A Different Kind of Us

Chapter 12

Previously on ADKOU: Sutton and her mom continued to clash over her parents' divorce; Ada sneaked over to Sutton's house for a late night sleepover and encouraged her to talk more openly with her mom. 

Please note: This is the second-to-last chapter of ADKOU. Chapter 13, the final installment, will be coming soon. 

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Her mom's car was in the garage when Sutton arrived home from her run. She gripped her keys and stepped into the house, finding her mom seated at the kitchen table.

"Hi," Sutton ventured.

Her mom did not look up. "Hi, Sutton," she said, her head bent over the table. "How's your day been?"

"Fine. Where were you all day?"

"Running errands." 

Sutton replenished her water bottle. She stood by the refrigerator and watched her mom, sensing bad energy pulsing between them. Something nestled into her heart. She recognized it as Ada.

"Mom," she said, sitting next to her at the table.

Her mom did not look up from the note she was writing. "Hm."

"I'm sorry about you and Daddy."

Her mother looked around now, her small hazel eyes blinking behind her glasses.

"I don't mean for my sake," Sutton continued, "I mean for yours. I'm sorry this is happening. I know you haven't been happy with each other for years, but I'd also imagine it hurts to let go."

Her mom swallowed and dropped her eyes. For a moment she looked like a little girl, scared of confessing something she'd done wrong at school. "We thought we were doing you a favor by staying together."

"I know."

"We said we couldn't do anything because you still had high school to get through. Then college. And then law school."

"I know."

"But now we've run out of excuses. You're an adult, and so is your brother, and your dad and I have to stop pretending you're still impressionable children who need us to protect you from things."

"You don't have to protect me," Sutton rasped.

"Your dad is a good man. He's been a wonderful father--"

"I know--"

"--but we aren't making each other happy. We've been slogging through life since you were young."

"Did you ever love him?"

"Oh, of course I did, Sutton." Her mom paused, the wrinkles near her eyes creasing. "But it was a love I had doubts about. I always wondered if there could have been more, if I could have felt more. People, especially older people, will tell you that love is a choice, and they're right, to an extent. When you choose your life partner, you choose to wake up with them every day and meet whatever challenges come up. You choose to spend holidays with their family and to go to their office Christmas party even though you're mad at them for forgetting to pick up milk at the store. Your dad and I have done that as much as we could have. But the other thing, Sutton, is that love is a feeling, too. You can choose and choose and choose love, but your heart has to have a stake in the game. You have to feel something."

Sutton waited, but her mom had drifted off, her expression spacey.

"And you and Dad don't feel anything," Sutton prompted.

Her mom looked at her. "No. We felt it in the beginning...or we thought we did. Even then, I think we were convincing ourselves of it too much. I chose your name because I was trying so hard to convince myself."