“The current Public Enemy Number One wears white boxer briefs,” I say.
“Warren?”
I nod, and draw in a deep breath. “He didn’t even have the decency to, oh, say, grab a bathrobe before he wandered into the kitchen last night,” I say, then tell her about last night.
The funny thing is, or really, the ironic thing is I didn’t come here in the first place because of my mom’s affairs. I’m here because of a love letter.
Not the kind with hearts and lipstick marks, but the kind that takes your breath away. I wanted it to have that effect on him, and so it was the story of how we fell in love told through our kisses. Both kisses we’d had and kisses I wanted to have, and places I wanted to kiss. Places like Paris and Amsterdam, along the river or by the canal, or Kauai under waterfalls.
It was an epic love letter, and it was all I’d ever wanted in my life—to feel that kind of epic love.
But my dad found the letter before I even sent it earlier this year. Or rather an imprint of a sentence or two. My father isn’t a snoop, and I’m not careless enough to leave something like that lying around for discovery by anyone. But I learned a valuable lesson nonetheless—even if you’re writing on a beautiful, fresh, crisp sheet of stationery, don’t press too hard with a purple pen while using a legal pad of paper as a sturdy surface. Some of the words might seep through onto the legal pad. My father deciphered some of the letter that night, and he declared me too young to tell someone that I’d love him for the rest of my life and then some. But what does he know? He isn’t an expert on big love. He is quite the authority in getting royally screwed over by the person you love—my mother—so I understand why he reacted the way he did and sent me to a shrink.
“And this all transpired in the kitchen last night? After the latest party?”
I nod, then add, just for emphasis, “Warren is married, you know. He takes his ring off when he’s over so they can pretend.”
Caroline doesn’t ask how this makes me feel. Caroline knows how it makes me feel. Horrible. Angry. Frustrated as hell.
“She made him breakfast this morning. Frittatas with mushrooms and cheese. She served them on her best china, of course.”
“Did you join them?”
“I had coffee and left. I can’t even sit with them. I just hate him.”
Because that’s what I do. I hate my mom’s boyfriends. Lovers, I should say. I hate that she has them, that they have breakfast and dinner at our house, that I lie to her to get away from them, that she lies to everyone about them, that she lied to my dad about them for years, and that she made me lie to my dad for years too. I will never forget how my life has been measured by the men my mother has kept.
Her lovers are the reason I can’t be with the man I love. She ruined my father for love, and then, in some misplaced act of retribution, he took away the love in my life.
“Have you ever thought what it would be like not to hate them?”
“Ha. Not possible.”
“I’m serious, Kennedy.”
“That would require removing my brain. I’m not ready for a lobotomy.”
“Hypothetically,” Caroline posits, turning her hand over, palm side up, holding it like there’s an invisible plate and she’s a waitress, practicing her craft, “What if you got a lobotomy that only removed the lover-hating portion of your brain.”
I consider such an operation for a few seconds. I contemplate the potential results. But it’s as if someone proposed transplanting my green eyes with blue ones. What’s the difference, really?
“I don’t know.”
“Because it’s not them you hate,” Caroline says. “It’s about the role you feel you played back when your parents were married. That’s what you hate.”
I wait for her to say more.
“Are you familiar with twelve-step programs?”
“Sure. I mean, broadly speaking.”
“One of the vital elements in any twelve-step program is making amends. It may actually be the most important step because it’s about change. Changing your behavior, reversing the damage, saying you’re sorry, living in a new way,” she continues. “I’m not talking about you. What I’m saying though is that the concept may apply. Amends is about making direct amends to the people you have harmed.”
I flick back to my dad, to the ashen look on his face the night I spilled all three years ago, to the way his life capsized when his only child told him that his only wife had Hester Prynned him for years. He hasn’t even dated since they split up three years ago. I think his heart may still be too bruised.
Mine too. Because the reasons are still under my nose, in my face, and in my kitchen late at night; the reminders, everywhere the reminders, just like this brick, this heavy weight of anger, always inside me.
“What I think,” Caroline continues, “is that amends could be a useful exercise for you. It might be the type of thing that helps you let go of the way you feel about all your mom’s lovers.”
I like the sound of that. “How should I do amends?”
“I’m not sure. But I trust you will find a way.”
Because I’m not one who does anything halfway—I don’t drink, smoke, swear, eat meat, or beg off lacrosse practice when I have a headache, and I hardly ever miss a day of school—I know I’ll find a way to make amends. Not for things I did. But for the things I didn’t do. I didn’t stop my mom. I didn’t say No, mom. I won’t tell lies for you.