Meet Me By The Dock

Chapter 33

I walk slowly into the kitchen, carefully checking for any signs of my mother. Running before she had the chance to talk probably wasn't my finest hour but I don't regret it. I carefully pull a mug out of the cabinet above my head and turn to the coffee machine. Once I have my cup filled I'm officially ready to start thinking.

Maybe I should sit outside so I'm not in the kitchen right when my mother wakes up. There are chairs right next to the door outside, not directly in the sun so they might be nice. I pull open the back door and slip through. The air is humid from the morning dew on the grass, the patio hasn't warmed up yet and I'm so grateful for it because I forgot my flip flops upstairs and everyone knows how hot that patio gets after sitting in the sun for a few hours.

I turn to the chairs and suck in a sharp breath. I try to conceal the shock on my face when I find my mother sitting out here with a half empty cup of coffee, in one of the chairs I was going to sit in, staring out across the lake. I stand there and quickly debate what to do next. I can't go back inside then I'm obviously hiding from her. Hiding from her? This is my mom, I don't need to hide from her.

I slide into the chair next to her and look out at the lake. I take a deep breath and sip my coffee. I don't know what to say or if I should say anything at all, so I stay silent.

We sit like that for multiple minutes, a breeze blows through and the soft waves roll up the shore. The birds chirp around us, letting their partners know they survived the night. "I'm— I'm sorry, about not being there when you needed me," she says suddenly. "You needed your mother and I wasn't there, and I know there's nothing I could do to make it up to you but I'm hoping that maybe one day you could forgive me." I shift slightly in my chair so I can look at her. Her brows are pinched and she still has a far away look in her eyes. I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out so she continues, "Your father... he was just— he was the part of me I didn't know I was missing." She finally turned her head and looked me in the eyes, she smiled sadly, "then we had you and you were— are everything."

Her face and her smile disappear, "we don't talk about your grandparents much— our parents," she says quietly. "Your father and I come from very different lives, but entirely the same." She sighs and continues, "My parents are very stubborn people and never really loved me." I can tell it pains her to explain this to me so I sit quietly and take in everything she tells me. "They made sure I knew everyday how much I disappointed them..." she trails off and seconds later snaps out of her haze. "Your father— his parents never wanted a child." I can see her jaw clench, "They took it out on him."

I struggle to picture my father cowering at the hands of someone else just as much as I struggle to understand how someone could hate my mother. She appears lost in thought for a few moments so we just sit there in silence. The morning air is thin and the towels hanging on the back of a chair flap with the breeze. She looks me in the eyes again, "have I ever told you about how we met?" She asks suddenly.

I crack a smile, "I've heard about it, but no specifics."

"Well, when I was in college I worked at a bar close to campus, I was a bartender," she explains. I try to picture my mom as a bartender and my eyebrows raise in amusement. "One day this middle aged man walks in and orders drink after drink, which isn't unusual of course. Then he starts to hit on me, also not unusual. I told him no and I dodged his compliments like I always did with customers like that but he was very persistent," She rolls her eyes at the word. "After a while I got tired of the man and it was getting late so I didn't want him to follow me home or anything," she pauses and her lips stretch into a smile. "So I picked the scariest guy at the bar and walked over to him, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back over to the drunk man. I introduced the poor guy as my boyfriend." My jaw drops open and I try not to laugh. She continues, "thankfully he went along with it, I certainly didn't expect him to. But after pretending to be my boyfriend for an hour, my shift was over and he walked me out to my car. I learned he went to the same college as me and he asked for my number." She shrugs and says, "I took pity and gave it to him, and the rest is history."