For one insane moment, I wished I was back there.
“Giselle, my French baby, what do you do here?” Mama asked, startling me out of my past.
I smiled softly at her, filled with tenderness. I indulged myself by hustling towards her for a hug. Immediately, she opened her flour-coated arms and pulled me close.
This time, when I cried, the tears were silent.
Mama soothed me like a child with indecipherable cooing noises.
“I love you so much, Mama,” I breathed.
“Sempre,” Mama murmured as she brushed my damp hair away from my face. She searched my eyes for a long time before wrapping me up even more tightly. “What has happened?”
Somehow, it was harder to tell Mama, a woman that had raised me to be better than deceit and infidelity. My betrayal meant the end of a relationship with Elena, but did it have to mean the dissolution of the bonds that tied the rest of my family together?
Fuck, I hoped not.
“I have something that I need to tell you,” I whispered.
She sighed softly before steering me towards the other side of the counter where she pulled up a steel stool for me to sit on. Once I was settled, she nodded and returned to her pasta making. Love seared my insides as I realized what she was doing, giving me space to confess.
I stared at the way her hands carefully formed the dough, mesmerized by the repetition. It helped me gather the edges of my shredded thoughts.
“Mama,” I choked on a sob and cleared my throat. “Mama, I want you to know how much I love you, how much I respect the struggle you’ve been through in order to keep our family whole and successful. You’ve been a wonderful inspiration for me, the epitome of grace and goodness. Please, don’t let what I’m about to tell you be a reflection on your parenting or how I feel about you.”
She nodded but didn’t look at me, her eyes fixed on her work even though I knew she would do it blindfolded. Her lack of attention gave me the comfort of a confessional. I knew she was on the other side of the pretend indifference, listening and trying not to judge. It gave me hope.
“I had an affair, Mama, with a wonderful man that I met when Brenna sent me to Mexico. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I knew he was in a meaningful relationship, but there was this pull between us that I couldn’t ignore. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen and he made me feel worthy, good and free of my insecurities.” I sucked in a shaky deep breath. “I fell in love with him even though I never planned to see him again. Only, I did. I saw him that very same day, later that night, in your kitchen at my surprise party.”
Mama stilled, just for a beat, in her movements but it was enough for me to realize that she knew where I was going with my story.
I rushed on.
“I was so ashamed, we both were, when we realized the truth. We avoided each other for weeks but there was still the agonizing magnetism between us. I really thought we could be friends…”
“Never,” she said, so softly that at first, I wasn’t sure she had spoken at all.
“I loved him too much for that and, apparently, he felt the same way.”
“You began an affair again,” she stated.
“We began an affair again,” I agreed on a whisper. “We were only physically intimate once or twice before he left her, but either way it was an emotional affair. I don’t know, maybe that’s worse.”
“Si, it is.”
I bit my lip so that it wouldn’t tremble and for the first time in years, I spoke to my mother in our native tongue. “On posso vivere senza di lui.”
I cannot live without him.
“And he feels this way?” Mama asked.
The memory of Sinclair declaring his love for me in his office after the horrible Thanksgiving dinner, how impassioned and primal he was in staking his claim on my heart. I knew without having a mirror that the thought of him lit me up like a traffic light.
“He does.”
Mama hummed, the way both she and Elena did when they were processing things.
“I love him more than I have ever loved anyone and,” I swallowed, “he made me love myself too.”
A long silence followed my words. I could have said more, I could have definitely clarified whom it was that I spoke of and what our future plans entailed but instead, I chewed on my lip. Meanwhile, mama finished shaping the last of the semolina dough and braced her hands on the table. I waited with my heart in my throat for her to look up at me and yet, I was jolted out of my skin when her rich brown eyes found mine.