T H I R T Y O N E
T H I R T YO N E
- Avery -
I didn’t think seeing my parents would make me feel better, but I hadn’t paid them a visit in weeks and my mom said she finally mastered the art of raspberry lemonade.
“Well, if it isn’t the star baker,” my dad joked from his favorite chair at the kitchen table, still in his robe and slippers. “We were getting worried you forgot all about us with all the hobnobbing you’ve been doing with the bigshots of the baking world.”
“I’m not a star baker,” I said, wishing I didn’t have a certain bigshot on the brain. “Grace is.”
“I beg to differ,” my mom said, smiling over her shoulder at me before turning back towards the stove and flipping a chocolate chip pancake.
My mouth watered as I inhaled the familiar scent of my favorite childhood treat, which was surprising since I basically gorged on good smells for a living. Thank goodness calories weren’t processed in the nose or I’d be three hundred pounds by now… and it would be an even bigger shame that I was never going to do more cardio with the cad next door.
“How much money did you say you raised for charity?” she asked.
“Don’t pretend you’re proud of me,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “It’s embarrassing for us both.”
“I am proud of you, Avery. Don’t talk like that.” She slid a pancake atop the tall stack on the plate beside her and poured more batter into the sizzling pan. “I’m so proud I’m making your favorite breakfast!”
“I see that, Mom, thanks. What a nice surprise.”
“Speaking of surprises, I still think you should’ve been a lawyer,” my dad said, scrolling through the day’s headlines on his iPad.
My mom scowled at him.
“What?” he said, like he’d merely been reporting the weather. Coincidentally, high pressure and frequent storm fronts would’ve been a fairly accurate forecast for my future in law. “Avery’s a big girl. She’d rather I was honest with her. Isn’t that right, honey?”
“Of course, Dad.” I bent down to give him a hug. “It lets me know I can be honest with you.”
“Always.” He shot my mom a smug look.
“Like when I tell you that was a rude thing to say and that you should burn that dirty old robe.”
His expression fell. “I only mentioned it because you would’ve been great. Even better than what’s-her-face on SVU .”
I smiled. That was a big compliment coming from my dad.
“But you’ll be great at whatever you set your mind to.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled a chair out. “Moving on swiftly…”
He eyed my empty hands. “When do we get to try your famous brownies?”
“Mom told me not to bring any sweets because, apparently, you’ve been behaving badly.”
His head whipped towards her. “I told you I had no idea how those Twinkies ended up in the shed.”
My mom turned the stove off and moved the pan off the burner. “Well, I’m pretty sure your doctor didn’t put ’em there.”
My dad smoothed his hand over his head, visibly fighting the urge to pull his thinning silver hair.
“You’re looking at an addict,” she added.
I bit back a burst of laughter.
He glared at me before excusing himself from the table and leaving the room.
“Going to the shed?” I called after him.
My mom held up her fingers. “Four boxes, Avery.”
“I’m getting dressed!” he shouted, stomping up the stairs.
She carried the plate of pancakes over. “I shudder to think how many he must have snuck when we were doing the patio.”
“Is he unusually stressed or something?”
“About what? Being retired? He reads all day like a spoiled monk.”
“Do monks eat Twinkies?” I asked, hopping up to grab plates while she poured coffees.
“Modern monks probably do. Don’t they take alms? They probably eat whatever they can get their hands on.”
“I bet a Twinkie would taste weird if you were used to eating plain white rice.”
“Speaking of Twinkies,” she said, sitting across from me and sliding a mug my way. “How’s your twinkie in the city?”
I squinted at her. “Since when do you watch Friends ?”
“Since I found out Tom Selleck appears in nine episodes.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t dodge the question.” She served five pancakes onto the plate in front of her, arranged them like a flower, and passed them to me.
“You’re the best,” I said, reaching for the powdered sugar because it would be rude not to indulge when she’d gone to so much trouble.
“And you’re still dodging.”
I sighed.
Concern wrinkled her brow.
“Not good,” I admitted. “He’s come down with a terrible case of… jerk flu.”
“Sounds worse than man flu,” she said. “What happened?”
“I can’t tell you because you hold grudges forever.”
“So you want to work it out?”
“What I want is for the whole thing to have never happened.”
“Which part of the whole thing exactly?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”
She drizzled syrup on her stack of pancakes. “Did he cheat on you?”
“No,” I said. “We weren’t even an official thing…” The potential was there, though. Granted, he was a terrible neighbor, but he was certainly boyfriend material. If our budding romance hadn’t blown up that night, he probably would’ve ended up peeling that negligee off me with his teeth and inviting me to sit on his face.
“Did he hurt someone?”
“Yeah.” Me .
The set of her jaw hardened. “Was he rude to a waiter or something?”
“What? Why would you ask that?”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to guess obvious dealbreakers.”
“Oh.”
“Does he not want to make me a grandma?”
“Okay, that’s enough. I don’t like this game.”
“You’re such a tease,” she said. “Telling me nothing at all.”
I wasn’t a tease for this guy, I wanted to say. I gave it all up. And it was glorious. “Sorry I mentioned it. I know you can’t fix this.”
“I can’t even take your side without any details.”
I scoffed. “Thanks for nothing.”
“You want my two cents?”
I could always count on my mom to have an opinion, especially when it came to things she knew nothing about.
“Forgiveness can fix a lot.”
I shook my head. “Forgiveness makes me feel like a fool.”
“Better a free fool than an imprisoned one.”
“Touché.”
“Forgiveness is ultimately an act of self-love,” she said. “It’s not necessarily something you do for others.”
I took a sip of coffee, knowing she’d take the silence as an invitation to continue.
“It starts with forgiving yourself for the situation you’re in.”
“This situation isn’t my fault.”
“Then you forgive the other person for being instrumental in teaching you a lesson.”
“That’s sounds good, Mom, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to learn from this.”
“Do you miss him?”
My lips fell apart.
“Because it’s Sunday morning and you’re here, having breakfast with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased as punch to have you. I always am. You know that. But are you missing him?”
I wasn't ready to acknowledge the answer to that question. “He doesn’t smell as good as your chocolate chip pancakes, if that’s what you’re asking.” Though I’d probably drizzle syrup on him given the chance.
“What happens if you forgive him?”
“I keep seeing him until he hurts me again because that’s what people prone to jerk flu do.”
“And if you don’t forgive him?” she asked, as my dad returned and slipped into his seat at the head of the table.
“Bitterness will eventually turn my insides black.”
“Did I come at a bad time?” my dad asked.
My mom handed him a plate. “Dodging bullets won’t make you as bitter as being with the wrong person.”
“You’re not old enough to date anyway,” my dad said, sliding two pancakes onto his plate before grabbing the low cholesterol butter spread from the middle of the table. “And if you insist on going out with someone, he has to pass the shotgun test.”
My mom threw her blue eyes towards the sky at my dad’s predictability. He was borderline obsessed with reminding us he had a shotgun every time my love life—or lack thereof—came up in conversation. To my knowledge, he didn’t have any ammunition and had never actually fired the thing. But boys and their toys, I suppose.
I thought of Oliver’s ridiculous cat tree. It must’ve cost a thousand bucks. For a stray who probably would’ve been grateful for a box with a blanket in it. Was he actually a big softie? Was I throwing the big baby out with the bathwater? Was I looking for reasons to forgive him? Should I be?
“If he can run the length of the driveway without getting shot,” my dad explained, “then he can take you out.”
My mom and I cocked our heads at him before she said what I was thinking. “And if he can’t, we can take you to prison?”
“I still have some kinks to work out with the shotgun test.” He pointed his fork at me. “But I want you to know I have your back.”
Nothing made me want to change the subject like the thought of my dad wielding a shotgun. “These pancakes are delicious, Mom.”
She smiled. “There’s only one test he has to pass, Avery.”
I raised my brows. “What’s that?”
“Whether or not he tries to win you back.”
“What did I miss?” my dad asked, getting annoyed.
“Shhh,” my mom said, swatting the air between them. “If he tries to get back in your good graces after screwing up, take that as a good sign.”
I slid another pancake from the dwindling stack. “Why?”
“Because that’s the secret,” she said. “To a long, healthy relationship.”
“Go on,” I said, forgetting my pancakes for a moment.
“There are no perfect people, which means there are no perfect relationships. So you can’t win someone over once and think your work is done. Because you’re both going to screw up sometimes. So you have to get good at showing the other person you haven’t forgotten they’re a prize worth winning all over again, no matter how many times and ways you’ve wooed them in the past.”
“A prize worth winning,” I repeated, not sure what to make of her advice. That said, my parents’ unicorn marriage suddenly made a lot more sense.
“That’s right,” she said, her eyes softening. “So if your twinkie doesn’t try to win you back, trust that you dodged a bullet. Because the last thing a strong woman needs is a man who lacks stamina and the good sense to admit when he’s sorry.”
“Speaking of prizes,” my dad asked, “did you try your mom’s raspberry lemonade yet?”