Chapter 12: After
The solicitor appointment was on a Thursday.
My parents went alone, as my father had said they would.
I waited at home.
My husband made lunch and didn't ask me how I was feeling every twenty minutes, which was exactly what I needed.
My father called at half past twelve.
"It's done," he said.
"The previous draft is reinstated.
Equal division.
They're drawing up the amended documents now.
We'll sign next week."
"How do you feel?" I said.
"Tired," he said.
"And glad."
I heard my mother in the background, saying something I couldn't make out.
"Your mother wants to know if you'll come for dinner on Sunday," my father said.
"Yes," I said.
"We'll be there."
James did not come to Sunday dinner.
He didn't call, didn't text.
Carla sent my mother a brief message saying they needed some time.
My mother read it, set her phone down, and went back to the stove.
"He'll come around," she said.
Not defensively.
Just as a fact she'd decided to hold onto.
"Maybe," I said.
"He's still my son."
"I know, Mum."
She stirred the pot for a moment.
Then she said, without turning around, "I should have seen it.
I should have asked more questions.
I let him tell me who you were instead of looking at you myself."
"You believed your son," I said.
"That's not a terrible thing."
"It hurt you."
"Yes.
But we're here now."
She turned around then.
Her eyes were bright in the way that meant she was not going to cry, but had decided against it.
"I told your father the same thing I'm telling you," she said.
"That I'm sorry.
And that I mean it."
"I know you do," I said.
She nodded once, and turned back to the stove.
My daughter came in from the garden with mud on her knees and demanded to know when dinner was ready.
My father appeared behind her and told her twenty minutes, which was what he always said regardless of the actual answer.
She accepted this and ran back outside.
My husband appeared in the doorway, caught my eye, and raised his eyebrows in a question.
I gave him a small nod.
He came in and sat at the table and started talking to my father about something ordinary — the hedge, the car, the weather — and the kitchen filled with the sound of it, and the smell of dinner, and the particular warmth of a room where people have decided to stay.
The TV, when we eventually replaced it, was sixty-five inches.
Slightly smaller.
My mother said she couldn't tell the difference.
I didn't argue.
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Some families have one person who quietly holds everything together — and one who quietly takes everything apart.
The hardest part is learning to tell the difference before it's too late.
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