Prologue

A Molecular Comparison of Gases, Liquids, and Solids

-Six months post-breakup-

“I don’t know how to do this, Kaitlyn. You’re going to have to help me.”

“Do what, Dad?”

The phone was silent for a beat before he said, “Talk to you about your mother.”

I grimaced and picked at an imperfection on the kitchen table. Four months ago, when Sam and I had moved off campus, we furnished our apartment with thrift store purchases. The shellac was peeling away from the Formica and I was making it worse.

“I don’t know what there is to say.” I shrugged, biting my lip to keep my chin from wobbling. The truth was that I missed her. My dad and I had been talking regularly over the phone, but I hadn’t been participating in our Sunday meetings for the last six months and I missed having a connection with my mother.

“I think she hurt you. Am I right?”

I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. Part of the reason I hadn’t contacted her was definitely because she seemed to be indifferent to my feelings about breaking up with Martin.

The other part was because of my fear she’d be disappointed in me. During my summer of discontent after my breakup with Martin, I’d decided to switch majors—from chemical engineering to music—and take the fall semester off school.

Taking a semester off school was the Parker family equivalent of giving up on life. I’d made the decision rather flippantly, and without consulting my parents. However, my determination to change majors had deeper roots and was the impetus behind my current gainful employment as the piano player in a special events band.

After a week of psyching myself up, I’d auditioned in July and was now officially a paid musician. The group played mostly weddings. They also performed at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, swanky business receptions, and office parties anywhere between Boston and New York City. My evenings and weekend afternoons started filling up fast, especially when we’d have to travel into the city for a job.

Being around music almost daily—either as part of the band, or the time spent alone composing—made me realize I had to pursue it. I had to live it. It was my passion and ignoring what gave me happiness and peace was unacceptable.

Instead of admitting the whole truth about why I was avoiding my mother, I said, “I don’t even really understand why I’m so upset with her. She didn’t do anything. Not really. And I know she had good intentions. It’s just…I feel like she doesn’t care about me sometimes, I guess.”

“Well, you’re wrong. She does care about you. She loves you.”

“Then I don’t think I understand what love is. I thought I knew. I thought it was this great thing where two people support each other and work together to solve problems. I thought it was about trust and loyalty, being honest, kind, being a team. But now I have no idea. In fact, I’m doubting that love exists. Maybe, as a society, we made it up to explain and justify our unhealthy desire for co-dependence.”

He was silent for a moment and I knew he was thinking about what I’d said, processing it. One of the coolest things about my father was that he listened to understand, not to react.

“I actually agree with you to a certain extent, if I’m understanding your meaning correctly. We humans, most of us, are co-dependent and it’s often unhealthy. It’s up to the two people within the relationship to keep the co-dependence healthy. But, you are assuming there is only one kind of love, Kaitlyn. I can tell you there are as many kinds of love in the world as there are stars in the sky.”

“That was very poetic, Dad.”

“I bet you didn’t know I used to write poetry for your mother.”

This made me start and I sat up straighter in my chair. “You did?”

“Yes. And it was pretty good, for a medical student who was infatuated with an unobtainable ice queen. It made her melt…a little.”

I heard the smile in his voice and it made me nostalgic for his sweet sappiness.

“What happened?”

“I asked her to marry me, not expecting that she would say yes, but she did. So we got married, and I was in very deep infatuation-love with her. She was so…good. So driven. She was talented at inspiring people and surprising them with how smart she was—because she is, she’s brilliant. And she’s very charismatic.”

I thought about this for a second, mildly horrified that I was attracted to guys who were like my mother.

He continued. “But then I became disillusioned because she belonged to the world just as much as she belonged to me. And I didn’t like that.”

I considered this for a moment, thinking about my father being jealous of the world. I couldn’t imagine my father being jealous at all. He was so…nice. Even tempered. Sweet.

“What did you do?”

“I told her I wanted a divorce. I told her I couldn’t be with someone who was always putting me second and that I’d made a mistake.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why did I not know about this?”

“It happened before you were born.”

“What did she do?”

My father sighed, as though he were releasing memories from long ago. “She begged me to stay, which shocked the hell out of me, but she did. She offered to leave politics and even went so far as to drop out of her commissioner’s race without telling me. She tried to make herself into a different person, because she didn’t want me to go. She didn’t want to lose me.”

“That seems…very unlike her.”

“It was. It is. But love—the kind of love she felt for me—makes people do crazy things. It twists them up and can make them question their own choices.”

“So, you stayed, obviously. But then how did she get back into politics?”

“I realized I was ruining her with my jealousy. She tried to change for me, and not for the better. The parts of her I loved the most—her brilliance, charisma, goodness, fierce desire to correct injustice—these were not compatible with my jealousy. And I also realized that she didn’t belong to the world, and she didn’t belong to me. She belongs to herself. We all belong to ourselves, until we have children. Then our children lease us for as long as they want.”

I exhaled a laugh and shook my head.

“Never doubt that your mother loves you, Kaitlyn.”

Feeling ashamed as I contemplated my father’s wise words, I forced myself to stop picking at the Formica.

My father continued, “But she does everything in the extreme. In your case, she respects you and trusts you in the extreme, so she trusts that you’ll come to her when you’re ready. Meanwhile she’s bitten off all her fingernails.”

I thought about this for a stretch, feeling a bit of panic at the thought of facing her and being a disappointment.

“What if I’m never ready?”

“Then that would make you stupid, and you’re not stupid. You’re stubborn, but you’re not stupid.”

“I don’t know how to do this, Dad. How do I make things right?”

“Come home for Thanksgiving. Talk to your mother. Or yell at her. Just do something with her. You two need each other and I can’t take another Sunday call without you, so call in for the next one. Just…be brave.”

***

-Seven months post-breakup-

“Between you and me and the tree, I think we should have our own Thanksgiving before you leave.” Sam was folding our clean laundry while I sorted through my desk, purging it of old classwork and notes. I’d decided to go home for Thanksgiving and was leaving in three weeks for the long weekend. I had an abundance of restless energy. I used the energy to clean my room.

My father was correct. It was time for me to make things right with my mother.

I’d rejoined the Sunday calls at the beginning of October, yet none of us had broached the subject of my months-long absence.

As well, she and I hadn’t spoken yet about my decision to take a semester off school, and I was glad. When I brought it up on a mid-October call, I’d tried to explain and defend my position. She told me to wait.

My mother had said, “You need time.”

And she was right. I’d needed the time to figure things out without dwelling on the fact that I must be a disappointment.

“Is your mother going to make Tofurkey again?” I asked Sam.

Her only response was to make a gagging sound.

I chuckled at this. Her mother was a strict vegan. Sam loved steak.

“Hey Sam, do you think I could get a job at your restaurant? Not as a server of course, since I don’t have any experience, but maybe I could bus tables or wash dishes.”

I was re-enrolling at the university in the spring, but now as a music major. I’d applied and auditioned for the music program, probably setting my graduation date back by two or more years. As well, this meant likely losing my academic scholarship. My dad had offered to pay for tuition; therefore I was determined to get a second job, pay for my living costs, and pitch in for the school expenses.

“I can ask…” She peered at me for a long moment, biting the inside of her lip as she considered me. “But have you thought about maybe applying for a job at The Bluesy Bean? I hear the lady there only hires musicians as baristas because she makes them serenade the customers.”