Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,31

making their mark in academia.

If she couldn’t make it happen with someone like Steven, who’d been so in synch with the life she was creating, there was no chance she’d ever be able to make it happen with someone like Brandon, who was so wrong for her.

“I’m disappointed, Dad. Don’t tell me you’ve gone and joined the dark side with Mom. Soon you’ll be telling me about a very nice boy you play racquetball with.” She grinned, hoping to distract her father with the joke. Instead of laughing as she’d hoped, her father frowned.

“I know school’s important, sweetheart—you’ve worked too hard to throw it all away. But love doesn’t mean you have to give up on your goals. It just gives you someone to celebrate the triumphs with.”

“I know that, but right now I simply don’t have space in my life for a serious relationship. Later, when I’m more settled, when I’ve gotten a tenure track position, there’ll be time. Now the timing is just bad.”

“I’ve often wondered,” he said, “if we’ve set you a bad example, your mother and I.”

Though they’d been married thirty-six years, her practical father looked at her mother like she was still an eighteen-year-old beauty queen. She looked at him like Paul McCartney and Steve McQueen rolled into one.

“Sure, Dad. Terrible example. Thirty-some-odd years of love, fidelity and happiness. Gosh, I wouldn’t want to follow in those footsteps at all.”

“Actually, sometimes I think you don’t.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

He turned in his seat and looked at her steadily. “For a long time, I’ve wondered if you think falling in love means you’d have to be like your mother. To follow her path at the expense of your own.”

Leanne snorted. “Me, be like Mom? I can’t even apply a convincing set of false eyelashes. No one’s ever going to mistake me for Sandy Galloway’s daughter.”

Her dad winced but didn’t try to deny it. Leanne tried not to feel the sting of his silence too deeply. “I meant that you think falling in love would mean you’d have to stay at home, worrying about redecorating the dining room, instead of writing a new book. Or teaching. Or traveling and exploring the world.”

“I don’t think that,” Leanne argued, even as a small part of her wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, her father was more perceptive than she’d given him credit for.

“I know you and your mother haven’t had the easiest time these past few years but you need to look at it from her perspective. All she’s ever wanted was to be a mother and raise a big, noisy family.” He held up his hand, forestalling her interruption. “It just wasn’t in the cards for us. There were a lot of tears and heartbreak before we were blessed with you.”

Her father’s admission stunned Leanne into immobility. Her mouth hung open and she knew ought to offer condolences or sympathy but all she could manage was a weak, “I beg your pardon?”

Her father faced her steadily. “Infertility. Your mother and I struggled against it for a long time.”

“I didn’t…didn’t know.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” he said. “You were a child. The burden wasn’t yours to carry.”

With her father’s stunning admission, years of clues and random comments slotted into place. She’d often wondered why they waited nearly ten years before they’d had her. Growing up, Leanne wished desperately for a sibling, someone who could defuse the overwhelming demands her mother placed on her over the years.

Behind the façade of perfect couple and perfect wife, there had been a secret sorrow, a burden all the perfectly coordinated hand towels in the world could never overcome.

“Dad, I honestly had no idea.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s never been something your mother’s felt comfortable talking about. But I know—despite what you may sometimes think—that you’ve always been your mother’s shining achievement.”

Reaching over, Leanne squeezed his hand, moved by his rare display of emotion. “I’m glad you told me.”

But as the house lights fell and the velvet curtains began to sweep apart, she couldn’t help but weigh her father’s revelation against the proof of the past.

She’d been fourteen when her mother announced that she’d entered them in a mother-daughter pageant. Her plans had been expansive.

“We’ll get matching dresses and practice a routine. We can get our hair done and our nails too. It’ll be so much fun!”

Even then, Leanne knew her mother was disappointed, burdened with a plain, bookish daughter. No pep rallies or cheerleading for her. No football star boyfriend or pageant success to bond over.