Paige #2
I drop my hands to the table and push my chair out with a scrape, earning me a squawking protest from Mama.
I turn and run out of the dining room and up the stairs as she calls after me.
I’m fleeing my mother, who has overstepped once again, but it’s not a new response from me.
I have a bad habit of running from my problems, but right now, it feels like the only option when the alternative is to sit at the table and have her grind my independence into dust under her Jimmy Choo heel.
I feel the hot tears of frustration gathering and I am about to lose it.
I would have said a few unkind things to her had I stayed at that table and continued to listen to everything she has planned for me.
I fling myself onto the giant four-poster bed in the bedroom as the first fat tears leak out of my eyes.
They slide in hot tracks down my face and into my hair while I stare at the ceiling, decorated in plaster trim work above me.
The bed dips as Cerberus hops up, slowly making his way over to me and dropping his massive head across my middle with a sigh.
“I can’t take it, big guy. Mama has no boundaries at all.” I run my hand along his silky head and pet his stubby ears as the tears subside. He chuffs in response and nuzzles my ribs.
I don’t know how to separate the entwined relationship my mother and I have into a semblance of something healthy.
She is a thorny vine wrapping around my trunk and choking out the life from any budding flowers of independence that may have bloomed if given half a chance.
Instead, I’m a stunted version of myself, unable to make even the smallest decisions without being told I’ve done it wrong and she will save me by making me do it over until she approves.
If I could have planned my ideal wedding it would have been very close to the elopement Hayes and I had in Las Vegas.
Just us and Cerberus, somewhere beautiful, like the Elysium Garden on the rooftop of The Abyss.
I would wear a dress of floral lace taken from Nanny Fairchild’s own wedding gown, put flowers in my hair, and walk through the greenery of the garden to Hayes, waiting at the waterfall in front of the Titan Arum, to a string quartet playing Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams. Hayes would wear a classic black-on-black tux and would look incredible with his eyes matching the verdant greenery around us.
So, I may have thought this out a little, even if I told Mama I was happy we eloped.
I’ve found myself daydreaming about this very thing a few times over the last few weeks, and there may have been a brief moment in time—like within the firing of a synapse in my brain brief—where I thought I could have this very dream when faced with the possibility, now, of having a big wedding.
It was quickly snuffed out by Mama’s manipulations.
I know for a fact that the wedding I dream about wouldn’t be anything close to the monstrosity Mama is conspiring to throw, and it makes my heart heavy.
Do I let her take over once again, giving up the hard-won independence and distance I’ve put into our relationship so recently so she can have the event of the century, as she called it?
Is unfettered access to my trust worth it?
There is so much I could do with that trust. It is exactly what I could use to ensure the Elysium Garden Project takes off and becomes the philanthropic delight it should be.
I could use it to pay for the salaries of permanent gardeners and staff, ensure we could provide a living wage to those in the community who would work the produce stands and need the urban oases the most, and feed the neighborhoods they serve without worrying about where the money to do so would come from.
I may not need the trust myself, but others sure do, and there’s no reason only Hayes’s money should be going into a foundation we are creating together.
I need to secure that trust so I can make bigger things happen with this new dream of mine.
And that means I have to bend to Mama’s will once again.
My heart sinks with this realization just as quickly as it rose at the prospect of all the good it could do to have access to the trust.
“Glad to see Cerberus is being of assistance,” Hayes says, sitting on the edge of the bed and ending my loop of questions. “I can send him down to the dining room to remove the unwanted interlopers if you want.”
I smile, though it still feels sad. “I’d like to see Cerberus try to defeat Mama. He may have met his match in her.”
“That’s actually a good point.”
I turn my head to see Hayes eyeing the dog speculatively.
“My money’s still on him, but it wouldn’t be an outright win, that’s for sure. Your mother… is something to contend with.”
“That’s an understatement,” I mumble, rolling to my side and displacing Cerberus’s head. He shifts to the end of the bed, and Hayes takes the spot, facing me with his head propped on his hand.
“We don’t have to do any of this, you know.
We are married, and no matter what your mother insists should happen for people to think better of us, all that matters to me is your happiness.
” He strokes a tendril of hair away from my eyes and out of my face.
His fingers glide around the shell of my ear and down my neck, stopping when his palm is over my heart. “What do you want, in here, angel?”
I shiver under his touch and the burning green stare that is deep enough to drown in. “I want to make everyone happy.” The words are whispered, but they come from a part of me that shies away from the light of day.
I recognize I may just be the world’s biggest people pleaser as I admit that.
I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially my mother, and it’s always been my own happiness that’s lost out when there has been a choice.
It’s been easier that way when the alternative was to deal with Mama’s legendary wrath.
The tiny seed of choosing myself that was planted could wither away, again, should I fall back into the habit of doing what others want, and I stubbornly want to give myself a chance, for once.
“What would make you happy? Do you want to run off to Turks and Caicos for New Year’s instead of sticking around here? You mentioned that once before. I can make it happen, just say the word.”
I smile, remembering the moment of brutal honesty when he asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted to be with him, then took it back out of mortification and said I’d rather go to Turks and Caicos.
He remembers, too, it seems. That was the moment I started to fall for this man because he held me to my original statement and ran off with me, away from Mama and her crazy arranged marriage schemes. He let me choose and continues to nurture that power in me.
“If we get married again, I still want it to be about us, not just some production Mama is planning for other people. Do you have any input about what would feel like us?”
His eyes smolder, burning bright as he contemplates my question.
“I really like you in white,” he says, his voice deep as he traces a finger along the length of my neck.
“That night you walked into my garden, you were luminous in the moonlight coming through the greenhouse glass. I was enchanted. I’d want to do that moment over again. ”
I feel my cheeks heat with his words. “That’s what I was thinking of, too. A small ceremony in the garden. And…” I pause, wondering if I should tell him the extent of the daydream and the thought I’ve put into it now that Mama is intent on steering the ship.
“And…? What’s going through that beautiful brain of yours?”
“If we made the ceremony what we want, I think I can compromise and let Mama throw a blowout reception that would make her happy.”
“I think that’s a good way to split the difference with Hurricane Caroline.”
I chuckle at the new moniker. “She really is something, isn’t she? I wish I had half of her insistent confidence and brazen disregard for anyone else.”
“Your mother would be lucky to have half your empathy and kindness. How she managed to raise a daughter like you, her opposite in every way, I may never know.”
“So, we should go through with this?” I sit up, and Hayes follows. He takes my hands in his.
“Only if it will make you happy, angel. Fuck what other people think. We don’t have to defend our relationship by bending to the perceptions of others.
I love you, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to make sure you know that without a doubt, and not just know but feel it.
Even if it takes letting your mama plan our wedding to make her happy and keep your relationship intact. ”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as I make my final decision.
I may regret it a million times before the week is over, but Mama was right to bargain with unfettered access to my trust when I have a new project that could benefit from it.
She played her trump card and we both know it. I can’t turn it down.
“Are you ready to bring your bargaining skills to the table with a hurricane when it’s my happiness on the line? Mama won’t like it one bit, and I’m going to need you on my side to ensure I can ask for what I really want.”
“I am always on your side, and I will fight any battle for you. I’ll handle this if you want.”
I nod, feeling my confidence at being able to ask for what I want from Mama sliding away. Hayes won’t have the same problem. “Please.”
He grabs my hand and hauls me off the bed so we can head back downstairs. Cerberus trots at my heels down the staircase, and Hayes lets him lie at my feet when we settle ourselves back at the table.