Page 72 of Parallel

I lay my palms flat against the old oak table. It fit in the farmhouse, but it’s too worn and heavy for this bright room with its thin walls. “I never meant for any of this to happen. But the tumor has put everything in perspective,” I say, carefully skirting around how limited my time may be.

She frowns. “Jeff thinks it’s the tumor making you behave this way.”

The softness I felt just a moment ago, watching her move around the kitchen, is gone. In its place is something sharp-edged and cold. I know I’m not the daughter she wants. I never have been. She wanted a normal child who couldn’t occasionally predict the future, who didn’t wake knowing things she shouldn’t. And maybe any parent would, but I’m still her child. Her only child. And that’s where her loyalty should lie. “How long have you been having conversations with Jeff about me?”

“I’m just—” She stops, throwing up her hands. “I know you won’t want to hear this, but you have to look at it from my perspective. Imagine if I had some disease. If I were schizophrenic, for instance, and suddenly decided to give away all my belongings and live on the streets—you’d intervene, wouldn’t you?”

I’m more weary than I am angry. “I really hope you’re not comparing my tumor to a severe mental illness.”

“I don’t know what to compare it to!” she cries desperately. “You’re making a lot of decisions that don’t make sense. You and Jeff were really happy together, so I have to question it when you suddenly decide you want nothing to do with him.”

I’m not sure why Caroline and Trevor figured out so easily that I wasn’t entirely happy with Jeff, while my mom doesn’t appear to have a clue, but I’m guessing it’s my fault: ever since her breakdown after my father’s death, I’ve been on a tight wire, trying to keep her safe from grief or disappointment. Just as I did with Jeff, I made it my mission to hold her together in the wake of tragedy—a role I never allowed myself to retire from. And part of that was convincing everyone I was thrilled to be dating her best friend’s son.

“Mom, I don’t know if we were ever all that happy together. Dad pushed this relationship, and then you and Abby did. I don’t know what was real and what I was convincing myself of to make all of you happy.”

Her lips go into a flat line. “Of course you were happy. Don’t start telling yourself otherwise to justify your cold feet. You’re throwing Jeff off to the side like garbage now, but I have no doubt that in a week or a month you’ll realize what a mistake you’ve made, and I’d rather you figure it out now.”

I know she’s wrong. Maybe I’ll be sad, and lonely, but Jeff would not make me happy now that I’ve seen how much is possible. If I got back together with him, I’d spend my remaining few years wanting something else, something more, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. “It wasn’t a mistake. And long-term, Jeff’s better off this way too.”

“Do you see how unlike you this is?” she asks. “Look at all the people you’ve hurt. Jeff’s devastated. His parents are devastated. And these are people who were good to us, who supported us emotionally for years. Financially, too, when your father died. It’s just such a slap in the face.”

Ah, there it is…the spiraling guilt. I knew she’d find a way to bring it to the surface eventually. I feel sick, and she hasn’t even gotten around to mentioning what a nightmare it will be to cancel the wedding at this late date. The flights people have paid for, the gifts to be returned, the deposits we won’t get back. Or the fact that when I die in a few years she will have absolutely no one to lean on.

“Think about your uncle flying out here,” she continues. “I bet he can’t get his money back for the ticket. Abby’s siblings are flying in too. Jeff’s grandparents are driving up from Florida, and I think they’ve already left—they made a three-week trip out of this. It’s not just about you.”

Maybe she’s right, I think. Maybe I should just fix this and suck it up for the next year or two. Leave people thinking well of me, leave my mother’s life somewhat intact. The crying and the drive have exhausted me, have left me unable to think clearly, but when I hear those words in my head I feel a kind of sick resignation, a familiar resignation. It’s exactly what I felt when she asked me to stay after my dad died, and when Jeff followed me to D.C. with his big romantic speech. Fear is what led me to walk away from Nick yesterday. And guilt is what’s led me to make every other bad decision in my life. Maybe it’s time I took a different path.

“I’m going to lie down for a while,” I tell her.

“That’s a good idea,” she says tersely. It sounds an awful lot like what she wants to say—go sit and think about what you’ve done.

The room I think of as mine is really just a guest room, full of bland white furniture and muted pastels my mom found at some discount store. The quilt at the end of the bed is the only remnant of my past. I curl up, pulling it over me, and feel a fresh wave of tears coming. Was I blind, with Nick? If our situations were reversed I wouldn’t have gone running back to my ex at the first sign of failure. I’d have waited. I’d have fought. It just feels as if there should be more to our story than this pathetic end.

Nick and I lie safely curled in bed, listening to the wind rattling the windows, blowing over the chairs out on the terrace. It’s the biggest storm I’ve seen since I arrived in London so many months ago, and it serves as a reminder—even here, deep in the heart of a foreign city, we’re still never entirely safe. Not that I really needed reminding. It’s rarely out of my head for long these days.

“Mary downstairs stopped me this morning,” I tell him.

He laughs, dragging the fluffy duvet up to my neck. “Did she accuse us of harboring pets again?”

I smile against his chest. “No. She wanted to show me these historic photos she found. Did you know our building was bombed during World War II? She had pictures of it. It was all practically rubble.”

He pulls me closer. “Yeah. It’s weird you’re bringing it up. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“Our building being bombed?”

“Not that exactly. Just how terrifying it would be to live here during the Blitz. Especially if we were separated. If I were at work, or you were at school and I couldn’t find you. I never gave it any thought before, and now, especially now,” he says, placing a hand over my swollen belly, “I think about it constantly.”

I think about us being separated constantly too. My reasons are probably different than his, but maybe not…maybe some residual memory tells him he has reason to worry because we’ve been separated before. I place my hand over his. “I’d come find you,” I tell him.

“Yeah?”

“Unless you stopped being hot,” I amend. “In that case, the jury is out.”

His hand slides over my hip, down my bare thigh. “Hot, huh? You’ll have to warn me when I’m in danger of slipping.”

“You’re in no danger,” I say, but the words end on a gasp as his fingers slide between my thighs.

“I wasn’t too worried.” He laughs low in my ear. “If you don’t come find me, there will never be a time when I won’t come find you.”