Chapter Forty-Eight
forty-eight
Lanie
■ 16-FEB ■ Trans-Continental Airways ■ Flight 104 ■
LHR-London, Heathrow ? JFK-John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport
Seat Assignment: 39K
Lanie lay on Narcisa’s couch, where she’d been for the whole weekend.
Coming back from the wedding, Lanie did as she always had. She went home immediately to present herself safe and sound before her mother and then she entered her bedroom and didn’t come out again until it was time to go to work. She was a ghost that haunted the rooms of their apartment for half a week, and as soon as the weekend arrived she decamped to Narcisa and Isis’s home in Riverdale, an enclave in the North Bronx. Lanie couldn’t be in her mom’s presence or in her mom’s house, because she couldn’t bear the gloating.
“You and I both know your mom wouldn’t gloat. She loves you.” Narcisa had seemed to reach the end of her capacity for coddling around midnight on Saturday. Now, on Sunday morning, she was in normal no-nonsense Narcisa mode.
Lanie shrugged. “Maybe not but I’d feel it anyway. She said this would happen.”
Narcisa sighed. “I don’t think I agree with your assessment of what exactly happened.” Narcisa sat back in the sofa chair across from Lanie.
Lanie shook her head like she was trying to clear it of cobwebs. “What? I told you. He kicked me out of his house!”
“Because his daughter was having a meltdown, right?”
Lanie shrugged to say more or less .
“At the sight of her father’s new lover damn near naked in her kitchen. Probably to her mind, her mother’s kitchen, correct?”
Lanie agreed it wasn’t a good look—she wasn’t that clueless. Still... “He kicked me out and called an Uber!”
“Don’t put me in the position of defending a man I’ve never met. He clearly didn’t want you to do the precise thing you ended up doing, walking the streets and riding the rails in last night’s clothes and no doubt looking like you had the exact type of night you had.”
Lanie’s cheeks heated, mortified. “Well, he certainly took his time calling me after.”
“You also didn’t bother picking up.”
“Maybe I’m giving him space, Narcisa! Besides, I know where I stand.” There was a renewed crying jag to go with those words.
To Lanie’s surprise, Isis came and sat beside her, giving Lanie a semblance of what she desperately wanted. Lanie held the woman’s slight body tightly as she cried.
When the tears subsided somewhat, Narcisa spoke softly. “You said he told you he loved you. Why do you need to be in competition with his daughter?”
“I don’t, of course I don’t.”
“Because you know what it is to have a father who made everything and everyone a priority above his daughter. And you didn’t like that, did you?”
Lanie shook her head, her heart aching at the memory.
“In fact, you wouldn’t even want this Ridley guy if you thought he was that way, correct?”
“Yes,” Lanie admitted begrudgingly. “But why am I not important enough to anyone ?”
“Lanie. Mi amor , the only person you need to be most important to is yourself. Stop waiting for him, or anyone else, to validate you. Forget them. Find you. Cherish you. Protect you. Care for you. You’d be surprised how much other people take their cues about what’s valuable from you. You teach people how to treat you.”
Lanie went directly to work from Narcisa’s Monday morning. But she finally went home on Monday night. Trudging into the house with her big weekender, she was greeted by the smell of brown stewed chicken filling the house.
Lanie went to her bedroom and flopped down on her bed. She looked around her room, the same one she’d had since she was nine years old. There was no shame in where she lived. With the New York City housing market as it was, most of the people she knew lived with a roommate of some kind—be it a friend, a stranger, a spouse or a parent. Still, it made Lanie feel especially juvenile today that her mom was in the other room. Most likely because she realized she’d been throwing a temper tantrum for days now. Being rejected by Ridley had taught her a valuable lesson. She needed to take her entire life in hand.
You teach people how to treat you.
Lanie took a deep breath, deciding to put Narcisa’s advice to good use. Starting now.
She walked into the kitchen with an envelope in her hand. Her mother sat at a small table working on her sudoku. Ryan looked up over her bifocals at Lanie and gave a small polite smile. “So, you’re home?”
Lanie knew she meant it in more ways than one, so she shrugged. Her time flying back and forth to the UK was over but she’d never felt more out of her element in her life.
Ryan’s eyebrows rose, bottom lip jutting out, head nodding with faux surprise. She looked like her own mother then.
“Mommy, I have to say this. I think you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Her mother took off her glasses, placing them and her pen and pad on the table. “Excuse me?”
Lanie never spoke to her mother like that but it needed to be said. “Your niece just got married. You should have been there. A congratulatory phone call through Gran does not count as an appearance.”
“I had work.”
“You never take vacation, you have the days. You could’ve asked for them.”
Ryan unfolded her legs, preparing to stand. “You’re angry about something and you’re taking it out on me.”
“No, I’m taking it out on the right person! Maybe I shouldn’t have abetted you with this. Had I just refused to go to England, maybe for once you’d have gone instead. Maybe you could have chosen not to put me through the agony of having to do that with a smile plastered on my face. Maybe I could have stayed here and you could have been the one that everyone looked to.” Lanie’s voice broke as she struggled not to cry.
And then maybe she might never have met Ridley and now her heart wouldn’t feel completely shattered.
She presented the envelope to her mother. Dr. Markham’s fellowship application. “Maybe I need to move out.”
“What?”
“Maybe it’s time. Maybe part of my mistake the first time was staying in New York for college. I think we might be too codependent. You and I. You don’t do anything because I do it for you. It’s like you’ve given up on life. You go to work, you come home. That’s it.”
“Is this about Christmas? Lanie, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. Not the way it sounded, at least. Ridley seems like a very nice man but I was only trying to protect you.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk—”
“Let me finish,” Ryan interrupted. “You know I got pregnant while I was still in conservatory and your father convinced me to drop out. I was alone here in America and it made sense to me. Until I realized what he really wanted was to isolate me further and convince me to take care of him. Not you. Not us. Him . So, you dropping out scared me.”
“I quit school five years ago. Before Ridley and I ever met.”
“I know. It’s not him specifically, but when I saw those readmission and fellowship applications sitting on your bed gathering dust while you flew back and forth with this man, I don’t know, I panicked. I didn’t want you to lose your way. Because without direction, it’s easy to be given some by the first man who shows interest. And for him to convince you to move to England to be with him.”
“Is that it? You were scared I’d leave? Jesus, give me some credit for having my own mind!”
“No, baby, that’s an example. I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. You are too talented and beautiful and important to be somebody’s plaything. You don’t understand how it can be, how very successful men can be. They’ll look at you, my sweet girl, and instead of seeing your value as a person and partner, they’ll just see someone they can manipulate and use to prop up their own egos.”
“Ridley doesn’t think that way,” Lanie said but then realized, given the way he’d just cast her aside, who knew?
She did. That isn’t him.
“Sure, you’ll make for a good start until the next one comes along. Lighter, brighter, whiter , whatever. And the more successful they are, the quicker they’ll be to drop you for the newer, shinier model.”
Lanie knew intellectually this was just her mother’s pain and resentment toward her father and his wife, but her mother’s words shook her nonetheless. No, Lanie wouldn’t even consider this, because she knew it wasn’t true.
“You’re projecting.” The words broke from Lanie like a breach in a dam. Ryan looked stunned by her daughter’s outburst. “Ridley stayed with his wife until she died and now he’s raising his daughter alone because that’s who he is. Dad left us because he’s a selfish man. That’s who he is. And it’s no reflection on who we are.”
Ryan looked as if she’d lost her voice.
“And when you called me ‘nothing special’ and accused Ridley of using me, it was you who made me doubt myself and feel like I was nothing.”
“What do you want me to say?” Her mother cleared her throat, struggling to find the words.
“You could say you don’t believe that.”
“Of course I don’t! I’m sorry.”
“Your problem is you’ve tied your worth up in what Dad thought of you. And you’ve assumed the same is true for me. Like you don’t think I’m capable of discerning Ridley’s interest in me or knowing my own value otherwise.”
“You know I think you’re exceptional. Every day I wonder why you dropped out of grad school. I worry that I encouraged you to do that.”
“Mom, no. But when you said I was nothing special I realized you were talking about yourself too, but you are remarkable. A caring mother, a skilled nurse,” Lanie said. “Losing you was Dad’s mistake, not yours. I wish you’d realize that.”
At some point in the past two months, Lanie realized that she’d gotten so caught up in what her mother had said to her that she’d overlooked what her mother had said about herself.
“You think?”
Lanie nodded. “I know. How could I be remarkable if you weren’t too?”
Ryan smiled. “Look, baby, if he genuinely likes you, believe it or not, I’m glad, ecstatic even. Because I want him to like you.”
He loves me.
“And even your grandmother said he seemed to dote on you. So, maybe you’re right and I’m projecting, but it’s only because you’re the most important thing in my life. Naturally I want the best for you.”
“I’m the most important thing in your life?”
“You’re my child.” Her mother seemed confused by the question. “Of course you are.”
Lanie bit her trembling lip. She recalled her grandmother’s words. Each and every decision a parent makes factors in their children. And Bea was Ridley’s main priority. But that didn’t necessarily have to mean she wasn’t important to him too.
“My point is—” Ryan reached across the table to put a hand on Lanie’s forearm “—I can admit if I got it— and him —all wrong, baby.”
They fell into silence until her mother spoke again.
“So, you’re really applying?”
She nodded. “I think so. Yeah. Maybe you and I are both ready to get back out there.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry if I stifled you.”
“You didn’t, Mom,” Lanie said. “I’ve just been so afraid to fail again. Narcisa says I suffer from a ‘failure to launch.’”
“But there’s no shame in that. Even NASA has failed sometimes.”
Lanie shook her head. “But they’ve succeeded 166 times.”
“That’s right, and you’ve launched dozens of times. Fearlessly. I’ve watched you. And you’ll launch again,” Ryan said, patting Lanie’s hand. “And you’ll succeed too.”