get on the same old tired loop about how Karl and my marriage breaking up was all my fault. That if I’d worn lipstick more or worn prettier dresses, he wouldn’t have screwed his twenty-three-year-old paralegal. Because that is bullshit and I am sick to death of you putting it on me.” I take a big sip of wine for courage and then say what I should have said a long time ago. “It’s not fair and it hurts. A lot.”
My mother puts her lemonade down on the coffee table and then crosses to me. “You’re right, Mallory. It’s not fair for me to have done that, and I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “That’s it? You harangue me for months about how Karl’s cheating was my fault and now you say you’re sorry and I’m just supposed to forget it ever happened?”
“Not forget,” she tells me. “But I hope you can understand. I told you those things because they are what I’ve been telling myself for the past twenty-seven years. That if I had just been prettier or better put together or made better meals or never argued with your father, then he wouldn’t have cheated on me.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and I hate that it makes me feel sorry for her. And I hate even more that it makes me forgive her. “Mom, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.” She puts a hand on my cheek. “I appreciate that you’re trying to spare me this, my dear, beautiful girl, but I do have to do this. I do owe you an apology of epic proportions. And I do need to talk about it with you because I need you to understand.”
Again, she glances over toward Nick’s house. “I don’t want you to make the same mistakes with Nick that you made with Karl and I made with your father.”
“Karl cheated on me, Mother. When we most definitely were not on a break.”
“I know. And he is scum of the first order. I won’t even try to tell you otherwise anymore. He deserves whatever he gets and more.” She tries to pull me into a hug, but I’m still too raw to accept the embrace. “But you stopped being honest with yourself a long time ago, Mallory. Long before you found out he was cheating on you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
“You were unhappy for years,” she answers, her gaze steady on mine. “But you had a terrible role model in me of what a real marriage should look like, and for that, I’m sorry. I should have shown you how to stand up for yourself, how to ask for what you need”—her voice breaks—“how to love yourself enough to not be afraid to rock the boat. And how to know when to leave.”
Tears slide unchecked down my cheeks. She’s right in that my marriage just repeated the mistakes of hers. I did what I thought I was supposed to do. But it’s not entirely our fault, and I can’t let her take the blame for everything. “You were great, Mom. In the end, I married a selfish prick. I didn’t want to quit law school. He made me feel guilty if I didn’t. I didn’t want to just build his practice, but he made me feel like it was how we were a team. And I sure as hell didn’t want to work for beans and have to ask every time I spent his money. But he was a master at making me feel that my wants and needs were just me being selfish. I can take the blame that I let him treat me like a doormat and should have fought for myself, and I probably would have acted that way even if he’d been a great guy. Sacrificing for your man was my role model.” I give her a shaky smile. “But at the end of the day, sometimes you just married an asshole.”
“This guy sounds like a tool beyond measure,” Sarah adds. Then she winks at me. “Do you want me to tell his girlfriend he gave me herpes?”
I chuckle. She’s totally kidding, obviously, but I love what her words really mean. My chest tightens. I have family in my corner. I have a sister.
“Thanks, sis, but I say good riddance. Hell, his girlfriend will someday wish his worst trait was herpes.”
We all chuckle for a minute, but then my mom is zeroing back in on me again. “So what