Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
girl wonder. chapter twenty two
THERE'S something questionable about my mother scurrying me out of the art gallery and into her car as if she doesn't want to be seen by anyone. I don't find the courage to ask about it.
My hands don't stop shaking. The white leather seats of her shining, new BMW aren't comfortable enough to ease my emotions. The entire ride, she asks me questions about me and I tell her everything. Or, rather, as much as I can tell her before thirty minutes pass and she's parking in the garage of her building.
When I enter her apartment, my jaw drops at the sight. We're about twenty storeys high and her windows have a magnificent view of the city. All I can see are lights. For miles and miles, tiny dots of bright white, yellow, red and blue shine like fairy dust, stretching to the horizon.
"Please, sit on the couch. Make yourself comfortable," Mother insists. So I do. I sink into the cushions which are akin to clouds. The couch is situated in front of a massive flat screen TV and a grey stone fireplace, where a fire crackles away.
She offers me tea, wine, ice cream or whatever my heart desires; but I don't want anything to drink or eat. I just want to speak to her. I tell her this and she sits next to me, a tender look in her eyes. Her posture is impossibly perfect. Everything about her is perfect.
"Ask me anything. I owe it to you to tell you all of it."
Two decades worth of questions race through my head and I struggle to even begin. The room is spinning slowly. Eventually I decide that the main question I have is:
"Why?"
I don't elaborate – I don't have to. She understands immediately and sighs heavily. She purses her lips together for a while.
"It's complicated, and it's hard to explain it in a way that'll make you understand why." She hesitates, glancing down at the marble floor. "Most simply... I wasn't ready to be a mother."
That's it? No apology, no details, nothing. I'd learned concepts in college that were easier to wrap my head around than my mother's words. My eyebrows furrow together as I stare down at my trembling fingers. Something doesn't add up. For some reason I expected much more. She never once tried to contact me or Dad. She never once sought us out once she was "ready".
"You've been gone for twenty five years. You didn't leave my father with any way to reach you, and you expect me to believe that you abandoned us because you just weren't prepared?" My voice cracks. "You owe it to me, remember?"
I think of the nights I'd spend laying there in bed, burning holes in the ceiling, imagining what would happen when I met my mother. I wondered if it would be overwhelmingly joyful or incredibly bitter. So far, it's neither.
She takes another deep breath, trying to exhale her guilt, then nods her head. "I do. I owe it to you. I left because I had to protect you."
I should have seen it coming. That's what they always say. "Protect me? From what?"
