“Did you know about me and…Ollie?”
She looked me in the eye and said, “We never talked about it, but I knew.”
“How?”
“Call it mother’s intuition. You spent a lot of time with him after your accident. You told me he was someone who felt familiar to you, and…I noticed you smiled a lot more when he was in the picture.”
I swore my heart skipped a few beats as I listened to what she was telling me. She knew. She’dknown. And somehow, she wasn’t judging me at all. My world tilted on its axis.
“Did Dad know?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter?—”
“Did Dad know, Mom?”
“No. No, I never said anything.”
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t important,” she said firmly. “You were happy. That’s all that ever matters. That you’re safe and you’re happy.”
“But—”
“No buts, Reid. Why do you think I went to Ollie to help you? It was because I’ve never seen you happier in your entire life than you were in those few weeks. I didn’t need confirmation or details to know what had changed.”
My mouth opened and shut a few times as I processed what she was saying. I’d been happy? Not only happy, but happier than I’d ever been in mylife? With Ollie? I thought about the memory from this morning, how the wordsI love youhad been on the tip of my tongue, the feeling so strong that it almost overwhelmed me. And the memory I’d awoken to yesterday, when he’d taken me to a place that looked like something out ofThe Wizard of Oz, and I’d had a strong feeling of an entirely different sort.
“You’re saying you were okay with me being…being…” I gripped the back of my neck and looked up at the ceiling, as if that would have the answers I was looking for.
“With a man?” Mom said, and my eyes met hers again. There was such love and acceptance in her gaze, and it made my heart constrict. “But Ollie’s not just any man, is he?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“He never left that waiting room after your surgery. Even when you woke up and had no idea who he was. He waited, and I don’t think he ever gave up hope that you’d find your way back to him. Then you came home, and he called every single day to check on you. For over a month, like clockwork, until the doctor told us it was likely you may never remember the weeks you lost. At the time, I thought maybe it was best to focus on what was familiar to you. Surround you with the people you knew and loved before your accident.” She shook her head. “But I was wrong to make him stay away. I take full responsibility for my actions, and I’ve apologized to Ollie too.”
My breaths came out shallow as I rested my head in my hands, trying to combine the worlds that warred in my brain. “I don’t understand how this happened.”
“Sometimes life takes unexpected turns and gives you a good wallop on the head to make you see things clearly—Oh, I didn’t mean your accident, good grief. That was a bad choice of words.”
I chuckled softly. “No offense taken.”
“How doyoufeel? Things are coming back to you now?”
“Mom, I… I don’t know how to feel.” I twisted my fingers together as I searched for what to say. “I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was having hallucinations, honest to God. I had no idea I was remembering things that really happened. And now that I know?” I shook my head. “I’m even more lost than I was before.”
“Oh, baby,” she said, and moved over to the couch beside me, holding me close as I held on to her like a life preserver. “I wish I could help you make sense of things. I wish I could make it easy.”
“I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing to remember,” I said, my voice muffled in her shirt.
“It doesn’t have to be one or the other. This isn’t something you have to rush to understand overnight. You have all the time in the world to figure out how you want to live your life and who the people are that you want in it.”
“Do I?” I asked, straightening. “Have all the time in the world now?” I found that hard to believe after everything I’d gone through this year.
“Yes. I believe you really do. I think you’ve been given a fresh start. But don’t keep carrying around all this heavy weight and guilt. Don’t drown your mind in alcohol and shut yourself away in here. That’s not you, and that’s never been you.”
My gaze drifted over to the littered countertop. “I know. You’re right.”
“And hey? If you want a piano, we’ll get one. If you decide teaching isn’t for you and you want to try something else, then do it. I won’t try to know what’s best for you anymore, Reid, because I’m getting it wrong at every turn. Only you can figure out what you need to make you happy.”