Ten Years and Then excerpt – Nora and her mother

Good morning!  Today I’m sharing an excerpt from Ten Years and Then…

This is Nora and her mother, who’ve had a strained (to put it mildly) relationship up to this point:

And then it got even stranger. When the waiter came, her mother ordered wine for the both of them. Nora didn’t question it, but apparently her expression did it for her. Mom laughed. “You’re not going to pretend you’ve never had wine before, are you? I know you started drinking when you were thirteen.”

“No! I never—I didn’t …”

Her mother was still laughing. “You weren’t really—excuse me—dumb enough to think I didn’t notice, were you?” She didn’t give Nora a chance to answer. “Oh, of course you were. Exactly as dumb as I was at that age, when I thought my parents didn’t notice everything I got up to.” And now she was smiling, but it was—not gentle, exactly, but as close as Karen Langley could get to it. “And as dumb as my future grandchild will be one day, I’m sure.” Where had any of that come from?

“Mom, I—I don’t know what’s going on here.” Her mother reached over, patted her hand. “You wanted to talk. You wanted to really communicate. That is why you came to stay with me, isn’t it?” Now she sighed deeply. “I know I haven’t always—ever—been the best mother, but I’m not blind. And I do love you, regardless of what I’ve probably given you plenty of cause to believe.”

How had her mother known? How had Mom guessed what she’d been thinking, what she wanted—needed—to hear? And—whatever joy she’d felt at her mother’s words was gone as quickly as it came—if she was that perceptive, why hadn’t she ever shown it before? Where had this version of Karen Langley been for the past several years? Where had she been a year ago, when Nora had needed her—needed anybody who could rescue her from herself—more than she ever had? No, that wasn’t fair. Or, even if it was, it didn’t matter. There was no way to change the past, but Mom was trying here and now. She had been given exactly what she asked for, and it would be the most ungrateful thing imaginable to turn her back on it.

She argued with herself until the wine was served, and she drank her whole glass before she felt like she could safely speak. “I love you, too, Mom. I always have. I just—you’re right. I wanted to talk. I hate how things have been with us all this time.” She hesitated, debating whether to say anything more, but the words poured out of their own volition. “And I—I need you. I need somebody, because I miss him so damn much. It’s been almost a year, and I think about him all the time still, and it’s hell. I don’t know what to do.” She fought back tears, but she heard herself make a choked, sobbing sort of sound, and she felt her mother’s hand squeezing hers. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that. “I need you—I need you to be the kind of Mom who fixes everything, because I can’t fix anything myself.”

You can also listen to this scene in a sample from the audiobook, which is available on Audible now!  And also Spotify!

By the way, I picture Nora’s mother Karen Langley being played by actress Cynthia Watros (she was on Lost, and is currently on General Hospital) if they ever make Ten Years into a movie:

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