Chapter 23
I’d always associated smells with certain people and places in my life. The slightest hint of exhaust or street food would bring me back to New York. Before I moved back home, the sharp, masculine scent of sandalwood and fir trees reminded me of Ian, though now I suspected that sawdust and freshly cut wood would bring him to mind.
And the moment I smelled lemon Pledge or cinnamon coffee cake, I thought of my parents’ house. Very little about it had changed since I moved out after high school because neither my mom nor dad felt the need to make updates to a place where they were perfectly comfortable.
As Sage and I walked into their house for lunch, I took a deep inhale. Rachel must have just baked the cinnamon cake at home because the scent of it hung heavy in the air, and the pang of nostalgia was so sharp, I felt it behind my breastbone.
“In the kitchen,” my mom called.
Sage hung her coat on the wooden coat tree next to the door, and I did the same.
“Shoes off,” I whispered when she started into the family room.
Sage plopped on the floor and tugged her tennis shoes off, chucking them toward the shoe tray next to the door. When they bounced off the wall, I gave her a look.
“What? I took them off,” she said, then she scampered off to find her cousins, who were making loud whooping sounds from the basement rec room. That room smelled like old, musty carpet and my dad’s aftershave.
My dad was in his recliner, eyes closed, the gentle sounds of his snoring pulling a smile on my face. Carefully, I pulled the green and white blanket my mom crocheted up and over his stomach because he always got cold when he napped, even if he never admitted it.
In the kitchen, my mom was pulling a casserole from the oven—ham and cheese and potatoes, from the looks of it—and Rachel was setting the table.
“Todd couldn’t make it?” I asked her.
My sister paused, straightening a fork next to one of the plates. “He got an overtime shift.”
“Good,” I said. “I mean, that’s good, right?”
Rachel nodded. “Double pay, so yes, I’d say so. Tips have been down for me at the restaurant, so the extra cash helps.”
My mom rubbed her back as she passed my sister. “Don’t feel like you need to explain anything to us. We understand. Not everyone can stay home and still get paid.”
The tightness in my jaw was immediate, and I’d be shocked if my tongue wasn’t bleeding because I bit down on it so hard. “I work from home, Mom.”
My mom sighed, slicking a hand over the top of her graying bun. “Let’s not ruin lunch before it’s even started.”
I took a deep breath and tried to remember what Ian had talked about. I didn’t need them to understand what I did.
But still, I couldn’t drop it completely, because I was kinda getting sick of being the punching bag. “I know Todd and Rachel work hard, Mom. And it’s a very different kind of job than I’ve ever had. But that doesn’t mean I don’t work hard too.”
Rachel gave me a brief, inscrutable look, and I had a feeling her tongue was bleeding just like mine. The six years between us felt like twenty sometimes, and this was one of them. We’d always been just far enough away from each other that we were never in the same phase of school at the same time.
It was only in having kids that we evened out. I got pregnant earlier than I’d expected to, and Rachel and Todd waited to save their money, then struggled with infertility for a couple of years before they had their two kids.
“Can you fill the waters, Harlow?” Mom asked. She moved some warm rolls into the breadbasket and handed them to Rachel. The cinnamon cake was on a hand-knitted trivet to the right of the oven, and it looked exactly the same way it always had.
I did as she asked, the three of us moving around the kitchen and small dining nook like we’d time-warped back twenty-five years. We’d all sit in the same spots when it was time to eat. The kids would be at a card table just to the side of us, and my dad would grumble a little when my mom instructed him to turn off the TV while we ate.
For some, there might be comfort in that routine, but despite my dad’s obvious olive branch at Sage’s practice, it made me feel like my feet were stuck in quicksand.
The food was ready, the glasses filled, and my mom called for my dad. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.
“I’m up, I’m up,” he groaned. “Just resting my eyes for a bit.”
I smiled, and I caught Rachel doing the same. For just a moment, she looked over at me, and her smile softened, just a little.
The kids came bounding up the stairs, jostling at the sink to take turns washing their hands, and my dad came into the kitchen, stopping short when he saw me. “When did you get here?”
I laughed. “When you were resting your eyes,” I said.
He sighed, his cheeks reddening slightly. “Ahh.”
Sage ran over for a hug. “Hi, Grandpa!”
He ruffled the top of her hair. “Looked good at practice the other day, kiddo. I told your grandma all about it when I got home.”
She beamed. “You did?”
My mom conceded a tiny smile. “He did. Couldn’t stop talking about your throwing and how fast you were. According to him, you might be the best athlete this family’s ever seen.”
The smile on my daughter’s face was it—the sole reason I was here. Maybe they weren’t perfect with me, and there wasn’t much I could do about that now. But the way she lit up under their praise went a long way toward soothing some of the feathers that hadn’t quite smoothed out since I got home.
As we took our seats at the table, Sage asked, “Are you coming to my first game?”
My mom nodded, serving up the casserole to my dad first, then me and my sister. “It’s on the calendar. You sure that’s not a dangerous sport to be playing?”
“No tackling,” I told her. “No more dangerous than playing soccer or basketball.”
“Well,” she murmured, “I guess I’ll have to see for myself what it’s like next week.”
Sage bounced in her seat. “And it’s right after Mom’s birthday! I told her maybe the team can sing to her.”
“To which I told her that I sincerely wished for anything but that,” I said.
“Thirty-five. Hard to believe it,” Dad said. He took a mouthful of his casserole. “It’s good, honey.”
The conversation was driven mainly by the kids, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. They chatted happily about school and their friends and what YouTube channel they liked the most. Rachel and I interjected the most, and my parents seemed content to occasionally comment on the food or the weather.
There was a brief lull, and my dad gave me a quick look. “You, uh, doing good on your writing over at Ian’s house?”
My mom’s face did that pinched thing, and Rachel kept her focus on her plate.
Instead of biting my tongue or letting their bullshit get to me, I smiled at my dad. “I am, thank you for asking. I have a new series idea I’ve been plotting out, and I’m going to send a couple of chapters to my editor in a few days. But I’m really excited about it.”
He nodded, only a brief, hard look at my mom before he pulled his attention back to me. “That’s great.”
“And you get paid for ideas?” Rachel asked. “I thought you needed a whole book first.”
If someone didn’t give me a gold star for keeping my face pleasant during the whole meal, I’d be really sad because holy shit, did I deserve one. “I get an advance when we sign a contract for those books, so yes. Then I’ll get the rest of the advance when I submit the second draft, and once I earn that out, I get my monthly royalties. Plus foreign and audio, which is how I’m still getting paid, because I’m earning royalties on my previous books.”
“I guess I don’t know much about how your job works,” she conceded quietly. Rachel pushed her fork across her plate to take another dainty bite of the bland casserole.
“How can we?” my mom said. “She was never here. And now that she’s back, she’s hardly ever here either.”
I added a liberal amount of salt, but my mom wasn’t watching. “You could always ask, Mom. I’m happy to tell you about it, but honestly, I’ve never known you to care much about what I do.”
She sighed, resignation coating her face like a mask. “It just doesn’t seem right, is all. You’re living with someone you’re not married to. You’re almost thirty-five and…” Her voice trailed off when she realized I’d set my fork down and was staring at her, my gaze unflinching.
“Estelle,” my dad said firmly. “I think that’s enough.”
“Oh no, let her speak, Dad.” I refused to look away from my mom. “If she’s got something to say, by all means, she should say it.”
Sage glanced between us, her expression uneasy. But this kind of discomfort would happen the longer we stayed. Unless we had a reckoning or my mom underwent a complete personality transplant. And I wouldn’t let my daughter see me back down from a moment like this.
My mom fumbled a bit under my directness, which was understandable because we never laid shit out on the table. It was done in loaded judgmental silences and passive-aggressive comments. It was done in the frustrated slam of a door when I was a bit younger and crying to my best friend because I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for them to take me as I was.
“I’m almost thirty-five, and what?” I asked. “Still unmarried? You betcha. I do myself no favors. I do Sage no favors by marrying someone simply because my biological clock is ticking too loudly for you.” I leaned forward. “Mom, I am glad that you found the life that works for you, but can’t you understand that that’s what I’m trying to do, too? Just because it’s different from yours doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
My mom’s eyes lingered on mine, a disbelieving shake to her head. “You’re living with a man who isn’t your husband, Harlow. How do you think that looks? How on earth will you have the chance to find anyone that way? Ian’s always been rude. Unfriendly. That’s doing you no favors.”
A stunning flash of angry heat curled my bloodstream, and in the moment I sucked in a sharp breath, filtering through all the many colorful words I wanted to spit at her to keep his fucking name out of her mouth, my daughter beat me to the punch.
She stood from the table, her hands clenched in tight fists.
“Don’t say that about him,” she said fiercely, her cheeks flared red and her eyes hard as I’ve ever seen them. “Ian’s my friend. He’s Mom’s friend. And he takes care of us. All the time.”
It felt like my heart was outside my body, watching her defend the man who’d always meant so much to me. Who I knew so well, past all the unfriendliness everyone else saw and judged him for. My eyes filled with hot tears, and I blinked frantically, trying to keep them back.
My mom’s face went slack with shock. “Sage, honey, this is a conversation for the adults.”
“Then why are you having it in front of the kids?” my nephew asked. Rachel speared him with a stern look, and he sank an inch into his seat.
Sage remained standing, her entire body rigid. My chest ached, and I wanted to pull her into my arms and hold her tight until she softened again.
My mom didn’t seem to be having the same struggles, and she tried to assert a little bit of control over the situation. “I’ve known Ian Wilder a lot longer than you have, Sage, and I’m allowed to have an opinion on him.”
Slowly, I stood, tossing my napkin onto the table.
“You’re allowed an opinion,” I said, voice low, positively brimming with warning, “but you don’t get to speak this one in front of me.”
Sage came around the table and gripped my hand. “Or me. Maybe you should try to be more like him, Grandma. Maybe Mom wouldn’t have moved us into his house if you were.”
The room pulsed with thick silence, weighted down with enough subtext to choke a horse. I tightened my fingers around Sage’s. “Why don’t you go wait outside, kiddo. I’ll be right there.”
When she looked up at me, dammit, she looked proud. Of herself, and maybe me too.
“I’m ready to go home,” she whispered.
I cupped the side of her face and smiled. “We will.”
She gave a sad little wave to her cousins and gave my dad a brief hug. My mom sat in her chair, a hand covering her mouth as Sage picked up her shoes and went outside to put them on.
“I don’t know why my friendship with him bothers you so much,” I said quietly. “Maybe it makes you feel insecure because I’ve always needed him so much more than I ever needed you. Or maybe it’s like Dad said and the things I want terrify you, and you don’t know how to deal with it.”
My mom’s eyes snapped over to my dad’s, and he merely gave her an inscrutable look.
“Figure out how to deal with it, Mom.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “The decisions I make for me and my daughter are not anything I need you to understand. But I won’t tolerate disrespect for those decisions, especially not in front of her. Because then you’ll make her question what’s wrong with the way we live, and if you do that, then you and I will have a much, much bigger problem.”
My mom’s frame expanded on a deep breath, and when she finally lifted her gaze from the table, I almost sank back into my seat when I saw a glimmer of remorse. But her mouth stayed shut, and her eyes dropped again. Rachel and her kids stayed silent, probably wishing like hell they’d been able to leave with Sage.
I set my hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Sorry. I know you were trying, and I appreciate it.”
His jaw was tight, and he managed a slight nod.
Sage and I were in the car a few minutes later, driving back home. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Am I in trouble for talking to Grandma like that? I know I’m supposed to respect my elders or whatever.”
I smiled. “Not in trouble with me. You remember what I told you about bullies, right?”
She nodded. “That if someone’s being mean to me or my friends, I’m allowed to stand up for them. And even if I get in trouble at school, I’ll never get in trouble at home.”
“That’s right.” I rolled my neck, a tension headache already starting to bloom behind my eyes. “There are countless reasons people act the way they do. And I don’t always understand why, especially on days like this. Your grandma was in the wrong. She shouldn’t have said what she said, and I hope she’ll realize that some day.” I reached over and squeezed her hand. “But I appreciate you standing up for Ian. You only have to apologize to Grandma if it would make you feel better.”
She widened her eyes. “No way. She was being a huge b—” She stopped when I eyed her. “Bully, Mom. I was going to say bully.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
“Is Ian home, do you think?”
I shook my head. “No, he was helping his brother with something today. I think he said he’d be gone until after dinner.”
She deflated a little. “Okay.”
Yeah. It made me feel a little deflated too. But boy, was I not going to let her see that. We unloaded into the house, and while she pulled up the football game on TV, I told Sage I’d look for a box cake in the pantry.
Making my own birthday cake, I thought. Exactly the kind of thing that signaled boring and alone when I was younger. I wasn’t boring though, and even though I didn’t have a partner, I wasn’t alone. By no definition was I a failure.
Tucked in the top shelf of the pantry cabinet, I saw the red edge of a box and pulled it out. Yellow cake. It would do.
Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was my favorite, but so many things about this year were already different than I’d expected, so why would I think my cake would be exactly what I thought?
I set it on the counter and stared at it for a few seconds.
With the conversation at my parents looping around and around and around in my head, the cake mix staring back at me, a lump wedged itself firmly in my throat. My stomach knotted with unease, I tried to swallow it down, then opened the box, pulled the eggs out of the fridge and the oil out of the cupboard, and got to work.
And when Sage and I sat down with two giant pieces of that cake, smothered in the basic vanilla frosting, she took her first bite, closed her eyes, and made a happy humming noise.
With a full mouth, she said, “‘Sgood cake, Mom.”
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, and I made sure to keep them there. She snuggled into my side while I took my own bite.
And you know what? That birthday cake I made myself was fucking delicious.