r /> I shook my head. “My mother doesn’t talk much about her family, and she never mentioned Charlie after she cut ties with him.”
Sally sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against an end table. “Charlie was married. He and his best friend met the woman of their dreams right out of high school. They were quite the threesome—always did everything together.”
I tried not to let my shock show. Maybe I should have guessed, but it was impossible to imagine someone from my uptight, straitlaced family living an unconventional lifestyle. My mother definitely didn’t.
“So, what happened? To his family, I mean.”
Sally’s face fell, her mouth tightening into a thin line. “Car accident.”
The two words made my heart ache on Charlie’s behalf.
“It happened, oh, some thirty years ago,” Sally continued. “Such a tragedy. Poor Charlie never truly recovered.”
Suddenly this odd assortment of memorabilia and little treasures wasn’t funny, it was tragic. Charlie had gone from having it all—the kind of happiness I’d witnessed between Cara and her husbands—to nothing. Not even his sister and niece. Me. I was an asshole for not knowing, for never asking. Granted, I’d been a kid when my mother said we weren’t returning to Bridgewater to visit anymore, but I’d been a grown up for quite a while now. Why hadn’t I thought to ask about him or, better yet, reach out to him myself?
“I can’t believe my mom never told me,” I said. “I can’t believe she turned her back on him after he lost everything.”
Sally shrugged matter-of-factly. “I remember your mother. She was in my sister’s class in high school. As soon as she graduated, she was out of here.” She snapped her fingers.
I nodded. That much I’d heard from my mother. On the rare occasions that she mentioned her childhood in Bridgewater, she was always quick to add that she’d escaped this Podunk town as soon as she was legally able. Knowing what I knew now, her sudden departure took on a whole new meaning. She hadn’t left because the town was small or backwards or even ridiculously conservative, which was a complete joke. She’d left because she didn’t like the way Bridgewater people fell in love.
A new thought had me staring open-mouthed at Sally. “Did my… I mean, were my… oh shit, were my grandparents polyamorous?”
Sally let out a sharp bark of laughter. “They sure were.”
They’d died when I was young and I didn’t really remember them, but with this new information, pieces of a puzzle clicked into place. “So my Great Uncle Albert—”
“Was your grandfather.”
Holy. Shit.
“They were happy, too,” Sally added. “A solid team, a role model for younger people like myself and my husbands.”
“I can’t believe my mom never told me.”
Sally gave my arm a little pat and I realized then that I was staring into space with my mouth still hanging open.
“Even though she grew up here, I don’t think your mother was ever comfortable with the Bridgewater way.”
All I could think of was duh.
Sally moved past me toward the kitchen. “If you ask me, that’s why she stopped coming here.”
I looked over at her in confusion. “Why? Why stop coming to visit entirely and all of a sudden? Charlie was a nice man, from what I remember. Everyone I’ve met this week has said so.”
“He was, honey.” Sally stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “But your mother… While she may not have been comfortable with the Bridgewater way… I think she realized that you were.”
I held up a mug with a picture of South Dakota’s Corn Palace, frozen. “I was only a kid, what did I know?”
“Exactly,” Sally said. “You didn’t know enough to judge anyone. But you liked it here, had fun even, and were comfortable with the people who were living a lifestyle your mother ran away from. Cara’s family. Others, too.”
I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I put the mug down with a hard thunk. “So she stopped bringing me here because it made me happy?”
Sally shrugged. “I could be wrong. That was just my take. You’d have to ask your mother if you want some real answers about what happened back then.”
Sally went into the kitchen and I heard her opening cupboards and filling a kettle to make some tea. More than likely she was trying to give me some space to process what she’d just told me. It made sense—all of it. Charlie’s inherent sadness was a result of a tragic accident, and the reason my mother ran from Bridgewater was because she didn’t approve of the lifestyle.
But why would she deprive me of my friends and extended family? Then I remembered Sally’s comment. You’d have to ask your mother….