He was the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. We became inseparable.” Judith’s smile spread. “I was so in love with him.”
Carol smiled too. Seeing her mom so serene warmed her heart. Rare were the times when Judith didn’t seem to be on edge. As she spoke now, the aura around her softened.
“What was he like?” Carol asked.
“Wild,” Judith stated and laughed softly. “He made me feel…”
“Alive,” Carol said.
Judith nodded. “He wasn’t afraid of living, and he had this way of making me want to live too. He wasn’t concerned with being proper and doing what society told him. He was free from all that, and I wanted to be free like him. He was the one person who made me feel good about myself. I wanted more of that.”
Carol chuckled. “He was your John.”
Judith lowered her eyes for several moments before shrugging. “I suppose he was. I wasn’t as strong as you, Carol. I wasn’t as brave.” Sadness filled her eyes as she eyed her daughter. “I let my friends convince me I could do better. I ended things with Glen and…”
“And married Dad.”
Judith returned her focus to the sky. “Dennis wasn’t… He didn’t have the spark Glen had, but he was steady and sensible. He was able to provide for us, Carol. And sometimes that’s more important.”
A slight jolt rolled through Carol. “Wait a minute. You said you met Glen when you were seventeen.” Carol’s mouth fell open as a smirk twitched at her mother’s lips. “Mom! You started dating Dad when you were fifteen.”
A mischievous little giggle left Judith. “I told you you’re more like me than you want to admit.”
Rolling her head back, Carol laughed. “Oh, my God! Did Dad know?”
Judith’s amusement shifted to something sadder in an instant. “Glen and I had a meeting spot outside of town. I thought I was very clever, but your dad had grown suspicious. He followed me one night.”
Carol gasped. “Uh-oh.”
“I’d never seen your father angry before. He was always so calm. So…boring. His anger was terrifying. Like a hurricane that came out of nowhere.”
“He always had a storm brewing inside him,” Carol observed. She’d seen it every day of her life growing up.
“He…he punched Glen, and they rolled around hitting each other while I screamed for them to stop.”
Carol couldn’t imagine her father on the ground in a fist fight. Her father was always so stiff, so stern. So…proper. “Who won?”
“Nobody,” Judith said flatly. “We all lost.”
Once again, Carol felt a shock down to her core. For the first time in her life, she considered that her mom had never been happy because she’d lived a life of regret. “You chose the wrong one?”
Judith seemed to consider how to answer. “I loved your father. He was a good man.”
“But he wasn’t Glen,” Carol said with complete understanding.
“Nobody was Glen,” Judith said with a wistful smile. “Nobody could ever match him. But if I’d chosen him…”
“What?”
Judith blinked a few times before looking at Carol. “Well, I wouldn’t have you, would I? What have you told me a hundred times about John? He might not have been the right choice, but he gave us Katie. And we wouldn’t change that for anything. I loved your father. He was a good man.”
Carol didn’t miss how Judith repeated herself, as if she were trying to convince the universe she had made the right choice after all. Thinking back, she could remember her mom saying that repeatedly whenever the topic of her father came up. Judith had loved him. He was a good man.
“What happened to Glen?” she asked. “Do you know?”
Judith lowered her face as if her hands held the answer. “He went off to the war.”
“Vietnam?”
Judith’s sadness returned but changed somehow. This ran deeper than the usual melancholy that hung over her. Carol understood why, even before Judith softly said, “He didn’t come home.”
Carol took her hand and squeezed. Her heart ached for her mother’s loss. How tragic that must have been for her. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“When I found out, I cried so hard. I thought I was over him, but…” She blinked several times. “I tried not to think about him. I did okay for a long time. Then you brought John home and your dad started comparing him to Glen and saying how you were exactly like me.”
Carol opened her mouth, remembering how much her parents disapproved of John from the start, without even giving him a chance. “Is that why Dad hated him so much?”
Judith shrugged one shoulder.