Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“And I could even maybe forgive that, if she actually showed that she was sorry and that she understood that she was wrong. But she doesn’t! She just talks about it like… about her feelings and how awful she felt and how trapped she was, and how unhappy, and just… yes, okay! I get it! But your feelings don’t excuse your behavior! It’s like… yeah that was a good reason to murder someone but it’s still a murder, you’re still going to prison!”
Brooke stopped talking, apparently realizing that she had her fork in a death grip and was panting hard. She took a few deep breaths. I pushed her water glass towards her and she sipped it carefully.
“So anyway,” she said quietly, “it didn’t go well. The phone call, I mean. I was angry that Mom still wasn’t… that she was acting like everything was fine. Just an I’m sorry, that was all I wanted from her, you know? But she wouldn’t even give me that. Or it was always followed by ‘but’ like, ‘oh I’m sorry but you have to understand…’ and that just cancels out the apology.”
“We had a fight, and at the end of it… Mom ended up breaking down. She was just sobbing uncontrollably, I’d never heard her like that. It was really startling. I didn’t know what to do, or say, and I thought at first—I thought that she was upset because we used to be so close and now we couldn’t even have a single phone call without fighting.” Brooke shrugged. “I guess it was stupid of me to think that it was actually about me and our relationship. But no. It was about Theo.”
Of course it was. Virginia had made her life all about him, and it saddened me. No person’s life should ever revolve around one other person, be that a spouse or a child or a friend, or anyone else. You had to have more than one person in your life.
“Mom said that the show hasn’t been going well, and that they even had to…” Brooke paused, her eyes going wide. “Oh! That was the other thing she let slip. Dad—the critic who trashed the restaurant? Theo paid the guy to do that. He heard the guy was moving to San Francisco and paid him to make his first review about our place, and to say it was shit. Mom told him about the menu change and everything and I guess Theo threw a huge fit. I don’t know if he was thinking about paying for a bad review of us before that but after that he definitely was.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “About the reviewer or that things aren’t going well.”
“He’s gotten really egotistical, I guess,” Brooke said, her voice soft. “Mom’s really unhappy.”
I nodded. “This is going to sound callous of me,” I admitted. “But I don’t care. I’m not sympathetic. I feel bad for the production crew who just are trying to do their jobs, the second assistant cameraman or whoever. But your mother? She made her bed and now she has to lie in it. This was her choice.”
Brooke nodded. “I agree.”
I stared at her. “You do?”
“Yes.” Brooke’s tone was firm. “The thing that really struck me… is that Mom and Theo had this whirlwind romance, right? But she just jumped right in with both feet. I bet you, that if she had actually done things the right way and taken her time, asked you for a divorce, then started dating him and all that… I bet she would’ve seen this side of him much sooner. She would’ve gotten the hell out of that relationship way sooner. But she didn’t do that, and now, she’s stuck. And it’s her own fault.”
“That makes sense. I agree.” In a perverse way, it reminded me of my own relationship with Stevie. We had jumped right in, caught in the blinding romance, and now we were both being forced to take a step back and evaluate.
And unlike Virginia with Theo, I was finding my conviction to be with Stevie only growing. She was the one that I wanted, hands down. Now that I’d been forced to take that step back, take stock, I was only feeling more strongly about Stevie, my feelings intensifying instead of fading.
It would’ve been a reason to celebrate, if I was able to do something about it like call her up.
“Why can’t you talk to Stevie about it?” I asked, before I could stop myself. “You saw her this weekend, didn’t you?”
“Two days ago, actually, on Tuesday.” Brooke shifted in her chair, and I could see that her eyes were bright again, like she was about to cry. She looked incredibly distressed. Was Stevie okay?
“What’s going on?”
Brooke bit her lip, then burst out, “Stevie’s pregnant!”
It felt like my fucking heart stopped.