For all her faults, she wasn’t a bad person. She might have made a lot of mistakes, but hearing her side of things made me falter. Being stuck in a relationship with someone who made you feel that small…it couldn’t have been easy. I knew how harsh Dad could be. He’d never cared for me. I’d grown to accept it, but it had never been easy growing up.

“Why did you stay with him?” I asked, struggling not to fantasize about what a childhood could have been like without my mother underneath his thumb.

“He would never agree to a divorce; said it was too messy. I had no savings of my own. I didn’t know what to do…”

My heart broke a little for her. I knew she’d lost her parents when she was young. The only grandparents I’d ever known were my dad’s parents, and they had always been harsh with my mother. They treated her like she wasn’t good enough for their son.

“Hey.” I reached over and set a hand on her forearm. “You were young. I get that. It must have been hard.”

She looked down at the point of contact I offered her. “I regret everything with Nathan.” She sniffled. “I saw a safe haven in you. Someone to finally be on my side. I should never have pitted you two against each other. I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing. When Nathan said he was moving to Denver, I prayed that would be the moment you two finally grew close. There was nothing I wanted more in this life than to see the two of you get along…be the family I never gave you.”

My mom had pressured him to stay with me back then, so I knew there was truth to her words.

“I’m glad I have Nathan now,” I said. “I needed him.”

She sniffled loudly and squeezed her eyes shut. “And I’ll never stop trying to be better. I’m sorry if I can be judgmental toward him sometimes. It’s just that I still struggle so much to understand him. I know that’s my fault, though,” she finished quietly.

I sighed and leaned forward. Nothing was fixed. It wasn’t some magical conversation that wrapped all of the hurt into a neat bag and tied it off with a bow. But it was a start.

“Well, we can all try to be better,” I said.

“I hope you can forgive me one day.” A ghost of a smile drifted across her face before she finally met my eyes.

My shoulders sagged. I hadn’t even realized how tight they’d been.

We talked for a little while longer, and she shared things with me I hadn’t expected. She told me that all she wanted was to be a better mother to Nathan and me, to make up for the things she felt she’d missed. She was so determined for us all to be a family, especially now that Nathan and Charlie were expecting a baby. Despite the anxiety I’d had about this conversation, I could feel the sincerity in her words. There was no pretense, no effort to win me over. She was being real. It was a step in the right direction.