Chapter 7 - The Foundation I Built for Myself
Mom came to Lisbon the following spring.
It was her first time in Europe.
Her first international trip since her honeymoon with Dad more than thirty years earlier.
She cried when she saw the ocean from the airplane.
She cried again when she saw my apartment.
Then she cried when Javier arrived carrying flowers.
"Mom," I whispered, "you've been here fifteen minutes."
"I'm emotional."
"I've noticed."
Javier hugged her.
"Welcome to Portugal, Diane."
She immediately inspected him like an immigration officer.
"You look taller on video."
He glanced at me.
"Is that good?"
"I haven't decided."
I covered my face.
Within forty-eight hours, she adored him.
I used the money from her check to pay for the trip.
When she discovered this halfway through the week, she became furious.
"Naomi!"
"What?"
"That money was for you."
"I used it for me."
"How?"
"I wanted my mother to see my life."
She stopped arguing.
The next morning, we sat on my balcony drinking coffee.
Mom looked across the city.
"You almost gave this up for us."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
Her face tightened.
"I'm ashamed of that."
"You didn't force me to say no."
"No. But I made you believe saying yes would hurt us."
I watched a tram move along the street below.
"Maybe I needed to learn something too."
"What?"
"That helping everyone isn't the same as loving them."
She looked at me.
"I still don't understand why you did it for so long."
I thought about that.
"Because it made me feel necessary."
That was the truth I had only recently admitted.
Being needed had given me identity.
If everyone depended on me, nobody could leave me.
At least that was what some frightened part of me believed.
"I blamed all of you for taking," I said. "And you deserved some of that blame. But I also kept offering."
Mom squeezed my hand.
"You're allowed to be needed without being used."
I smiled.
"Look at you becoming wise in retirement."
"I'm sixty-five, not dead."
"Fair."
Our relationship became easier after that.
Not because we forgot.
Because we stopped pretending.
Brent arrived three days later.
I hadn't invited him originally.
Mom had.
She asked me first.
"Would you be okay with it?"
That question alone showed how much had changed.
"Yes."
When Brent walked into my apartment, he stared through the windows.
"This is where you live?"
"Yes."
"You have a river."
"Technically Lisbon has the river."
"Still."
He walked onto the balcony.
For nearly a minute, he said nothing.
Then he turned.
"You really built a whole life."
I understood what he meant.
Some part of him had still imagined my move as an extended reaction.
An escape.
Something temporary.
But it wasn't.
I lived here.
I had friends here.
A career.
A favorite café.
A dentist.
A grocery store where the cashier knew which sparkling water I bought.
A relationship.
Roots.
"Yeah," I said. "I did."
That evening, the four of us had dinner.
Javier cooked.
Brent tried Portuguese wine and became overly confident in his ability to pronounce local place names.
It was almost normal.
Then after Mom went to bed, Brent asked if we could talk alone.
We walked beside the river.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he said, "I owe you more than an apology."
"You already apologized."
"No. I said I was sorry. That's different."
I waited.
He stopped walking.
"I hated you for making me feel small."
I frowned.
"I never tried to."
"I know."
He looked toward the water.
"That's the part that took me forever to understand."
He rubbed his hands together.
"You'd pay something, and Mom would say, 'Thank God for Naomi.' Dad used to say you were the responsible one. Every time I messed up, someone compared me to you."
I felt a sting of sympathy.
Not enough to excuse him.
Enough to understand him.
"So I decided if I could make you look pathetic," he continued, "maybe I wouldn't feel pathetic."
His voice cracked slightly.
"The day I called you a parasite, I was describing myself."
I said nothing.
"I knew I wasn't contributing. I knew you were paying for everything. That's why I hated it."
He looked at me.
"I don't expect you to forget."
"I won't."
He nodded.
"I know."
"But I don't hate you."
His eyes became wet.
"Why not?"
"Because hating you would keep me tied to that hallway."
He looked away.
I continued.
"You hurt me. Mom hurt me. I left. You both had to change. I had to change too."
"Do you trust me?"
"No."
He flinched.
I kept my voice gentle.
"Not completely."
"Fair."
"Trust doesn't come back because someone apologizes. It comes back because their behavior becomes predictable."
He nodded slowly.
"Then I'll keep working on predictable."
That was the most mature thing I had ever heard my brother say.
Over the next year, he did.
He stayed employed.
He paid Mom regularly until the portion of her loss attributable to his business was significantly reduced.
He stopped asking relatives for money.
He completed a management certification through work.
Eventually, he became operations manager at the warehouse.
He even started dating someone named Rachel, a middle-school teacher who apparently had absolutely no patience for nonsense.
I liked her immediately.
One Christmas, our entire family gathered in Lisbon.
Mom stayed at my apartment.
Brent and Rachel rented a place nearby.
Aunt Linda came too.
On Christmas Eve, Javier took me to the overlook above the city.
The lights below us shimmered.
He seemed unusually nervous.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"You've checked your jacket pocket seventeen times."
He froze.
"I have not."
"You have."
"Maybe eleven."
I stared at him.
Then he reached into his coat.
My heart stopped.
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
He lowered himself onto one knee.
For once, I had nothing clever to say.
Javier smiled up at me.
"Naomi Holloway, you spent too many years believing love was something you had to earn by carrying everyone else."
My eyes filled with tears.
He continued.
"I don't need you to carry me. I want to walk beside you."
That broke me.
Not painfully.
Beautifully.
He opened the ring box.
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes."
I barely got the word out.
"Yes."
He stood, and I threw my arms around him.
Someone screamed behind us.
I turned.
Mom, Brent, Rachel, and Aunt Linda were hiding terribly behind a wall.
"Seriously?" I shouted.
Mom was crying.
Again.
Brent held up his phone.
"I got the whole thing."
"Delete whatever angle makes me look terrible."
"You look terrible in all of them."
Rachel smacked his arm.
I laughed so hard I could barely breathe.
Later, back at the apartment, Mom held my hand and looked at the ring.
"Your father would've loved him."
"I think so too."
Then Brent raised his glass.
"I want to say something."
Everyone quieted.
He looked at me.
"Years ago, I told my sister she had no life without us."
My smile faded slightly.
He continued.
"Turns out she had an incredible life waiting for her. We were just standing in the doorway."
Mom wiped her eyes.
Brent lifted his glass higher.
"To Naomi. For leaving when we gave her every reason to stay small."
I swallowed hard.
"And for letting us know her again after we finally grew up."
Everyone raised their glasses.
I looked around the room.
The family wasn't perfect.
Neither was I.
But for the first time, nobody was there because money required it.
Nobody needed saving.
Nobody owed anyone their presence.
We were simply choosing one another.
May you like
And that made all the difference.
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