sorry for that.” I leaned into him, and he put his arm around me.
“She was doing what she thought was best with an unusual and difficult situation. She wanted to protect you and Anthony. And herself. It couldn’t have been easy for her.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“They had tough choices—both of them. They did what they thought was right. And now... you have the choice to continue that legacy of secrecy or free yourself from holding that all in.”
I thought of how the parental relationship might be the most fundamental and powerful one a person has. It was probably the greatest single influence on a person’s outlook and who they became. Most of us spent our lives either trying to live up to our parents’ ideals or actively rebelling against them.
“You mean I don’t need to keep being the former me—trying to fix everything—all while holding back a dam of lies and omissions?” I oozed sarcasm.
Kevin smiled tenderly, and my face crumpled as I felt the sobs returning. I buried my head in his neck while the tears flowed. He held me, rubbing my shoulders in a soothing back-and-forth rhythm.
