Chapter Twenty-Three
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Sarelia
“This is the best day of my life,” Fred declares as his eyes rove the table, skittering over the veritable feast Rosie’s laid out. “Do you do this every day?”
“No, dear,” Rosie answers. “Only once a week, I fear.”
His eyes bug out, and he turns to our parents. “I’m moving in with Lia,” he declares. “Effective immediately.”
Mom’s eye twitches. “You are not moving in with Lia. You have school.”
“I can do homeschool,” he suggests. “Lia’s retired, so she has plenty of time to teach me.”
“That retirement isn’t set in stone,” Dad says. “And even if it were, you’re not moving hours away from us at sixteen. It’s bad enough that your sister has.”
I poke at a potato on my plate, appetite mysteriously vanished.
“You’re retired?” Heidi asks, green eyes widening in surprise.
I wince, but nod. “Since last month, officially.”
“That’s so cool!” she exclaims. “Bazzy’s retired, too. You guys are like retirement twins!”
My parents eye Basil, the six-foot-massive, broad, muscular man sitting beside his wife with a scowl on his face.
I smile at his scowl.
“Young retirees club!” Heidi declares. “I’m so jealous. I love my job, and I believe in what I do, and I’d probably be bored to tears if I didn’t have it, but to have yourself together enough to retire before you’re thirty?” She whistles. “You guys are amazing.”
“What did you do before retirement,” Dad asks Basil.
“He did some freelance work,” Heidi rushes to answer for him. “In a niche industry.” She turns to me, asking quickly, “What did you do?”
“Lia’s an author,” Fred says around an entire roll he’s somehow managed to fit in his mouth. “She writes romance books.”
“Wrote,” Archie corrects. “Before she retired.”
Fred toasts him with a forkful of asparagus.
Heidi’s eyes light up. “Romance? Like Camilla Evergreen?”
I bite my cheek, terribly aware of my mother’s eyes on me. “Yes, like Camilla. You’re a fan of hers?” I ask, knowing full well that she is.
“Absolutely,” she answers. “Do you know her?”
I shrug. “Yes and no? I’d say we’re distant colleague-level acquaintances.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “You know her.”
“Um.” I blink. “Distantly.”
“Do you have a pen name?” Millie asks, swiping at her phone. “I can’t find anything by Sarelia Prim.”
“It’s Pearl Taylor,” Archie answers. “Spelled in the common ways.”
She taps at her screen, then gasps. “You’re famous!” she accuses.
I follow Fred’s example and shove a roll into my mouth, the better to pretend this conversation isn’t happening as my parents sit feet away, judging.
“Let me see,” Heidi demands, leaning over Stryker to look at Millie’s phone. On Millie’s other side, Rosie squishes in, too.
I take another bite of my roll.
“Famous?” Mom asks.
Dad’s eyebrows furrow.
Fred’s eyes roll. “Do you guys pay attention to, like, anything?” he asks.
Mom’s face goes beet red. “Of course we do,” she snaps. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He grunts, disbelieving.
“These covers are gorgeous,” Rosie says. “And there are so many of them!”
Let’s play a game. It’s called How Many Pieces Of Broccoli Can Sarelia Fit In Her Mouth At One Time.
Dad clears his throat. “How many are there?”
“Fifty-three,” Archie replies, laying his hand on my thigh. “Over the course of eight-and-a-half years.”
“My goodness,” mom murmurs. “That’s a lot of books…”
I press my lips into a smile. “This food is delicious, Rosie.”
“Is that how you were able to afford to retire?” Dad asks. “Because you have so many books?”
“She also makes investments,” Archie says when I cram another piece of broccoli into my mouth. “She runs ads on her books, then invests her income in stocks or in more ads. Her economic literacy is marvelous.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Mom asks, brown eyes clashing with mine. “Why would you let us worry like that?”
Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I’m a full-grown adult and as such you should trust me to make full-grown adult decisions?
I pick up the chicken leg on my plate and take a nice, big bite from it.
Basil meets my gaze, frowning as his eyes flick to my parents and then back. You okay? he seems to ask.
I grimace.
His frown deepens.
Dad sighs. “You’re always doing stuff like this,” he says. “It’s no wonder we worry.”
Basil blinks, then his head turns oh-so-slowly to face Dad. “She’s always doing… what?” he rumbles.
Dad sighs again, a man exhausted after decades of dealing with his wayward daughter.
“Whatever she wants with no thought to how it’s affecting her mother and I.
She worries us, and oftentimes it’s like this.
” He throws a hand out toward me. “Letting us steep in our worry needlessly when she could have just explained.”
I freeze, and so does the rest of the table, except for Fred, who wrinkles his nose. “Or you could just trust her,” he mutters. “Since it’s oftentimes completely fine and she knows what she’s doing. You didn’t raise a moron.”
“Fred,” I admonish. I’m grateful for his support and for a little bit of evidence that not everyone in my family thinks so poorly of me, but he doesn’t need to risk punishment by sticking up for me. I’m a big girl. I can do it myself… probably.
Fred’s jaw hardens. “I’m just saying,” he insists, defiance in his hazel eyes. “I think you’ve proved yourself trustworthy enough. It’s only them who haven’t gotten the memo.”
“We trust her,” Mom interrupts. “But that trust only goes so far when she’s keeping secrets or doing things like running off and getting married on a whim.”
Archie’s hand squeezes my thigh as my stomach twists and a sense of helplessness nearly overwhelms me.
“I don’t mean to keep secrets,” I say. “It’s just…
I pay my bills. When I lived with you, I paid my rent and my share of the utilities every month on time.
I was never late. I was never short. I never asked to borrow money or to get a grace period on a payment.
I thought it was clear that I knew what I was doing and was managing my money well.
You guys are the ones who taught me how to budget and invest. I thought…
well, I thought that you knew that I was doing okay. ”
“How could we know that if you didn’t tell us?” Dad asks, throwing his hands up.
“I’d like to revisit my ‘she’s not a moron’ point,” Fred says.
“I think,” Rosie interrupts, laying kind eyes on me.
“That sometimes a parent finds it difficult to let go of their anxieties when it comes to their child. We spend so many years of their lives with them wholly dependent on us. We know everything they do. We control everything they do. Then, one day, completely out of nowhere, they’re suddenly this big, independent creature with their own interests and lives outside of us.
It’s hard to move on from the protector mode we spend so long in.
” Her gaze strays to my parents. “But we must move on from it,” she says gently.
“Our children are not solely our children, but people in their own right—people who make choices that may confuse and confound us, but that are their choices to make. Part of loving them is allowing them the freedom to live in the way that they desire. We must trust that they’ll come to us when they need us.
” She pauses, glancing at Baz. “We must trust in our parenting and the values and lessons we’ve passed to them.
Then, we can truly enjoy the adults they become. ”
My focus shifts to Basil as my eyes well with tears, and I’m elated to see that he is not unaffected by his mother’s words.
His gaze rests on her, soft and sweet to the point that he is very nearly smiling.
He reaches across his wife to clasp Rosie’s hand and squishes it one, two, three times before letting it drop.
Heidi sniffles between them.
My eyes slide down the table to Millie, who blinks really, really hard as Stryker kisses her on the temple.
When my attention moves back to my parents, I can’t say I’m surprised to see that they don’t look nearly as moved by Rosie’s words as the rest of us. Dad’s jaw clenches, and Mom bites her lip, brows drawn together.
“We do trust her,” Mom repeats.
Fred scoffs. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Fred!”
“Well!” he says. “I can only sit around for so long while they treat you like this. It’s ridiculous.
It took these basically strangers four seconds to be proud of you for retiring, but your parents?
Who are supposed to know you and love you and want what’s best for you?
They basically called you stupid and then wished with all their might that you’d go back into the work force and slog through it for the next forty years for the sake of their peace of mind.
” He turns to our parents. “I love you, and Lia loves you, but we all know that’s messed up.
Even Archie’s family can see that it’s messed up, and we’ve been here a single day,” he grumbles.
“You’re never just… happy for us. It’s always some critique, some judgement, some something in the name of ‘wanting what’s best’ for us.
Have you ever considered that what’s best for us is to figure some stuff out on our own?
” He huffs, rolling his eyes. “I mean, geez, Lia’s nearly thirty years old and you’re still acting like she’s five. When does it end?”
Dad’s brows pull low over his eyes, and Mom looks like she’s been slapped. “We’re happy for you,” she says weakly. “Of course we’re happy for you.”
“Mom,” Fred objects. “Lia’s retired and gotten married all in the same week, and neither of you have congratulated her.
Look at her.” He throws a hand out toward me.
“She’s a nervous wreck, and it’s not because of her situation.
It’s because of you. She was so happy to tell us that she was retiring.
And you know she’s happy to be married to Archie.
She’s only been obsessed with him for-freaking-ever.
And now that we’re here, you can tell she’s clearly married into a good, loving, well-adjusted family.
But you’re still not happy for her. You’re still not congratulating her.
You’re too caught up in your own anxiety about the possibility that she maybe won’t be okay that you’re not addressing the very real danger of her being so okay and healed that she realizes having your sort of energy in her life is terrible for her. ”
Ah, and now Dad looks like he’s been slapped.
“I’m not dropping anyone from my life,” I declare, shooting Fred the stink eye. “And I don’t appreciate the implication that I would.”
Fred shrugs. “Well, maybe you won’t, but I will. I’m not sticking around for ten-and-a-quarter extra years after I turn eighteen if it’s just to be babied.”
“Fred,” I protest.
“I think,” Archie says, “that perhaps everyone would be more comfortable if this conversation were happening in private.”
I tear my eyes off of my brother to see that the only people uncomfortable are me, my dad, and my mom.
Sal, Heidi, and Millie appear to be treating this like their own personal TV drama while Basil and Stryker watch on, eyes and body alert—for what, I don’t even want to know, but I appreciate the protective energy anyway.
Rosie’s expression veers more toward concern than discomfort, and Fred is…
Fred. Boyish, stubborn, and certain he’s right. It doesn’t help that he pretty much is.
I turn to Archie, pressing my hand down on his in a silent thanks. His eyes flick from my parents to me, and his mouth tips up in a rueful smile as he rises. “I have a family meeting room inside,” he tells my parents. “If you’ll follow me?”
Mom visibly works to regain her composure, blinking rapidly as she takes several deep breaths before standing. Dad follows her lead.
I get up also, sending only one regretful look at the untouched chocolate cake before grabbing Fred by the ear and dragging him up after me.
“If we’re not here when you’re done, I’ll bring by some cake tomorrow,” Rosie promises. “And we’ll clean all this up. You go take care of your family, dear. We’ll take care of ours.”
As my eyes meet her soft brown ones, something settles in my chest, because I know that when she says ours, I’m included in her count.
I send a small, grateful smile to the table at large and receive several back.
Then, I tighten my hold on my brother’s ear, turn, and follow my husband to the Chamber of Doom—oh, sorry, I meant, the Chamber of Healthy Adult Communication and Healing.
The Chamber of Doom is in the basement, and—if I’m so honest—I think I’d prefer being strapped to that table than having the conversation I’m about to…Yippie.