Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Oh dear.
“Will you at least sit?” I say, gesturing at the small dining table.
She does, looking adorably out of place in her pearls and pumps in Kurt and Lewis’s trendy Nob Hill home.
She crosses her legs and sets her folded hands on one knee, looking directly at me. “I want to apologize. I want to apologize for not respecting that you were your own person, with different dreams for yourself than I had for you. I was so fixated on the type of daughter I’d planned on having, that I didn’t properly appreciate the daughter I had. Have.”
To say that the apology catches me by surprise is an understatement. I don’t realize how desperately I’ve needed to hear that, to know that I’m worthy of love and respect as I am, rather than if I’d been a little less headstrong, a little less ambitious.
“Thank you,” I manage, my voice a little clogged. I sure am doing a lot of crying these days.
“When you told me you were going to California all those years ago to start your own business with your grandmother’s money, I should have hugged you tight, told you to tell me when your plane landed, and that I couldn’t wait to see you at Thanksgiving.”
I brush impatiently at the tears on my cheek, and her face softens for a second before she seems to remember that she still has to deliver part two. “But,” she says, lifting a finger. “First, I’d have asked if you were moving across the country for the right reasons. If it was truly a place you needed to be, or if you left simply because staying was hard given our acrimonious relationship at the time.”
The rebellious Charlotte stirs immediately, and the million reasons why I had to be in San Francisco, about how it wasn’t me running scared, it was me being smart.
But the adult Charlotte, the one who’s learned there’s more to life than proving her point and getting her own way, lets herself consider the possibility that my mom could be right. That my reasons for moving to San Francisco, while valid, were not vital. At the very least, I could have done it better. I could have done a lot of things better.
“You’re right,” I tell her in a calm voice. “It was easier to leave than to try and fix things. But I should have tried. I don’t regret coming to San Francisco. I’m proud of everything I’ve built here, and being near Silicon Valley did turn out to be essential. But I could have, should have, found a way to do both. To be an East Coast daughter, and a West Coast entrepreneur.” I give a tremulous smile. “I should have come home for that first Thanksgiving. Whether or not I was invited.”
Mom gives a shaky nod, her own eyes watering a little, before she lifts her chin. “And yet, here you are, doing the same thing. Moving back to California the moment a relationship gets hard.”
“I’m not moving, Mom. Or rather I am, but not to California. I just came back to pack my things and tie up some loose ends. Ten years ago, my flight to San Francisco was one-way. This time, it’s round-trip.”
She sucks in a breath. “You’re coming back to New York for good?”
I nod and smile. “Guess you’ll have to make room for me at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
She smiles then promptly frowns. “Well, I’m glad, but you still ran away, young lady.”
“Young lady?”
“Tell me, did you even stand still when you set the divorce papers on the kitchen counter for Colin to find, or were you still walking as you simultaneously rolled your suitcase out the door?”
I flinch, both at the mention of his name, as well as the fact that her accusation rings uncomfortably true. “You’ve talked to him?”
“Unlike you, he came to dinner last Sunday,” she says stiffly. “Why I have to learn of your divorce from my son-in-law rather than my daughter directly—”
“You’ve known this was coming, Mom,” I say gently. “I’ve never pretended we weren’t getting a divorce. It’s a little ahead of schedule but not much.”
“But why? I thought you cared about him?”
This time I let the old rebellious Charlotte out just a little bit because I can handle deserved accusations, but not that one.
“It’s because I care about him,” I retort. “I want him to be happy more than anything. That meant letting him be with Rebecca sooner rather than later, so I made that happen.”
“Yes, but I want you to be happy,” she says stubbornly.
I laugh at the unexpected sweetness of that statement. “I know you do, Mom. I want that too, and I’ll get there. It just won’t be with Colin and me riding off into the sunset.”
She doesn’t relent. “I still think it should have been a conversation between you two, not just you leaving those papers for him to find.”