Maybe she was trying to leave, but she hadn’t left yet. And realizing that made it easier for Allie to know what to say next. “Here’s the thing, Mom.” She ran one finger along the smooth edge of the tub. “I love you, May loves you, I know Dad loves you. And maybe…maybe that’s not enough anymore. Maybe it’s not what you want. I know I can’t tell you, you know, what you want, the same as there wasn’t anybody who could tell me coming up on my wedding exactly what to do. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done, or said. May tried. I remember. It was impossible.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Allie swallowed. Her mother was trying to dismiss the conversation, just as Allie had always known she would if she tried to break through this barri
er.
In the tub, in the dark, wearing Winston’s towel, which was oversized and had tassels and felt like it had to be a Turkish towel with silk in the blend, she tried to gather her thoughts. This might be her only chance to say what she needed to say.
“I think if there was one thing I wanted to hear, that it would have helped me to hear, Mom? It’s that I didn’t have to understand why I felt how I felt or wanted what I wanted. I didn’t need some reason. If I felt like I didn’t want to marry Matt, and couldn’t marry him, then that was because I didn’t want to, and I couldn’t, and the reasons came later.”
Her mom sniffled. Crying, maybe.
“Some of the reasons took me a year to figure out. Some of them I’m still figuring out. But I knew what I wanted, Mom, a long time before I knew why I wanted it. And I guess, you know, it would’ve helped…”
Allie sighed. She didn’t want to say this, but she was pretty sure she had to.
“It would’ve helped if someone had told me that whatever I decided was the right thing. So that’s…that’s what I’m saying to you. I love you. We all love you. And you’re going to make the right decision, because you’re going to make the decision you have to make. If you don’t, this will just keep coming around again, over and over, until you finally do.”
Allie suddenly realized she was holding one of the towel’s tassels in her hand. She was so worked up, her grip had wrenched it off. “It’s just…even if you can’t tell me everything, or don’t even know everything, couldn’t I see you? Have lunch with me and May, Mom. Let me go ahead and move the anniversary party and take some of the pressure off everyone. Please.”
Allie listened to her mother’s silence, and another sniffle. “You’re so much like him,” her mom said.
Then she hung up.
Allie didn’t know what him she even meant.
She unwound the towel and spread it out on the floor. She laid down on it, curled up on her side, and toggled to her messages thread with May.
See me today, please, May?
Three little waving dots bounced up, right away.
Of course. Let’s have breakfast at Ben’s restaurant.
After she typed her K, she could finally breathe.
She breathed in and out, curled around herself, until she felt calm enough to sleep.
—
“We can take our coffee out on the patio, if you like.”
Allie accepted her cup and saucer. “You have a patio?”
“It’s just through there.” He indicated the direction with his own saucer. “Would you like to?”
“I at least want to see it. This apartment is insane. Like, actually insane. You have the quintessential New York apartment—it’s like a Platonic ideal of a New York apartment. You know that Plato thing about the table, and how we have the word ‘table,’ but also there’s an ideal of a table?”
“I do.”
“That’s what this apartment is like. It makes me want to cry.”
“Here we are.”
Winston led her onto the bricked-in patio. Surrounded by stone wall topped by a tall hedge, it was a pleasant and quiet space, particularly in the early morning when the light was diffuse and the traffic noise easy to ignore.
“This is so nice. This is like one of those outdoor living rooms on the design shows, like on HGTV? Have you seen those?” She glanced at him, but her eyes skipped away quickly. “I don’t know if you guys are into the design reality TV in England like we are. But I love them. These kinds of outdoor spaces are really popular. You need a pergola, though. They always have a pergola.” She settled into a chair with her coffee and sipped it. “This is delicious. Thank you.”