“It’s still confusing to me,” Alexis said. “The way that she raised us affected me for years. The fact that she cheated on Dad, broke his heart like it held no value to her, then left us.” Alexis shuddered. “It fundamentally changed the way I viewed romantic relationships. And parental ones. It’s difficult for me to admit that about a person who I’ve cut out of my life because it gives her too much power.”

I felt a frisson of guilt but tried to ignore it. “I hate that her past actions can still steal away a moment of present happiness and affect my decisions. Especially since you and I are surrounded with unconditional love on all sides.”

“Yeah, you are, and I know you’re both grateful for it,” Eric said, “but I think it’s like how you talk about filmmaking and storytelling. That your job is searching for the common threads that unite us. As awful and stressful as it is, she’s still a thread in all of our lives, even if it’s only an echo at this point.”

I passed my hand across the top of my head. “Two things I didn’t anticipate happening when I came home for a visit. Getting romantically involved with a friend and not a sexy stranger.” I bit my bottom lip. “And feeling like all that stuff with Mom happened yesterday and not years ago. I thought I’d locked it all away.”

I’d never been more tempted to blurt out every last remaining secret that I had. The only thing holding me back was fear—fear that when my family found out I’d known about my mom’s affair all along, had gone along with her lies, they’d stop trusting me too. Some part of me knew that emotionally keeping myself at arm’s length was why I felt like an outsider in my own family, even as they so clearly loved the hell out of me. But they weren’t the problem. I was.

At least now as I traveled across the country, far from them for long periods of time, I could feel their love—in their calls and text messages and emails. Their silly care packages and cat videos. I’d made the decision to cut my mother out of my life when I was an adult. She’d, however, up and left me when I was just a kid. My darkest, middle-of-the-night worry was that I’d unburden myself of secrets only to find all that unconditional love changed to conditional.