They Regretted It After I Gave Up Chapter 22

They Regretted It After I Gave Up Chapter 22

A year later, Mom and Dad moved.

They left the neighborhood where they had lived for twenty years. They left the Santoro house next door. They left the place that was filled with memories of me.

But some things you can’t leave behind.

You can’t move away from memory.

Almost every night, Mom dreamed of me.

She dreamed of me as a little girl, running after her and calling, “Mama!”

She dreamed of me leaving for school with my backpack, turning at the door to say, “Bye, Mom!”

And she dreamed of me on the operating table, my face blue, my lips black.

Every time she woke from those dreams, she would sit on the edge of the bed and cry until morning.

Dad didn’t cry much anymore.

After the funeral, he almost never shed another tear.

But he started drinking.

Half a bottle of whiskey every night.

His hands began to shake so badly he could barely hold his glass steady.

His cough grew worse, too, keeping him up at night.

Mom told him, “Stop drinking. You’re going to destroy your body.”

He just said, “Then let it be destroyed. Kat is gone anyway.”

After that, Mom said nothing more. She just turned away and wiped her eyes.

Tessa went to college in Texas.

On the day she left, no one saw her off.