Page 68 of The Deadbeat DILF
She nodded as she placed her hands in her lap. “I came to apologize to you.”
My eyes widened. “Apologize?”
“These last few months without any contact with you have been … sobering. I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I’m disappointed with myself,” she admitted, glancing down at the table. “To be honest, Brooke, we’re jealous of you.”
Jealous? No way.
“You chased your dreams, and you achieved them. You’ve always been the smartest and the most hardworking out of all of us. I don’t know where you got it from. You see how me and your dad are.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the way we’ve treated you. Every time we saw you doing well, we felt bad about ourselves. But that’s not your fault. It’s something we need to deal with.”
I’d never heard a genuine apology come out of Mom’s mouth before. “Do the others know you’re here?”
She nodded. “They’ll come and talk to you in their own time, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I just want you to know that we may be jealous and bitter, but we also admire you. You’re smart and successful. You’re everything everyone else strives to be.”
I shook my head. “I’m not that great. I just do what I need to do.”
“And that’s still admirable. We take shortcuts. We’re lazy. We make the wrong decisions,” Mom admitted with a soft sigh. “When I see you, I see everything I wished I had become. I know that’s wrong and that’s made me harsh toward you. For that, I’m sorry.”
A lump formed in my throat. Did our distance really affect her this much? I thought she didn’t care.
“I don’t see you as bad, undeserving people. I want better for all of you,” I told her. “I just couldn’t help but feel used.”
“And we’re going to stop that. We’re not going to ask you for any more money,” Mom promised me. “We’ve been reflecting on it, and we realized it made us lazy. We didn’t bother to make something of our lives or try hard to make money because we told ourselves we could rely on you. But we won’t do that anymore.” She took a deep breath. “Your dad is going to work at the store with me. I’ll keep him accountable. Your brother is going to learn how to work for someone before he works for himself. Even Gemma has decided that she wants her own place with Brandon, and saving for that is more important than buying clothes.” She shook her head at herself. “It’s pathetic that we were begging our own daughter for money.”
“It’s not pathetic,” I said. “I want to support my family. If any of you got sick, I wouldn’t hesitate to help. I just…” I sighed. “I just felt like you didn’t respect me.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, swallowing hard. “I’m going to try to do better. I want to do better. You’re my only daughter. I don’t want to lose you.”
Tears glistened in my eyes. I’d been dying to hear these words for years, and finally, she was saying it.
All I wanted was to be cherished by my own family. This wasn’t a cure for all the damage that had been done. This didn’t solve everything, but it was a step in the right direction. That made me hopeful.
I thought of Mike and Robert. Slowly, they were making progress. I could do the same.
I stood up and walked over to her side of the table, tightening my jaw to keep my tears from falling as she wrapped her arms around me. I rested my chin on her shoulder, my bottom lip threatening to tremble. I felt like a little girl again.
When I was little, I thought she was the best mom in the whole wide world. I remembered her braiding my hair for school and all the times she put band-aids on my scratches. Once, in elementary school, I’d won an English competition, and when I brought the certificate home, she’d picked me up and hugged me so tight.
Maybe we could heal the relationship.
Afterwards, I returned to my seat and we finished dinner.
“Robert’s a good cook,” Mom said, swirling the spaghetti around her fork.
“He is,” I agreed.
“I apologized to him earlier, before you got home. I’d been so rude to him the last time I was here. But now, I can see he makes you happy, and that’s all that matters to me.”
I smiled, feeling emotion flood me again. “Thanks, Mom.”
She had to catch the next train home, so she didn’t stay for long after dinner. I offered to let her stay the night, but she didn’t want to intrude. I suppose she was adamant about showing she wasn’t using me.
Robert fixed her a to-go container with more pasta for the others at home. After she left, I felt a little shocked.
She hadn’t been here for long, but our small conversation had had a huge impact.
She wanted to fix things. I wanted to fix things.
Maybe what seemed impossible was actually possible.
