Chapter 8 #2
I blinked at the photo of Brooks and Stacey just visible on the mantel—no sign of me in the pictures there, but that was no great surprise—then turned toward the hallway that would lead me to the kitchen.
Mom had changed the colors of the walls here, going with a deep ochre color through the hallway and dining room, which opened onto the huge kitchen she’d renovated twice over the course of my youth.
She’d done it over again recently, with navy cabinets and pure white marble to match the theme of the formal living room.
Plates waited in a stack on the island next to a roasting tray covered in foil.
Steam wafted out as I peeled the foil off, and the smell of my mother’s cooking brought another host of memories rushing back.
Not all bad ones—there were years and years that I’d clung to her skirts and tried to be the daughter she always wanted.
“Maryanne, is that you?” my father called out.
“Just me, Dad,” I called out, exiting the kitchen to find him in his study.
Familiar dark mahogany bookcases framed him as he sat behind the chunky matching desk, his head bent over papers.
He was balding, the spotted skin of his scalp showing through the white hairs he still had.
Sometime in the last three years, my dad had turned old.
He looked up when I hovered at the doorway. “Deena! You’re here.”
“I’m here,” I confirmed.
“Where’s your mother?”
“She’s outside with Brooks,” I said, wandering in.
An empty glass rested on the corner of his desk, diamond shapes etched into the crystal.
A slice of lemon was nestled between half-melted ice cubes.
I guessed he wanted my mother to refill his drink, and I grabbed the glass, operating on autopilot. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks, honey,” he said, and reached over to chuck my chin.
It wasn’t until I was halfway back to the kitchen that I cursed myself for slipping so easily into the role I’d tried to leave behind.
Why couldn’t my father refill his own sweet tea?
Why couldn’t he even get up off his chair to give his only daughter a hug after not having seen her for three years?
“I’ll do that,” my mother said, flapping her hands at my father’s glass. “Where’s Brooksy’s plate?”
“Haven’t gotten around to it,” I said, lifting the glass in explanation.
My mother clicked her tongue at me, rolling her eyes. It was a tiny expression, but it hit me like a gut punch. I still wasn’t good enough for her. Never would be.
Tears began to smart in my eyes as I took the foil off the roast chicken, preparing to cut a portion for my brother’s dinner.
“He likes the leg, Deena,” my mother reminded me as she poured my father’s drink.
“Right,” I said, shifting to give him the preferred cut of meat. Couldn’t even get that right.
“Potato salad in the fridge,” she said, gliding out of the kitchen toward my father’s study.
I took a deep, shuddering breath to compose myself.
I was being ridiculous. It was one weekend, and then I’d be back to my regular life.
I could do it, even though being here made me feel like every breath was inhaling crushed glass.
As I put my brother’s dinner on the plate, I built up my walls.
These people were my family, but they didn’t know the real me.
They could think whatever they wanted about me—it didn’t change my worth.
I’d built my business and my life the way I wanted, and I was proud of my accomplishments.
I felt as alone as I had at eighteen, when my college application had come back approved and I’d worked up the courage to tell my parents I’d applied. They hadn’t congratulated me. Instead, I’d been informed that I wouldn’t be getting any money to study, even though my brother did.
I felt as alone as I had at thirteen when I was told I had to quit softball because the competitive league my coach wanted me to join was too much of a commitment when my brother needed rides to his extracurriculars.
As alone as I’d felt at six when I had to stay inside and play with stupid dolls when my brother got to go out and explore the forest park at the end of the road.
My mom came back in and took my brother’s plate from me, adding some more meat and waving me away before hurrying out to feed her favorite.
I leaned against the kitchen cabinets and counted to ten, but it didn’t help.
I still felt angsty and lonely and hurt.
I felt like a freak who would never fit in, and I was annoyed at myself for caring.
I was a grown woman, and I knew how my mother was.
Still, she knew how to twist the knife with little more than a flick of her fingers or a sideways glance.
“You look fat, Deena. New York doesn’t agree with you.”
I jerked and looked up to see my mother frowning at me as she re-entered the kitchen. “Mom,” I protested. “Come on. Can we at least try to have a good weekend?”
“I’m just saying,” she said with big eyes. “No need to get all huffy about it. Look at the size of your hips! I don’t know if the dress I got will fit. Have you gone up a size?”
My hips were perfectly normal, and I would not, would not, take her comments to heart.
But I burned on the inside. Burned all the way up the back of my throat and in the middle of my chest. I felt my shoulders cave in on themselves and had to force myself to roll them back out.
“Here,” my mother said, handing me a plate. It held a few stringy pieces of chicken beside five or six green beans.
“What’s this?”
“Dinner. Go and sit with Brooks so he’s not on his own.”
I reached for the spoon in the potato salad bowl, and my mother stared at me disapprovingly.
Because the plane had actually been a magical time machine and I had apparently transformed back into a sixteen-year-old girl, I scooped up twice the amount of potato salad I wanted and gave her a snarky smile.
I hated myself around her, and I couldn’t stop.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she said. It wasn’t a compliment.
Feeling ashamed of myself, I stomped out of the kitchen and sat across from Brooks.
My dad took his usual seat at the head of the table, where his plate had already been left.
Mom came back in with a drink for my brother and a few bits of bird food for herself.
I ate while my brother told our mother about the tooth fairy debacle, glad, for once, that no one cared to ask me a thing about myself.
Just as we finished dinner, the doorbell rang a moment before Stacey’s voice called out, “Hello!”
“We’re in here!” Brooks replied.
Mom stood up as Stacey entered, and my sister-in-law waved her back down.
“We’re good. We ate on the way back from the game.
” She had both kids with her, Corey in his baseball gear and Riley wearing a flouncy pink dress, proudly smiling to show off the gap in her teeth.
She carried a gift bag in her right hand.
“Did you win?” Dad asked Corey.
My nephew beamed. “Yep!”
“That’s my boy,” my dad said, grinning.
He said it so easily. Words of pride that I’d never even heard from my own father. I forced a smile onto my lips while my sister-in-law greeted me and gave me a hug, exclaiming at the color of my hair and the outfit I had on.
“You’ve always been so fashionable,” Stacey said. “You’re going to have to give me a makeover while you’re here. Everything I have seems so outdated.”
“Just don’t go doing that to your ears,” my dad cut in, motioning to my piercings with evident disgust. I had double piercings on my lobes and a helix piercing at the top of my left ear. Hardly anything groundbreaking, but more than the simple pearls my mother and Stacey wore.
“Oh, Beau,” Stacey said with a laugh, throwing her arm around my father’s shoulder. “If I need fashion advice, I won’t be asking you,” she joked.
My father patted her arm, clicking his tongue. He looked…fond. It hurt more than I cared to admit to myself. I ate another scoop of potato salad and chewed mechanically. Pressure built inside me, and that potato salad turned to glue in my mouth. Coming here had been a mistake.
Brooks cleared his throat as he looked at Stacey. “Actually, Mom, Dad, Deena. We wanted to tell you something.”
Stacey’s eyes went watery, and her two kids hovered at her sides. “Riley, honey, give Grammy her present.”
My mom took the gift bag, then reached inside to pull out a tiny infant onesie. She gasped, unfolding it, then turned it around to show my dad, and I read the words “Grandma’s girl” written in pink cursive on the front of the onesie.
Her scream was pure joy, and I watched my mother give Stacey the kind of hug that I’d never once received in my entire thirty-three years on this planet.
“Mommy’s pregnant! I’m gonna be a big sister!” Riley exclaimed, jumping up and down as her dress flounced around her.
“Now, Deena, I just need one from you and I can die happy,” my mother said as she moved to plant a kiss on Brooks’s cheek. I forced a laugh until she added, “Won’t hold my breath, though.”
In the hubbub that followed, I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider.
I congratulated my brother and his wife, greeted my niece and nephew and told them how excited I was for them, then excused myself.
My hands leaned against the walls as I tottered toward the powder room, my emotions a riot inside me.
I was happy for my brother and Stacey. He loved being a dad. He loved his wife and kids. He was happy, and I was happy for him. They’d waited for me to arrive so that I could hear the news along with my parents. That was Stacey’s doing, I was sure, and I should’ve appreciated her thoughtfulness.
So why did I feel so fucking terrible about it all?
I wanted to be back in New York. I wanted my own life. I wanted to feel grounded again, to remind myself that I was whole even without my mother’s approval.