The strange thing about seeing both of my parents again after eight years was that neither of them recognized me, even though I was standing three feet away with a reservation book in my hand.
Chapter 3
Four years later, on the evening before graduation, I was sitting outside Northwestern’s library when Ethan Parker stepped into my path.
I recognized him immediately.
That surprised me.
Some part of me had expected people from home to blur with time.
He looked older but not dramatically different. Better haircut. Expensive jacket. Tired eyes.
“Kathleen.”
I closed my laptop.
“Ethan.”
He smiled nervously.
“I’ve been trying to find you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I mean online.”
“I know what you meant.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I heard about everything.”
“Everything covers a lot.”
“Your mom. Your dad. The condo.” He hesitated. “Alyssa.”
There it was.
I waited.
He looked down at the sidewalk.
“We broke up two years ago.”
“Okay.”
“She changed.”
I almost smiled.
“No. You got to know her.”
He flinched.
“Alyssa dropped out after sophomore year. Denise and her husband had money problems. Things got ugly.”
“And?”
“And I started thinking about you.”
“That’s flattering timing.”
“Kathleen, come on.”
“No, really. Your girlfriend’s life falls apart, then you remember the girl you lied to in high school.”
“I was eighteen.”
“So was I.”
He stepped closer.
“I cared about you.”
“You bought Alyssa a bracelet the night you told me you were busy with family.”
He looked surprised.
“You remember that?”
“I remember lots of things I no longer care about.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s completely fair.”
He exhaled sharply.
“My parents were close with your mom. She kept inviting me around. Alyssa was there all the time. It just happened.”
“Things don’t just happen, Ethan. Weather happens. People make choices.”
His expression hardened.
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“No. You’re trying to see whether the door is still open.”
“It could be.”
I laughed then, not because anything was funny but because twenty-two-year-old Ethan still believed this conversation required two votes.
“It isn’t.”
He stared at me.
I picked up my laptop.
“You know what bothered me most back then?”
His voice softened. “What?”
“It wasn’t that you chose her.”
He waited.
“It was that you thought I’d be waiting if you changed your mind.”
For once, he had no answer.
I walked around him.
“Kathleen.”
I stopped.
He looked strangely young under the campus lights.
“I really am sorry.”
I believed him.
That was the interesting part.
“I know,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”
Then I went home.
My roommate, Chloe, was waiting in our apartment with takeout containers and two plastic cups of champagne she’d bought because she said real glasses seemed too adult.
“Was that him?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“The legendary Ethan?”
“He’s less legendary in person.”
She handed me a cup.
“To disappointing men becoming boring.”
I laughed.
“To boring.”
The next morning, I stood behind the stage curtain in my graduation gown, reading my speech for the hundredth time.
My hands were shaking.
Not because of the speech.
Two days earlier, a message had reached me through the university alumni office.
From Mom.
We saw the graduation announcement. We’re coming. It’s time to put the past behind us.
No apology.
No question about whether I wanted them there.
Just an announcement.
I had almost called campus security immediately.
Instead I called the attorney Grandma had trusted.
By noon, we had a plan.
When I walked onto the stage, the auditorium seemed to stretch forever.
There were thousands of faces.
Parents waving.
Grandparents crying.
Children squirming in folding seats.
I thought of Grandma.
I kept her letter in my desk drawer, folded along the original creases. I had read it the night I accepted my internship, the night I received my first job offer, and once at three in the morning when I was twenty and suddenly missed the sound of her moving around the kitchen.
I stepped to the microphone.
I spoke about the things people inherit.
Names.
Expectations.
Fear.
Strength.
I spoke about how family can be something we are born into, but belonging is something created through care.
I didn’t tell my story.
I didn’t need to.
Near the end, I saw them.
Mom and Dad stood at the back.
Older.
Dad had gone almost completely gray.
Mom looked smaller than I remembered.
For one dangerous second, my heart responded before my mind did.
There you are.
It was the old child inside me.
The one still waiting at a window.
Then Dad leaned toward Mom and whispered something.
She frowned.
They began arguing.
Even from the stage, I recognized the movement of their mouths.
I almost laughed.
Some things survived everything.
I finished my speech.
The applause rose around me.
And for the first time in my life, when I looked toward my parents, I didn’t wonder whether they were proud.
