Amanda felt almost dizzy. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “For not telling Frank.”
“It’s not my place to tell Frank anything, or to say anything that would add more trouble to your marriage. What you tell Frank is your own business. As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened at all.”
Amanda swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. “Then why are you here?”
Her mother sighed. “Because you’re my daughter. You may not want to talk to me, but I do expect you to listen.” Amanda caught the whiff of disappointment in her mom’s tone. “I have no desire to hear the tawdry details of what went on last night, or hear how awful I was for not accepting Dawson in the first place. Nor do I want to discuss your problems with Frank. What I’d like to do instead is to give you some advice. As your mother. Despite what you might think sometimes, you are my daughter and I care about you. The question is, are you willing to listen?”
“Yes.” Amanda’s voice was barely audible. “What should I do?”
Her mother’s face lost all its stiff artifice and her voice was surprisingly soft. “It’s really very simple,” she said. “Don’t take my advice.”
Amanda waited for more but her mother remained quiet, adding nothing to her comment. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Are you telling me to leave Frank?” she finally whispered.
“No.”
“Then I should try to work things out with him?”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t read so much into it.” Her mother rose, straightening her jacket. She moved toward the steps.
Amanda blinked, trying to grasp what was happening. “Wait… you’re leaving? You didn’t say anything.”
Her mom turned. “On the contrary. I said everything that matters.”
“Don’t take your advice?”
“Exactly,” her mom said. “Don’t take my advice. Or anyone’s advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it’s your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you.” She placed one polished leather pump on the creaky first step, her face becoming masklike again. “Now, I suppose I’ll see you later? When you come home to get your things?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll put out some finger sandwiches and fruit.” With that, she continued down the steps. At her car, she noticed Dawson standing in the garage and she studied him briefly before turning away. Once behind the wheel, she started the engine, and then, all at once, she was gone.
Putting the letter aside, Dawson left the garage and focused his gaze on Amanda. She was staring out at the forest, more composed than he’d imagined she would be, but he was unable to read anything more from her expression.
As he walked toward Amanda on the porch, she offered a weak smile before turning away. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, he felt the stirrings of fear.
He took a seat in the rocker and leaned forward, clasping his hands together and sitting in silence.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?” she finally asked.
“I figured you’d get around to telling me sooner or later,” he said. “If you wanted to talk about it, I mean.”
“Am I that predictable?”
“No,” he said.
“Yes, I am. My mother, on the other hand…” She tugged at her earlobe, buying time. “If I ever tell you that I think I have my mom figured out, remind me of what happened today, okay?”
He nodded. “Will do.”
Amanda drew a long, slow breath, and when she finally spoke, her voice sounded strangely distant. “When she was walking up to the porch, I knew exactly how our conversation was going to unfold,” she said. “She was going to demand to know what I was doing and tell me what a terrible mistake I was making. Next to come would be the lecture about expectations and responsibility, and then I’d cut her off, telling her that she didn’t understand a thing about me. I was going to tell her that I’ve loved you all my life and that Frank didn’t make me happy anymore. That I wanted to be with you.” She turned toward him, pleading for him to understand. “I could hear myself saying the words, but then…” Dawson watched her expression close in on itself. “She has this way of making me question everything.”
“You mean about us,” he said, the knot of fear growing tighter.
“I mean about me,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “But yes, I’m also talking about us. Because I did want to say those things to her. I wanted to say them more than anything, because they’re true.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind of the remnants of a dream. “But as my mom started talking, my real life came flooding back, and all of a sudden I could hear myself saying something different. It was like there were two radios tuned to different stations, each one playing an alternate version. In the other version I heard myself saying that I didn’t want Frank to know about any of this. And that I have children waiting for me back home. And that no matter what I said or how I tried to explain it to them, there would still be something inherently selfish about all of this.”
When she paused, Dawson watched as she absently twirled her wedding band.
“Annette is still a little girl,” she went on. “I can’t imagine leaving her, and at the same time I can’t imagine taking her away from her father, either. How could I explain something like this to her? So that she would understand? And what about Jared and Lynn? They’re almost adults, but would it be any easier on them? To know that I broke up the family so I could be with you? Like I was trying to relive my youth?” Her voice was anguished. “I love my kids, and it would break my heart to see their disappointment whenever they looked at me.”
“They love you,” Dawson said, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“I know. But I don’t want to put them in that position,” she said, picking at some flaking paint on the rocker. “I don’t want them to hate me or be disappointed in me. And Frank…” She drew an unsteady breath. “Yes, he has problems, and yes, I struggle with my feelings toward him all the time. But he’s not a bad man and I know that part of me will always care for him. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the reason he’s able to function as well as he still does. But he’s not the kind of man who would be able to wrap his mind around the idea that I’d left him for someone else. Believe me when I tell you that he wouldn’t be able to recover from something like that. It would just… destroy him, and what then? Would he drink even more than he already does? Or sink into some deep depression that he couldn’t escape? I don’t know if I can do that to him.” Her shoulders drooped. “And then, of course, there’s you.”
Dawson sensed what was coming next.
“This weekend was wonderful, but it isn’t real life. It was more like a honeymoon, and after a while the excitement will wear off. We can tell ourselves it won’t happen, we can make all the promises we want, but it’s inevitable, and after that you’ll never look at me the way you do now. I won’t be the woman you dream about, or the girl you used to love. And you won’t be my long-lost love, my one true thing anymore, either. You’ll be someone my kids despise because you ruined the family, and you’ll see me for who I really am. In a few years, I’ll simply be a woman pushing fifty with three kids who might or might not hate her, and who might end up hating herself because of all this. And in the end, you’ll end up hating her, too.”