Chapter 3 #2
“Yeah. Get ready, she wants to ambush you into having the wedding here while you’re visiting…but since your guy isn’t here, I guess that’s out. Good luck.”
“I should have stayed home,” I groan, more to myself than to Ruby.
She answers anyway. “Yeah, probably. I wouldn’t be here either but my entire dorm closed for the holidays.
That should be illegal, like, people live there.
Whatever. I’ll be down in a second, I just need to put Thackeray away.
” She smirks and vanishes into my childhood bedroom, which she seems to have taken over.
I wonder vaguely where I’m supposed to sleep tonight, but don’t care enough to worry much about it.
Back in the kitchen, Nana is already pouring herself a mug of something suspiciously dark—it might be coffee, but more likely it’s mostly whiskey. My mother, having finally hung up, rounds on me with a sigh so melodramatic it’s giving telenovela.
“Alixandrea,” she says, stretching my name to three distinct syllables. “You’re late. And wet. And you didn’t bring Daemon.”
“I’m not wet,” I argue gloomily. I’m not—at least not anymore. My hair totally dried in the car. Mostly.
I expect a hug or at least a perfunctory pat on the arm, but instead she circles me like a bomb-sniffing dog. I brace for impact.
“I texted you,” she says, brandishing her phone as evidence. “Several times. Some of us plan ahead, you know.”
“I know,” I say, but she steamrolls right over it.
“I rearranged the entire weekend thinking he’d be here. I even set an extra place at the table. You could have told me sooner if he wasn’t coming.”
I wring my hands. “Sorry. Complications with the wedding, and he’s got responsibilities at home, so…”
Mom’s eyes narrow. “Well, if he doesn’t get his priorities straight now, he never will.” She turns on her heel and marches toward the dining room.
Nana catches my eye and holds out her mug. “Want some?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I need to be sober for this interrogation.”
Nana shrugs. “More for me, then.”
We both trail after my mother into the living room.
“Where’s Kevin?” I ask, trying to take the focus off me. “Did I hear him say there’s a blizzard?”
My mom scowls. “He had a business trip last week, but the weather has been so bad he’s still stuck in Boston. I told him he should have driven.”
“I’m sorry,” I say honestly. “So he won’t be home for Christmas?”
Her lips tighten into a thin line. “No. So, I guess we’ll both be single this week.”
“Mmm,” I give her a noncommittal hum. It doesn’t feel like the best moment to tell her I’m not staying all week, just tonight…and maybe not even that long.
The rest of the afternoon passes by almost normally. After her initial disappointment that Daemon isn’t here my mother calmed down. Even so, dinner is a stilted affair. The table is set for six, even though there are only four of us, and Mom keeps glancing at the empty chairs and scowling.
She interrogates me about the wedding—dates, colors, whether Daemon’s family has “noble blood”—and every answer I give seems to offend her more.
Nana attempts to deflect, but Mom’s resolve is ironclad.
Ruby and the rabbit—-which my mother doesn’t even seem to notice is sitting in Kevin’s empty chair—-eat silently, occasionally exchanging glances like they’re plotting a prison break.
After dessert, Mom follows me into the living room and lowers herself dramatically onto the couch, patting the cushion next to her. I sit. She takes my hand in hers. “Alixandrea,” she says, “I am your mother.”
“Oh, I am well aware, Mom.” It’s not like I had any choice in the matter.
“Are you? I’m not sure.”
I sigh and pull my hands from her grip. “What do you mean?”
“You are eloping. Fine. It’s not my preference, but you’re an adult.”
“Am I? Because this conversation feels like you think I’m still fifteen.”
“I know you’re a grown woman, but it’s still my right—no, my duty—as your mother to ensure your wedding is not a disaster. You didn’t even ask if you could wear my dress.”
I blink. “Mom, we don’t exactly have the same style. It honestly didn’t occur to me to ask. Are we even the same size?”
“We could have it altered to fit you. I’m sure they could let it out in the waist.”
I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t stick. “Which dress do you mean? The one you wore to marry dad or to marry Kevin?”
“Your father, obviously.” Her tone is wounded. “God, Alixandrea, the way you talk to me you’d think I was a monster.”
I take a deep breath, readying for the annual family martyrdom parade. “You’re not a monster, Mom. You’re just…” I reach for a finish line that isn’t a land mine.
She waits, lips pursed in undisguised anticipation.
“…really enthusiastic about holidays,” I offer. “I didn’t think you’d want to worry about the wedding since it’s Christmastime.”
The corners of her mouth twitch upward, the tiniest hint of a smile. “Well, it’s a mother’s job to care. So. That’s settled. You’ll wear the dress so at least I have photos I can display.”
I blink. “Wait what? Which dress?”
“The dress,” she hisses, enunciating every letter like it’s a threat. “My dress.”
“Um, no. I’m sorry, but I already have a dress.”
She glares. “You already picked a dress. Without me.”
Oh god, here we go. “Do you remember dress shopping for my first wedding? Did you really think that was a good time?”
She scoffs. “It was a cherished memory.”
“It was traumatizing. It gave me flashbacks to bathing suit shopping in middle school.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not. Anyway, I had the dress made in Ireland, I couldn’t just invite you to come along.”
She locks eyes with me, and it’s clear that she is assembling her arsenal of motherly guilt for a siege. “Well, let me see it at least.”
“I didn’t bring it,” I say quickly.
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously. Show me a picture.”
“I don’t have a picture. My camera’s broken.” She frowns at me, and I can feel the lie crumbling. I scramble for something, anything, to throw on the pile. “And also, it’s bad luck,” I add helplessly.
“That’s for the groom, not the mother,” she snaps.
I glance at Nana for backup, but Nana is suddenly fascinated by the twinkling Christmas lights outside the window and refuses to meet my eyes.
My mother’s eyes narrow. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re even telling us the truth.”
My stomach lurches. “About what?”
She waves a manicured hand. “All of this! Ireland, the man, your future. You barely call, you barely text. Sometimes you disappear for weeks at a time. It’s not normal, Alixandrea.”
“I’m just busy,” I say lamely. “And we have almost no cell service, I keep telling you that.”
Mom presses on, relentless. “And this man, this Daemon. I’ve never met him. He doesn’t have social media. He doesn’t even have a LinkedIn! Who doesn’t have a LinkedIn in this century?”
I snort, picturing Daemon using LinkedIn, then instantly regret it when my mother’s expression turns even icier.
She pounces. “See, you don’t even take it seriously! What’s going on with you? Is it drugs?”
I feel a headache blooming just behind my left eye. “Do I look like I’m on drugs to you?”
She stands up, angrily pacing around the room. “How should I know? You’re getting married to a man none of us have met, in a country none of us have visited. I just want to meet him, Alixandrea. I want to see the life you’ve made.”
For a second, I feel a pang of guilt. Then I remember: if I invite my mother to my “life,” she will discover that my fiancé is not human and that my immediate circle of friends includes a bunch of escaped Fae convicts and one actual siren.
“I promise, you’ll meet him soon. What if we come back to visit in January?”
“That’s not good enough,” she says, voice trembling with the force of her own sense of injustice.
“I’m sorry? What does that mean?”
Nana finally intervenes. “Iris, give the girl a break. She’s had a long trip. Let’s just enjoy the evening, shall we?”
Mom sits up straighter, her hands balling into fists. “If you won’t explain what’s going on or bring your fiancé here to meet me, then I’ll just have to go to you.”
I splutter, choking on air. “Excuse me? Come to us where?”
“In Ireland. Isn’t that where you live? What town, I’m not sure you’ve ever told me.”
I look frantically over at Nana, who sits up straighter. “When would you have time to visit, Iris? Calm down.”
“I have time right now,” she says, reaching into her pocket for her phone. “When is your return flight Alixandrea? I’ll see if there are still seats left.”
“Wait, no!”
She narrows her eyes dangerously at me. “Why not?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I look at Nana, who just shrugs. “Should have faked your death,” she mutters.
My mom rounds on Nana. “What was that? Do you know what’s going on here?”
I pinch the skin on the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. “Okay, mom, fine. You win. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Mom’s face splits into a smug grin and she puts her phone back in her pocket before settling back on the couch. “I’m all ears.”