Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My parents’ house is in an old part of the city where the streets have manicured medians and every mailbox is adorned with the family surname. The house I grew up in is an expansive white-brick structure, vines creeping up the outside walls near a three-door garage and trees limned with sunlight all hours of the day. When my Uber pulls into the driveway, I spot the old swing Robbie used to push me on hanging from a tree branch in the front yard.
I thank my Uber driver and send him a tip before wheeling my suitcase—full-sized, every cubic inch utilized—up the driveway to the front door.
It’s strange being here in early summer given I normally make an appearance only during holiday season. Honeysuckle on the wind, the grass plush and overgrown.
I’m just about to ring the doorbell when the navy-blue door swings open, revealing my mother. A tight bun, Dior slingback pumps, higher cheekbones than are strictly natural.
“I know, I know. The grass. But your father has been on a business trip all week, and now he’s golfing with that horrid man from the club.”
“Don’t you hire a landscaping team?” I ask. “They could probably mow as well.”
“He bought the mower, he wants to use the mower,” Mom says, rolling her eyes.
“He bought the mower twenty years ago.”
“Might you debate this with him ?” She steps two heeled feet over the threshold, pulling me against her body as the scent of the perfume she’s worn every day of my life washes over me in a cloud. “Did you go to church this morning?”
“Did you ?”
Mom pulls back, evaluating the state of me. “No, I had a brunch.”
“Same.”
She narrows her eyes. I narrow mine back. Then she smirks and turns, making a gesture with her red-manicured fingers to usher me inside.
“Do you want some coffee? I’ve been playing around with one of those pour-overs.”
I leave my suitcase in the hallway and shut the door behind me, following her into the house. I glance sideways and briefly note she’s updated the dayroom. Every time I come home something’s been remodeled.
“I’d love some coffee,” I call to her. “Do you have anything baked?”
“Of course, darling, I went to Brightside Bakeshop and picked you up one of those stratas you love. What time is your flight?”
In the kitchen, I take a seat at a barstool. “Eight.”
She perks up. “So you can stay for dinner?”
“If it’s an early dinner.”
I catch her smile as she turns and reaches into a cabinet for two mugs. “Lovely. Now, tell me all about the bachelorette party.”
I do; I tell her every detail. Where we went, what we ordered, who fell over and scraped their knee. It took me a long time to understand this is how she wants it: a vicarious experience. When I was in high school, I’d shut her out. Give her a disgruntled Fine, great, pretty, boring. But at some point during my freshman year of college, I realized she wasn’t being nosy. Hearing the little details of other people’s lives is what makes my mother happy.
“Did you have fun?” Mom asks.
I sip on my coffee as I contemplate.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
Even before Camila had drunkenly admitted she was leaving, I’d been stressed about corralling the girls and then paranoid someone would fall off the party wagon. After Cami’s admission, my mood the whole next day had been fraught with anxiety and drunken inner monologue until Will Grant had—for lack of better phrasing—quieted me.
He’d taken my anxiety and soothed it. Listened to my best attempt at articulating that inner monologue and offered counterpoints. He stole my stress away, replaced it with a sense of ease. Even as heated as I’d been following our proximity, I’d gone back to Andalo and danced until my feet were numb, then sang karaoke at our Airbnb until I passed out.
It wasn’t that I’d forgotten even for a moment about Cami’s admission. It was that I stopped letting it infect every other thought I had.
“Toward the end of the weekend,” I amend for Mom. “That’s when I found my groove.”
“Who helped you find it?” she asks.
I feed her a bland line, but I swear to God, there’s a knowing, motherly glint in her eye. “Did the trip give you wedding fever?” she asks.
“Mom.”
She throws up her hands. “Just asking! You know Oma would roll over in her grave if she knew you were still single.”
“Oma was married three times,” I retort. “She would have understood me waiting for the right man.”
Dad gets home forty-five minutes later—just moments after Mom mutters something under her breath to the effect of If only men could make sex last as long as golf. He kisses my forehead and gives my shoulders a squeeze.
“Have you checked your retirement fund recently?” he asks.
“No.”
“Are you still making more money than me?”
“Yes.”
Dad releases a jolly laugh. “Did you know the average age of a farmer in the United States is fifty-eight? We need to bolster the next generation of farmers.”
“If you say so.”
He grabs the remote, sits on the couch, and puts his feet up. “Want to watch Suits ?”
The day vanishes as I watch TV with my parents. We order kung pao broccoli for dinner and talk about the stocks Mom’s been trading. We drink lavender iced tea on the muggy back porch and FaceTime Robbie, plus his lemon-poppy-seed-muffin kids. When it’s almost time for my flight to San Francisco (my next pressing work obligation to schmooze investors), my parents drive me to the airport together. They squeeze me in tight hugs outside the departures gate, tell me they love me, remind me how proud they are of the woman I’ve grown into.
And for some reason, I think I have Will Grant to thank for the quiet of this day, too.