The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, 2)

The chasm between us

DECEMBER

SHANE IS STRUGGLING. RIGHTFULLY SO, OF COURSE. HE JUST LOST A parent, and I’m doing everything I can to try to help him. Which at this point basically means playing Mom to Maryanne while Shane plays Dad.

It’s not a bad job. She’s one of the greatest kids ever. But she’s also Maryanne. You can’t plant a kid like her in front of a TV all day, not with a brain like hers; she needs the mental stimulation. So I’ve been trying to do fun activities with her whenever I can. Shane is too, but he still has hockey practice every day, and I have cheer practice every day. Since Maryanne can’t stay home alone, we’ve been switching off on little-sister duties.

“I’ll grab her from the gym before your practice,” he says on Thursday morning, the week before winter semester ends. “What time? Four?”

“Yeah. Class lets out at three thirty, so we’ll be there by four.” Maryanne is sitting in on my physiology lecture. I have zero concerns about this senior kinesiology class going over that kid’s head.

I walk forward and wrap my arms around him. After a beat, he hugs me back, dropping his chin on my shoulder.

“This is brutal,” he says.

“I know.”

My heart aches for him. I see the grief in his eyes every time they lock with mine. The only time it’s not there is when we have sex. We’ve been doing quite a lot of that every night in my apartment while Maryanne sleeps in his. I think it helps him, the release. And it helps me because, well, Shane sex is the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.

“Should we grab dinner at the diner when you get home?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I’m meeting with Detective Wendt.”

“Oh shit. That’s today?” Regret ripples through his eyes. “I would go with you, but I don’t think my mom would like it if I brought the kid to a police station.”

“No, it’s fine. We’re just going over a few things in my statement. My lawyer will be there.”

“What about your dad?”

“He can’t make it, but like I said, it’s really not that big of a deal.”

I’m downplaying it. This meeting might not be a big deal, but the situation itself is. The prosecutor is going forward with the case against Percy since it’s his second assault charge. I’m not even supposed to be involved anymore, but his lawyer has reached out to mine several times this past month. Percy’s pissed about what I’ve set into motion. But even if I wanted to drop the charges, the cops aren’t going to. And apparently Percy’s being too stubborn and refuses to plead out.

“It’s so annoying,” I tell Shane. “He could just cut a deal and get probation. All he has to do is admit guilt and we don’t have to waste time in court.”

“I honestly thought he’d take a plea. But I guess a narcissist like him can’t admit he did anything wrong. In his warped mind, you deserved it for what you did to him—breaking up with him, being with somebody new.”

“Unacceptable,” I say sarcastically. “How dare I try to live my life without him?”

Shane bends down to kiss me. “Text me if you need anything. I can always leave Maryanne at the diner and pay one of the waitresses to keep an eye on her while I run down the street to the station.”

“I’ll be fine, I promise. I love you.”

I say those three words to him every day now, and part of me still curses myself for not saying them the night Percy was parked outside Meadow Hill. I felt it then, but I was still pissy that Shane went off with Lynsey. Now I realize how childish that was. If you love someone, you should always tell them. Life is too short, and you never know what tomorrow will bring. What if I kept my feelings to myself that night and something had happened to him the next morning? I can’t even imagine living with that kind of regret.

“I love you too,” Shane says before kissing me again.

He leaves for practice, and I return to the kitchen, where Maryanne sits at the counter drinking the smoothie I made her. She slurps loudly on the straw.

“You two are very mushy,” she accuses.

“I know.” I sigh. “It’s disgusting.”

Maryanne snickers. She laughs a lot more frequently than Shane. I don’t know if it’s because children are more resilient or if she’s really good at masking her pain. But while she talks about missing her dad and has moments where she cries, she’s not carrying the heavy weight that Shane’s been struggling with for days.

“All right,” I tell her. “Let’s bundle up for the rock hunt. We have a few hours before we need to head to campus.”

We’re going for a walk, then lunch, then physiology, and then Shane and I will make the hostage exchange. It’s going to be a busy day.

Shane’s mom calls while we’re at lunch, and I have to cut Maryanne off midsentence. She’s chattering on about the rocks we found on our walk.

“Hold on. It’s your mom.” I quickly answer the call. “Hi, April.”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

“Hey, sweetheart. Just wanted to check in. Make sure you guys are okay.”

“We’re great. Thank you.” Shane’s mother calls me every single day, which is about, oh, a million times more than my own mother. I’m lucky to hear from Mom once every few months.

“How is the house hunting going?” I ask April.

“Good. I think I found something. You can tell Shane I’ll send him the listing later. Hopefully he’ll have a chance to look at it. We can discuss over the holidays and also deal with all the estate stuff.”

I can’t even imagine how much “stuff” there is. Ryan ran several businesses, owned a ton of properties, and it all goes to Shane and Maryanne.

“Do you want to talk to your mom?” I ask, covering the mouthpiece.

She shakes her head. “I’ll call her tonight.”

“Maryanne says she’ll call you tonight,” I tell April.

“Sounds good. Thanks for helping out, Diana. It means the world, having you as part of our family.”

Damned if that doesn’t bring a lump to my throat. Yes, I have a family. I have my dad, Larissa, Thomas. But hearing those words from…a mother, I guess. It lands differently.

I’m still a bit raw from it later when Shane and I exchange Maryanne duties before cheer practice. And I’m still thinking about it after practice. As I’m leaving the locker room with Crystal and Brooke, I suddenly wonder if this rift with my mother, the chasm between us, is partially my fault. Because how often do I call her? What do I do to bridge the distance?

When I really reflect on it, I realize that somewhere along the line, I simply gave up because of her disinterest in me. The awareness that I’ll never be smart enough for her took its toll and I stopped caring.

But I should care. I don’t begrudge anyone who cuts off a family member; there are multiple reasons to do it, and I would never judge if someone said, oh, I don’t speak to my mother. I wouldn’t question it because I’d assume they had their reasons.

But, in the grand scheme of things, mine isn’t so bad.

In the lobby of the athletic center, I walk toward an empty bench instead of the front door, waving the girls off. I sit down and dial Mom’s number.

I’m prepared to leave a voice message, so I’m surprised to hear her voice. “Diana. Is everything okay?”

Like you care is my first thought, and when my brain catches it, it’s all the confirmation I need. I am part of the problem. Maybe she does care. Why do I instantly decide she doesn’t?

“Did something happen with Percival?” she asks in concern.

I suddenly realize I haven’t spoken to her at all about what happened with Percy. I told Dad that I would contact her when I was ready to talk, and while I did touch base briefly, I never actually talked to her about it.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that the failure of this relationship is two-sided.

“I’m an asshole,” I blurt out.

“What?” She’s startled.

“I never even called you to talk about what happened.”

“No,” she says tightly. “You didn’t.”

Despite my epiphany, a familiar note of accusation creeps in. “But you didn’t call me either.”

“You told your father you would discuss it when you were ready. I’m not the type to push.”

Frustration tightens my throat. “But you should push, Mom. You should.”

She doesn’t respond.

“My ex-boyfriend punched me in the face. You should have been on the first plane out of New York to come see me.” I sigh. “I’m not upset about it—”

“Really? Because it sounds like you’re upset about it.”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m having a thought explosion.”

“A thought explosion.” There’s amusement in her voice.

“Yes, just…let me unjumble this.” I take a breath. “I didn’t want to talk to you about Percy because I was embarrassed. I thought that you would blame me.”

She gasps. “Sweetheart. Do you truly believe that?”

“I did. But now I’m realizing it was my own insecurities making me believe that. I’m so used to thinking I’m a disappointment to you, I’m not smart enough for you, that when Percy snapped on me, I kept thinking how disappointed you would be or that you’d think I was dumb enough to let it happen—”

“Diana!” She sounds genuinely upset. “I would never think—”

“I know that now,” I interrupt. “It was all coming from an irrational place. But…” I let out another breath. “My boyfriend’s father died.”

“Oh.” She’s startled by the abrupt subject change. “I’m sorry to hear that. This is the hockey player?”

“Yes, the hockey player. He’s a lot more than that, though. But yeah, he just lost his dad. His sister has been staying with him this week, and her mom has been checking in every single day.”

I hear a sigh on the other end. “Don’t tell me you want me to call you every day, because that hasn’t been the nature of our relationship your entire life.”

“It hasn’t,” I agree. “And I’m not saying I want that, but a little interest in my life is not too much to ask for.”

“I show interest.”

“No, Mom, you don’t. You criticize me when I talk to you about cheerleading or my dance competition. I understand you’re not interested in it, but guess what. You can fake it.” I start to laugh. “I fake it all the time. I’m not too interested in hockey, but I make the effort and listen to my boyfriend talk about it. Because it’s his passion. And when Dad goes on about his stupid sausages and his butcher, I pretend to care. But guess what, I don’t care about meat!”

Mom giggles. “Oh my God. Does he still go on about Gustav?”

“Yes, and it’s obnoxious. But that’s what you do when you love people. Support their interests. I’m not saying I want you to start coming to my cheer competitions. I know we’re different. But I don’t want to miss out on a relationship with you just because we’re completely different people. Like, we must have something in common. Some common ground. I just don’t think we’ve tried hard enough to find it.”

“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t think we have either.”

“Well, I’m willing to do it if you are. I’m willing to put in the effort.”

“I would like that.”

“Would you really?” I can never tell with my mother. She’s so good at shielding her emotions.

“I would.” Her voice catches. “It hurt me when you chose to live with your father after the divorce. I understood it, of course. He’s the fun one. I’m the strict one. And even back then, like you said, we didn’t have a lot of common ground. Our personalities are so diametrically opposed. But I felt like you didn’t want to spend any time with me, and eventually I…you’re right, I stopped trying. I speak to your brother all the time.”

Hearing that brings a sting of hurt.

“And yet with my daughter, my firstborn, I barely pick up the phone. It’s unacceptable.”

“It’s on both of us,” I say.

“No, I’m the parent. I take ninety percent of the blame.”

I snort into the phone. “All right. I’ll accept the ten percent.” My voice gets serious again. “Maybe I can come see you over the holiday break. I know you said you have a lot of work preparing your lectures for January, but—”

“I can set aside an hour or two for you.” She’s joking.

“Oh, thanks. So generous.” I’m joking too.

“There’s this excellent spa on the Upper East Side that I recently discovered. Should I book us a spa day?”

“Since when do you like spas?”

“Since always, Diana. You know I get monthly massages. What did you think that meant?”

“It didn’t even occur to me that it might be a spa-type thing.”

“Oh, it’s a spa-type thing.”

We say goodbye, and although my boyfriend still has a huge weight on him, I feel like one has been lifted off me.