The Assignment

We moved into the kitchen, which had bright yellow cabinets.

“Did she pick that yellow color?”

“That was her appeasing me. Her taste was a bit more conservative. She let me handle the kitchen design, though.” He chuckled. “Pretty sure she regretted that.”

After Gregory poured me a coffee, we sat down together at the kitchen table, which had a lacquer top.

He took a sip from his mug. “I know you probably think you have her all figured out, that she was simply selfish for giving you up. But I can assure you, there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“So enlighten me.”

“I’ve thought about coming to find you over the years. But I was never quite sure if you’d want that.” He rubbed his temple. “Anyway, I know Jennifer wanted to tell you a lot of this stuff herself, but she never had the chance.”

“Okay…”

“Once it became clear that she wasn’t going to make it, she started seeing her life in a different light. She had a lot of regrets—her biggest being never having a relationship with you. She had a tough time forgiving herself for that, and I have to say she took much of that regret with her when she died, never really achieving any peace with it.”

It gave me no satisfaction to know that. No matter her mistakes, she deserved to die in peace.

“When we’re younger,” he continued, “sometimes we make decisions that haunt us for the rest of our lives. Your mother was a people pleaser, particularly when it came to her parents. They put a lot of pressure on her from a very young age to be successful. In that sense, I suppose they were progressive for their generation. They also put a tremendous amount of pressure on her to give you up. She couldn’t blame them entirely—after all, she had free will. She could’ve run away or defied them. But she made the decision she felt was best at the time. She never doubted that your father would love you and take good care of you, because he fought her so hard to keep you. What she underestimated was the level of regret that would build up for her over the years at having missed seeing you grow up. With each year that passed, though, she felt like she had less and less right to a place in your life.”

“Why didn’t she ever have other kids?”

“She always felt that if she wasn’t able to be a good mother to you, she shouldn’t get a second chance.” Gregory looked out the window for a moment. “But we all make mistakes. Some are so big you never come out from the shadow of them. She really did hope to make things right with you before she died. She knew it was too little too late, but she never gave up hope. I encouraged her to tell you she was sick and ask you to come, even though she suspected you might be hesitant.”

“She thought I didn’t want to come see her?”

“She mentioned that the first meeting with you hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped. She sensed your anger—and she didn’t want to upset you again.”

I nodded. “When she and I first met, I was an angry fifteen-year-old who wasn’t ready in any way, shape, or form to forgive her. Things would have been different if I’d had the chance to see her at the end.”

“Anyway…” he said. “I know you’d planned to come, even if you didn’t make it in time. And she appreciated that.”

Taking a sip of my coffee, I stared out the window a moment. “What was she going to tell me that day?”

“That she loved you. It was the one thing she was too cowardly to say when she met you the first time.”

I shook my head as I contemplated that. “I spent so much of my younger years angry at her. It was a waste of energy.”

“You couldn’t help that.”

“She died thinking I didn’t love her. She didn’t realize that most of my anger stemmed from the fact that I did. I didn’t understand how I could love someone I also hated. Someone I didn’t even know. But the truth is…her love was all I ever wanted. The only thing,” I whispered.

Gregory’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “You had it all along. You may think what she did was unforgivable, but she did love you, Troy.” He paused. “You said all you wanted was her love. All she wanted was your forgiveness.”

“I would have told her I forgave her if I’d made it in time.”

He nodded. “Well, I do believe that wherever she is, she knows that.” He looked down into his coffee cup. “I loved her. And it pained me to watch her die, but to know she wasn’t going in peace? It’s a lesson that as long as we’re alive, it’s never too late to make amends. But if we wait too long, we can lose the chance.”