Perseverance.
This was going to take time and I had to put in the time. Take my licks. Endure the cuts. Bleed inside. Give them what they needed to take it out on me because I deserved it.
Then I’d show them this was different. This time it was a promise I wouldn’t break. This time we really were going to rebuild our family.
And they’d come to me. They were my babies. We’d once been close. We’d once been affectionate.
We’d once been happy.
They’d come to me.
At that moment, they didn’t come to me.
Auden came out of his room mere seconds after he entered it and he called, “Pippa!”
Immediately she came out of hers.
They both moved along the hall, toward me then past me and right to the front door.
“Pip’s curfew is eleven o’clock on weekends,” Auden stated as they walked. “I’m dropping her off at her friend’s. Leave a key under the mat or something. She’ll be home then.”
I stared, my insides frozen, my throat burning from the chill.
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
Auden opened the door and Pippa walked right through, never looking at me.
But my son looked at me.
Or through me.
Though, his words were directed at me.
“Goin’ out with the guys. My curfew is midnight. Pip’ll leave the key somewhere for me. Later.”
With that, he went through the door and closed it behind him.
I stood immobile, allowing the vicious feel of the fact my children had walked into their new home they would be sharing with me (not often, but they’d be doing it), dropped their bags and walked out. They didn’t greet me. They didn’t look around. They barely looked at me. My daughter didn’t even speak to me.
And then they were gone.
I stared at the door and whispered, “I deserved that. I deserved it. Take it. Bury it. Move on. Move on, Amelia.”
I didn’t know how I did it but I forced my body to move. I went to the kitchen counter and grabbed the keys I’d had made for them. I found some notepaper. I wrote their names on two sheets. Under that, on each sheet, I wrote, “Welcome home. These are yours to keep.”
I went to the front door and lifted the mat, put the papers down side by side, laid the keys on top and dropped the mat.
Then I closed the door, took in a deep breath and decided against dinner that night. I had the groceries to make one of the few dishes that was a favorite of both my children.
Maybe I’d get to make it the next night.
*
I stayed up but I did it in my room with the door open.
I heard them both come home, safe and sound.
Even though the light was on in my room and down the hallway, neither of them came to say goodnight to me.
*
The next morning, late, I stood in the kitchen sipping coffee out of a twenty dollar mug that I would soon be replacing, when my daughter came out.
I did not take it as a good sign that she was dressed to face the day.
“Hey, sweetheart, you want some breakfast?” I called.
She skirted the living room toward the door.
And the first words my daughter said to me in our new home were, “Polly’s here with her mom. We’re going to the mall and to a movie. Then pizza tonight. I’ll be home by curfew.”
She was out the door before I could say another word.
I hurried to the door, opened it and looked out just in time to see a Chevy SUV, the woman in the front seat looking my way, smiling, giving me a wave, but reversing out of my drive then rolling away.
I endured that and decided on what was next, knowing from experience that Auden was not an early riser on weekends.
So I chanced a shower.
It was a bad decision.
I came out to a note on the kitchen counter that simply said, “Out. Be back later.”
Even though I knew I had no right, the mother in me boiled inside that my teenage son (and incidentally, daughter) felt they could take off giving me very limited information as to where they were going and who they were with. Heck, Pippa’s friend’s mother should have gotten out, walked up to my house and introduced herself to me.
But I had to suffer the boil. Let it cool. Give them what they needed. Take it and move on.
So I did.
Through that day.
And through the next, where they didn’t leave their rooms except to go and raid the fridge with nary a word to me.
Until it was five o’clock. Time to leave and go back to their father’s.
Auden said, “Later,” on his way out the door.
Pippa said nothing.
I died inside and hoped to God I had the strength to revive myself because I had long weeks yawning ahead of me of nothing. They wouldn’t return calls. They wouldn’t return texts. They wouldn’t do anything.
And I determined I’d use those weeks to show them things were different.