felt lighter after my call with Hollis. But calling my mom was another story. With Hollis, I could unload. I knew my call with my mom would be different, however.
I nearly chickened out and texted her instead. But the light caught the glint of the wedding band I was still wearing, and I pulled up the courage to select her photo on my phone and hit the phone option.
Closing my eyes, I counted the rings. One. Two. Three. I had almost breathed a sigh of relief when she answered.
“There you are,” she said in a voice that sounded easy, breezy—the opposites of what I expected.
“Mom?”
“Yep, it’s me. How are you, baby?”
I opened my mouth to question it and then closed it again. “Um. Fine. How are you?”
She blew out a breath. “I’ve been better.”
There it was. “Yeah?” While James had told me they were fighting, he had not mentioned what caused the fighting. It could be anything, I lied to myself. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Victoria. It’s okay. I know that you know. Your dad confessed.”
How strange to feel simultaneous rushes of relief and anguish. I was relieved I didn’t have to tell her. It gutted me that my dad did. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Why are you sorry? This has nothing to do with you.”
“I found out right before I left. I wanted to tell you when I said goodbye, but I didn’t want to break your heart and then leave you.” My eyes filled with hot tears and I blinked them away. “I’m sorry.”
“Tori, please don’t apologize.” She made a sound like she was clearing her throat. “You have no ownership in your father’s transgressions. He’s an adult and he owned up to his wrongs.”
“How are you handling it all?”
“Oh, you know.” I heard a rustle of papers. “This is the end of our marriage, so I guess I’m handling it as good as I can be.”
The words may have been delivered casually, but they landed violently. “You’re getting a divorce?” I asked, barely holding it together. I pressed my shaky fingers to my mouth as twenty-four years flashed before my eyes.
“Yes. It’s been a long time coming.” She paused. “I think I knew before he told me, if I’m honest. Sometimes you ignore the things that give you pause because you want to believe that you have an overactive imagination. That it’s all in your head. Turns out it wasn’t in my head.”
I could barely breathe around the bowling ball of ache in my stomach. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Tori. My marriage is not your concern. I’m sorry that your parents won’t be together anymore. That’s not the life I had planned when I had you and James.”
“You gave up so much for him,” I said, bitterness in my throat. She gave up so much and still, my dad took everything.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You dropped out of college to have James. And then you didn’t finish your degree because of me.”
For the first time over the course of this phone call, my mom laughed. “Honey, I didn’t do that for him. I did that for me. For you both, too. I was so thrilled to be a mom. I wanted to be there for all of it—every first word, every first step. Your dad worked two jobs so I could be there for you full time, while he finished college. So, please, don’t think I gave up anything for him.”
I hadn’t known that. “Why didn’t you go back for your degree?”
“You want to know a little secret? I only went to college because your grandma and grandpa expected it of me. I chose English because it seemed simple enough. But it wasn’t a passion of mine. I’d need to think long and hard about what I want to study.” She chuckled. “How sad that I’m in my forties and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?”
Hearing this was like having a conversation with myself. I had always assumed I was like my dad, but I was more like my mom than I knew. “I don’t think it’s sad,” I told her. I hoped I was half as brave as my mom. The fact that she wasn’t falling apart, sobbing on the phone, was inspiring. Also, humbling. For my entire life, I thought that my mom needed my dad. But she didn’t.
“When are you coming home?”
“Tomorrow. I have a few things to do here first and then I’ll go home.”