I made my way to the garage and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” my daughter said. I slowly opened the door and peered inside, catching a glimpse of her wiping tears away with her sleeves before turning to face me. She was sitting on a stool in front of the bicycle.
“Oh. Hi Mom. Did you need something?”
I paused for a second, angling my gaze toward the ground.
“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” I began.
“Now?” she asked. There was a hint of irritation in her voice.
“Yes. Now.” I looked up and met her glassy eyes.
“I’ve noticed that it’s been hard for you to….” I stopped, realizing that I was falling short on how to say this tactfully. “It’s just that….” I tried again, scrambling my brain for the right words.
“Mom. Just tell me,” my daughter said. I could hear the irritation more this time around.
“I don’t want you to have the same regrets that I have about how I raised you.” The sentence fell right out of my mouth.
My daughter’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re worried that I’m going to neglect my child, you have my word that it will never happen.”
I winced at the sharpness in her tone before standing up straighter. “Are you sure about that?”
“I don’t need parenting advice from someone who ruined my childhood!” she snapped.
Her eyes were shooting daggers in my direction.
I took a deep breath. I should be expecting this.
She has every right to be upset.
She pressed her lips together in a straight line, and her eyes began to glimmer with tears again, yet she said nothing.
“I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for driving your dad away, and I’m sorry for being so uninvolved. You have every right to be upset with me, and I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I do expect you not to repeat what I passed down to you. You’ve already been through so much pain because of me. I don’t want you to have to live with the same regret that I have.”
My daughter tried to blink back her tears, which only caused them to stream down her cheeks. She angrily wiped them away and looked at the floor. “And…” I said with a tight voice.
“And…” I tried again, feeling my own tears start to rise.
“I just want you to know that if I could change our history, I would do it in a heartbeat.” Tears spilled from my eyes, and my daughter looked up.
She bit down on her lower lip, stood up, and began slowly stepping toward me. When she wrapped her arms around me, I clung to her like a lifeline.
“So would I, Mom,” she whispered. “So would I.”
I felt the tension around us dissolve, and our house, which had been holding its breath for years, finally exhaled.
- Page 96 - 100 of it hurts to breathe, Part 6: The Mother: Exhale
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it hurts to breathe: a novella
