“The last time was because he thought we were too young to get married. I said we’d been dating since we were sixteen and if he didn’t know I was ‘the one’ after five years, I probably wasn’t. I gave him an ultimatum and he didn’t bite. I started dating someone else and he came back. As they do.” She winked.

My legs stiffened in her lap. I was stunned speechless.

“I loved him. I loved him so much. But I do wonder sometimes what would have happened if he’d lived. Would we have grown together or apart? I like to think we’d still be together now, but we were so young.”

Despite the shrinking feeling in my heart over what Mom had shared, I believed my parents would have weathered any storms and eventually celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. “Why are you telling me this now?”

She patted my knees. “Because you’ve always put our marriage on a romantic pedestal, and I didn’t see any harm. I thought it was sweet. You had so little time with your father. Why not imagine the two of us as the perfect couple from day one? Now I worry the picture I painted gave you an unrealistic role model. Well, me and those movies you love so much.”

“Are you saying you think my expectations with Finn were too starry-eyed?”

“I don’t know. What did you expect?”

I sank my butt deeper into the couch cushions. “I thought he’d let me into all aspects of his life, not just the convenient ones. But when I walked into that trailer, he practically sided with his father, acting like I was an unwanted intruder, before kicking me out. It stung.”

“Playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe he was embarrassed. What would you have done if Finn showed up here on Rosh Hashanah and I was three sheets to the wind? What if I threw noodle kugel at his head and called him an impotent loser?”

I gave her a side-eye. “I can assure you he’s not impotent.”

She side-eyed me back. “TMI, Squirt.”

I giggled. “I would have apologized to Finn for my mother’s atrocious behavior before locking you in your bedroom until you sobered up.”

“Not everyone’s as perfect as you.”

I mock-glared at her.

“My point is Finn was in shock. He hadn’t expected you to show up or for your first introduction to his dad to go down that way. It doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it might explain it a little.”

Finn had said he was caught off guard and didn’t know what to do. But what about later? “What about the next morning? I just wanted him to acknowledge how shitty it was. He kept apologizing for not being the type of boyfriend I deserved, as if he had no choice in the matter.”

“Maybe he thinks he doesn’t.”