For The Summer by L.L. Wright

Author:L.L. Wright [Wright, L.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

I find my mother sitting in the car with the engine running and her sunglasses on. She doesn’t say anything when I climb into the passenger seat and buckle my seatbelt.

“You ok?” I ask a moment later.

“They were different.”

“I’m sure they were, Mom, but people can change,” I say, shifting to face her. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but honesty has always been our thing and I don’t want that to change now. What you accused grandpop of doing, trying to keep you close and make sure you married well. That doesn’t sound so bad. Sneaky? Yes. But to me, it sounds like his heart was in the right place.”

The sounds of my mother’s sobs fill the car and I feel my chest tighten. She wrings her hands tightly around the steering wheel and drops her forehead onto the black leather. I place my hand on her shaking back, unsure if I should try to comfort her or remain silent. I’m not completely sure why she’s crying and I really don’t want to make it worse.

“I know they only wanted what was best for me,” she sniffles. “It’s so much easier to be angry at them for who they were back then, for trying to push my hand and force me into a life I didn’t want than to admit that if I had tried to see things their way my life could have been completely different. Maybe marrying Warren Prescott wouldn’t have been so bad after all.”

“Maybe’s and what if’s will drive you crazy if you let them, Mom,” I whisper. “You’ll never know what your life would have been like if you had followed the path they laid out for you, but there are two things I can say with certainty.”

She turns her head to face me, a red indent from the steering wheel pressed into her forehead.

“What’s that?” she asks quietly, wiping her cheek with one hand.

“You should give them a second chance. A real one. Let them show you who they are now without the shadow of the past looming over them,” I answer.

“And the second?”

“If you had married Warren Prescott you never would have had a daughter as intelligent and beautiful as me.” I flash her a wide grin, putting my perfectly white teeth on full display.

“I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world,” Mom says, sitting up and shifting the car into drive.

“Not even your very own rom-com inspired happily ever after scene?”

“No way. If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be.”

Mom wipes her face once more before reaching into the center console for a tissue she slides under her glasses, dabbing her teary eyes. She sniffles, driving down the driveway and out onto the road.

“What was that boy doing there?” she asks a moment later.

To be honest I’m surprised Mom even noticed Fin at all. I’ve never seen her like that, my cool and laid back mother, somehow always perfectly balanced between comforting and professional has never had a dramatic display like that, not around me at least.

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