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)
I hide a smile and turn back to Drew, who’s thankfully, changed the subject away from my thorny marriage, and is filling me in on our mutual friends from high school. I continue to smile and nod through the rundown on who’s divorced, who’s had twins, and who’s feuding with whom before I give in to the urge to excuse myself.
Not because I don’t enjoy Drew, not even because the conversation’s boring me, but I just need a minute to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. Being back here among people from my old life is stranger than I thought it would be. Which is saying something, because I’d been expecting it to be strange. It’s like being in a time machine where you’re surrounded by people who don’t know you now, but even worse, you realize maybe never knew you then—not really.
With a quick glance to make sure my mom isn’t watching, I slip out of the room, and before I realize where I’m headed, I take the stairs two at a time until I’m standing outside my old bedroom.
I push open the door.
I’m not expecting it to look the same, and it doesn’t. The bed’s in the same place, but the bedding is navy and taupe instead of the teal duvet cover I’d begged my mom for during my all-things-Tiffany-Blue phase. The nightstand is a dark cherry wood instead of white, and there’s a bookshelf where my dresser used to be.
I know I’m not the first adult woman to have her childhood room turned into a more all-purpose guest room, but I’m still caught off guard by the wave of forlornness that rolls through me. I hadn’t realized how much I was hoping to see something familiar in this room until it wasn’t there.
I sit on the side of the bed and give a quick jump of surprise when I see someone standing in the open doorway. Though I’d come up here for a moment of silence, the forlorn feeling eases slightly when I see my father.
“Hey, Dad.”
He looks hesitant. “May I come in?”
I shrug. “Your house. For that matter, this stopped being my room a long time ago.”
“Not so long ago. If I remember correctly, your mother held off changing things in here until just a couple of years ago.”
“Really?” I ask, genuinely surprised. “I’d have thought she’d have rid the house of all things Charlotte before my plane even touched down in San Francisco all those years ago.”
He gives me a chiding look I remember with perfect clarity. “Perhaps you don’t know your mother as well as you thought you did.”
“Perhaps not,” I say, smoothing a hand over the unfamiliar bedspread. “Perhaps she didn’t know me either.”
He surprises me by laughing. “No, definitely not. But then, I don’t think she would have ever claimed to know you well. It was part of what frustrated her—and me—so much. You just never seemed to be thinking what we thought you were thinking.”
“Or what you wanted me to think,” I point out.
“True,” he admits. “Justin was fairly easygoing, and it didn’t really occur to us until you came along that not all children adhered to the plan you’d laid out for them.”
“Well, props for trying to enforce your plan for as long as you did.” I don’t mean to say the words, which come out with a slight edge. But apparently time doesn’t heal all wounds, because mine are still there. Not as raw as they once were but not entirely healed over either.
My dad looks away, and I expect him to give one of his weary Charlotte’s so exasperating sighs and leave, the way I’d watched him do so many times in the past. Instead, he surprises me.
We’ve already established that my father isn’t exactly a fuzzy, heart-to-heart kind of guy, so it’s both nice and a little strange when he comes and sits beside me on the bed. He exhales, but it’s a thoughtful sound, not an annoyed one. For a few moments, neither of us says anything.
He breaks the silence. “We thought you’d come home, you know.”
Wow, so we’re doing this. The conversation has been a long time coming, but I confess I didn’t think it would happen in the midst of a party, and I sort of always imagined the showdown would happen first with my mother.
I look over. “She told me not to.”
This time he does give in to the weary sigh, but it doesn’t annoy me as much as it used to. “Charlotte, when you—if you—have children, you’ll learn that there’s nothing quite so difficult in the world as watching them try to pull away from you. And you pulled hard, and you pulled often.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“It’s probably not entirely your fault,” he shocks me by saying. “You are your mother’s daughter after all.”