Not My Mother by Miranda Smith (lightweight ebook reader .txt) 📕

All the reasons I fell in love with him come rushing back. His loyalty. His patience. Maybe it’s the wine, or the time of night, or the emotional exhaustion. Whatever it is, I can’t stop myself from leaning in for a kiss.

42 MarionNow

I wake up on the sofa. Evan is sleeping on the opposite end, his feet halfway off the couch. He is still wearing that shirt, his glasses askew over the bridge of his nose. Nothing happened beyond the kiss. I don’t think either of us wanted to look back and think we made a decision based on weakness. And yet, he was vulnerable in telling me how he felt. That’s not easy for Evan to do.

It feels nice waking up beside him again. It’s a feeling I could get used to.

My phone rings, which causes Evan to stir. I pat around the sofa, trying to find the source of the ringing.

“Who is it?” Evan asks.

Finally, I find it, stuffed between two cushions.

“It’s the hospital.”

I quickly answer, stumbling to the kitchen. I listen, nodding my head as the person on the other end speaks. Then I place the phone on the counter.

“Everything okay?”

“Mom is awake again,” I say, trying to process what the rest of the day might look like. “The nurse says she has been up for hours. She wants me to visit.”

It’s time.

From the moment I saw Mom in handcuffs, I’ve been waiting for this. Days that felt like a prison sentence, with the answers she couldn’t provide the only way to freedom. Now that the time has come, I’m nervous, my stomach tangled in knots.

Carmen is talking to her first. I gave her a call before leaving the condo, giving her a head start. She opens the door, and nods for me to come in.

Mom is lying in the bed. She looks as weak as the last time I saw her, but there aren’t as many tubes and bandages, it seems. She doesn’t appear frightened, like she did that day at the jailhouse. When she sees me, her eyes fill with tears. It’s like she’s just been given the most wonderful gift in the world.

All the stoicism and calm falls away, and I rush to her side. I lean over the bed, hugging her. At the end of the day, she’s my mother. The woman who loved me, and that’s what matters most. I’m thankful I have the opportunity to see her again, and I don’t think I ever fully understood how devastated I would be if I’d lost that chance.

“Where’s Ava?” she asks.

Again, a wave of guilt. For a few moments, I’d forgotten about her, so lost in this emotional reunion. And I’d forgotten about Carmen standing in the corner of the room. It’s like the only two people in the entire world are my mother and me.

“Des is with her in the waiting room,” I say.

“When can you bring her to see me?”

“Soon,” I say, not quite capable of deciding whether or not this is the right environment for a one-year-old. “I need to know you’re okay first.”

“I’m awake. That’s a start.”

Carmen steps closer. “I’m heading outside. Take all the time you need.”

She leaves, and the door closes. Not only is she giving us time alone, she is reading the letters I gave her. I’m hoping, praying, there will be enough in there to help Mom’s case.

Now it really is just the two of us. I sit beside her, too afraid to speak, waiting for my mother to make sense of everything that has happened these past two weeks.

“I’m sorry for how I acted when you came to visit me at the county jail,” she begins. “You have to understand how long I’ve kept all of this hidden. I thought maybe it would never come to light, and when it did, I wasn’t ready to face you. It was selfish of me to leave you in the dark.”

“I’ve been in the dark longer than this past week.” The deceptions and half-truths didn’t originate from her arrest; I’ve been hassling her for answers my entire life. I want to hear Mom’s version of events before bringing up the letters. After all the deception, I suppose it’s a test of sorts. “Tell me everything.”

“Let’s start at the beginning.”

43 MarionNow

She begins.

“I was so young.”

For a moment, Mom appears younger, like she is reverting to her prime, leaving behind the frail woman in her bed fighting to heal. Memories are an elixir in their own way, relieving the hardness of time, transporting a person back to a place, to see that familiar face, inhale that familiar smell.

“My childhood wasn’t the best, I’ve told you that much. When your father and I learned we were pregnant—Cliff was his name—we weren’t sure how we would manage.”

“My father.”

I’d read about him in the letters but hearing her say his name makes him feel solid. Almost tangible, even though I’ve forever lost the opportunity to reach out and touch him. He was this person who really existed, who really wanted me.

“He had a good heart and a wicked sense of humor.” She smiles. “He had his demons, too. We all did back then, it seemed. He would have been a good father, with a little more time. He died before you were born. It was his death that made me decide to put you up for adoption.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about him? I’ve asked you so many times.”

“I wanted to tell you. I’ve felt like I betrayed him the most in all this. You deserved to know all about him, how wonderful he was, but I couldn’t run the risk of anything linking back to what I’d done. So I had to keep it all a secret.”

There are more questions I want to ask, but I wait, allowing her the chance to speak in her own time.

“I met