Chapter 5

Anita was in the kitchen making lunch when Thomas and I arrived back at the beach house. After Thomas excused himself to go check on his dad, I found myself in the kitchen with my aunt sitting at the bar- that separates the living area from the kitchen-staring down at my hands resting in front on me on the counter.

Anita paused in her current task and looked at me. "You're back early. How was...meeting Edith and Jim?"

I stared at her while I contemplated how to answer. Finally I released a quiet breath and said, "It was heavy, emotionally speaking; kind of overwhelming."

Anita cast her eyes back down at the ham sandwiches she was making. There were four of them sitting on a plate next her and I knew they all couldn't be for her. Shane must have told her we were coming back. "I'm sorry," she muttered.

Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh and mine followed. I couldn't pretend anymore that this new revelation of Anita being my biological mother didn't affect our relationship. Although it had only been a day since I found out, I could already feel the difference. Anita and I have always had a fun, easy relationship. She was always laid back and easy to talk to. But now, I felt like I couldn't even say hello without things feeling strained. It was complicated figuring out how to talk to her now.

Of course I didn't blame her for everything that happened in the past. She only did what she thought was best for me, but that didn't make it any easier. It would still take a while to figure out our new relationship.

"They were nice," I added after a while.

Anita smiled tentatively. "I knew you would like them."

"Well, they are my grandparents," I said in a quieter note.

I watched the digital clock on the microwave tick the minutes by. I started to count them as Anita scrambled about the kitchen grabbing various things and taking them outside to the table. One, two, three, four, five, six. When Anita called everyone to the table, only Shane and I showed up. Thomas was still in his room, probably Skyping with his brother and dad. It made me feeling guilty I was taking him away from his family. I had to keep reminding myself that he wouldn't have come with me to California if he didn't want to.

I picked at my sandwich and a pile of grapes while Anita and Shane talked animatedly to each other about Courtney and the progression of her pregnancy. Nothing more was mentioned of my grandparents the rest of the afternoon. I suppose I should have told her about the baby bracelet, but right now it felt like something only Andrew and I shared, and Anita already had so much with him already. I'd tell her when I was ready.

By late evening, Thomas and I decided to go to the beach. It was crowded, but I didn't mind. I was just glad I was there.

"There's a wave coming in, come on, we'll swim in with it." Thomas took my hand and pulled me into the water and we swam out to meet the tide then turning so the wave could propel us toward the beach. We did that for a while until we decided to lay out our towels and get some sun.

Thomas's nose and ears were already turning pink so I recommended he put some sunblock on them and laughed when I saw what he looked like after he applied it.  Even with his features covered with the white lotion, it did nothing to diminish his good looks. I held up my phone to snap a picture and he smiled his wide smile at me. 

"This one is going straight to Facebook." I uploaded the picture and looked back at Thomas with a smirk, when he smeared a glob of sunblock across my forehead and down one check. I laughed loudly when Thomas snapped a picture and uploaded it to Instagram.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" I said.

"Everyone has to excel at something," he winked.

I threw some sand at him barley missing his leg and lay down on my towel. While Thomas sat up and flipped through a classic car magazine he bought, I pulled my sun glasses from my bag and placed them on my face before resting my eyes.

I wasn't sure how long I dozed off when a Frisbee zoomed toward me, colliding in my side with a thump.  "Hey!" I said sitting up looking for the culprit. When I saw Thomas running toward me with a grin, one started to form on my face as well.

"I see you had no trouble finding a way to entertain yourself while I slept."

"I can always find a ways to entertain myself, babe," he said.

I grabbed the Frisbee, stood up and handed it to him when a girl, probably close to my age came running toward us with her hands held out. She smiled at me. "Sorry about that. Gus has some range."

She shot Thomas a more than friendly grin and stared at him for a long ten seconds before she turned back toward her friends down the beach and said over her shoulder, "You still in, Thomas?"

I narrowed my eyes at her for split second until I realized Thomas wasn't paying any attention to her, just looking at me. I let my annoyance go. He was probably used to this type of behavior from girls. It shouldn't be anything new to me. Besides, that's the price I pay for having a hot boyfriend.

"Hold on," he told her. "Liv, you want to join us."

I hesitated a moment, knowing I was not very good at organized sports, not that this was a sport...or organized, but equally as dangerous for me nonetheless.  After all I wasn't even playing and I still got hit.

I grimaced. "I don't know. I think I'll sit this one out. Go have fun without me. I need to talk to Anita anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely. I should do this."

I took a quick shower and went to my room to get dressed. When I was finished, I found Anita sitting on the couch Indian style typing on her computer. I wondered if she was working. When I sat down beside her she closed the laptop and smiled at me. I was surprised at how bubbly and laid back she was being. Like my aunt from before. Maybe things really didn't have to change. Things were only the most changed when discussing Andrew, his family, or her past. If we steered clear of those subjects, maybe we'd be fine.

Except we could be fine, because that's exactly the reason I was here in the first place. This would be in our way until we resolved it. If we resolved it.

"What's up, Olive?" I smiled at one of her nicknames for me. That was Anita's tell all. When I was Olive, we were good, or she was just in a very good mood. When I was Livy, she was feeling emotional. When I was just Olivia, things were either very serious or apathetic.

"I'm not interrupting anything am I, you know, with your work or something?"

She tapped my leg. "Of course not, Olive, you're never interrupting anything."

"I want to talk about my dad a little more," I start.

"Oh...okay." Anita shifted the laptop off her lap and sat in next to her. I could already see her tensing up when she caught sight of the box in my hand. "What's that?"

I rubbed the top of it for a second before handing it over to her. She took it carefully in her hands before slowly lifting the lid. A first I thought that maybe she didn't understand what it was as she stared silently into the box, but after a few long silent seconds she touched it with her hand like it would break if she wasn't careful and looked back at me.

"What...did Jim and Edith give this to you? I've never seen this before."

"It was found in Andrew's things. Gram and Gamp gave it to me. They felt like I should have it."

She nodded for a moment, breathing carefully, before handing it back over. "It's beautiful, Olivia. That was very nice of them." I looked at it again for a moment before closing in back inside the box, not sure why I decided to show it to her now. "You must be quiet taken with them already. I bet they love that you think of them as your grandparents even though they've been absent for most of your life, not by choice of course. I'm glad you didn't let that prevent you from considering them family." She smiled earnestly.

I blew out a breath. "I thought I was okay with this, that I wasn't mad, but I keep jumping to all these different emotions so fast I don't know what I'm feeling. Sometimes I feel understanding and don't blame you for the choices you made, but at other times, I'm angry. I'm angry I didn't get to know my dad, by biological one, and angry at you that you didn't even try to raise me. I'm so confused."

She looked at me and I could see the guilt there in her eyes and it made me feel guilty for making her feel that way.

"I love my mom," I continued. "Don't miss understand me. But I can't help wondering about what it would have been like if you would have raised me like you were supposed to...if you would have been my mother."

"Olivia," she starts. She hesitates for a moment before continuing. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't second guess the choices I made for us. But in the end, I believe you got the better end of the deal. My marriage to Christopher ended terribly. We fought for the last year of our marriage, before he cheated on me. I'm glad I didn't subject you to that. The life you have now is good and stable. I'm a mess. I'll always be a mess."

"But you try and you have a good heart. It wouldn't have mattered to me that you were...are a mess. Maybe all I needed was my mom."

"I'm sorry, Olivia. I think if I had to do all over again I would do a lot of things different. Unfortunately though, we can't change the past and we shouldn't dwell on things that can't be changed."

"No, I suppose can't we can't change the past, but I'm here now. There is nothing stopping you from trying to make up for those years."

She looked at me carefully, uncertain. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

I sighed so quietly I could barely hear the air expel my lungs. "I mean, I can't see you as just my aunt anymore. Not after everything I learned. I'm kind of forced to see you in a different light now, aren't I? It's like I have to get to know you all over again. We might as well do it right."  

She nodded slowly. "We will. But Olivia, I don't want to disappoint you. I don't want you to expect too much from me. I promise to give you what I can, but I'm not a parent."

"I'm not asking you to replace my mom. I would never ask that," I said quickly. 

"I know you wouldn't. You have one mother."

"I just..." I didn't really understand what I was asking her.

"You want something more than what I've been to you. I can understand that. You want me to be there for you in a different way."

I nodded. Is that what I was trying to tell her? I think it was. Maybe. Why did all of this have to be so confusing?

"I might have been missing from your life as your mother, but I'll do my best to be as close as what you need now as I possibly can."

"Yeah. Yeah, that works." Whatever that is.

Anita reached out with her arms and pulled me to her chest and kissed the top of my head. For a minute she didn't say anything, just sat there holding me and me letting her. Then after she release me so I could sit up, she crossed her arms and with a stern look on her face said, "Where is Thomas? How are things between you? Is he treating you well?"

I laughed at the crease between her eyebrows and the frown on her face. "Okay. Okay. You're going to try, I get it. You don't have to start being the concerned parent with Thomas though. I like him and he's good for me. He's the one keeping me sane during this huge change in my life."

She gave me a slow satisfied smile. "Good. So long as it stays that way."

I looked around the room. "Where did Shane go?"

Anita pulled the computer back into her lap and opened it. "Home. He won't be around for a couple of days. Work stuff. I think he's taking a trip somewhere to observe some malfunctioning medical equipment."

"Oh."

"Until then, I'll give you guys cab fare to Pasadena and anywhere else you need to go."

I nodded. "I was kind of hoping for his help though. I had a few questions. I thought maybe he would take me to the cemetery tomorrow."

"I'm sure he would love to do that when he gets back."

I was quiet for a while letting Anita get back to her work when I suddenly had an idea. "What about you?"

"Oh, honey. I'll be fine."

I shook my head. "No. I mean, why don't you take me there? We could go together."

She looked surprise and hesitated. "Oh. Olivia...I don't kn-"

"Please. It would be nice to have you there. You know...to physically introduce us, father and daughter. We don't have to go by Gram and Gamp's, if you don't want. Just take me there?"

I knew I was asking a lot of her, but I wasn't just doing this for me, I was doing it for her too. She couldn't just hide out in this big beach house alone the entire time she was here. She needed help learning to cope. It had been eighteen years already. Wasn't it due time to start the healing process?

"I...If you think it will help," she finally said.

"I do. I think this is something we should do."

With little hesitation, she agreed. "Okay then. That's what we'll do if that's what you want."

I hope this was what she needed. And I had a feeling she would need me as much as I needed her during this whole experience. We would need each other.

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A/N

Hi, guys. Things are finally settling into a rhythm for me so I kind of know what to expect in my life now. I no longer feel like I'm on a rollercoaster that I can't control. I am so glad to say that.

Updates will still be slow, but they will be happening. I'm not giving up on this story. It's just that I'm still trying to fit a lot of things I love into my life right now that I no longer have as much time for, like reading, writing, Netflix, getting caught back up on current TV shows.

Okay...now let's talk books! P.S I Still Love You by Jenny Han, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl book and upcoming movie, and The Duff book and movie! PM me. There is so much to talk about!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Comment, vote, follow! :)