Chapter 14
Duck
Last night, I felt more like myself than I’ve been in longer than I like to think.
I spent over a year beating myself up over what I saw first as being a failure at being pregnant and then as being a failure as a mother, but after discussing things with my doctor and having a long talk with Marius, I know all that self-abuse I put myself through was wrong.
Now I have to handle one more situation I’ve let go astray.
The way I’ve handled my mother isn’t something that happened over a few months or even over a year.
I’ve spent much of my life giving in to her demands.
I don’t know when it began, but I remember watching my father and brothers when I was a little girl and feeling like since they didn’t pay much attention to her that I needed to so I could make up for what they didn’t do.
That morphed into agreeing with everything so she could be happy.
Now I realize that should never have been my role in the first place. I shouldn’t have felt responsible for my mother’s happiness. It’s just that I hated seeing her talk to the rest of my family and have them ignore her.
Today, I meet the problem where it all started.
At my parents’ house. I don’t want to make my mother unhappy.
I love her dearly and know how lucky I am to have such a person in my life.
My husband and my best friend lost their mothers far too young.
I’ve been fortunate to have my mother there for me all my life. I just need to draw some boundaries.
My stomach twists into a tight knot from the anxiety building up inside me as I drive to the house.
I think about turning around more than half a dozen times, but I stop myself by remembering that I’m the bride and Marius is the groom, so we get to make the final decisions about what our wedding is like.
When I pull up the driveway, I see my father walking out to his car. All the better. It would be best if my mother and I had privacy for this conversation I need to have with her today.
Turning off my car, I take a deep breath for courage and make my way toward the front door, stopping to talk to my father before he drives away. “Hi, Dad! Going out?”
He opens his arms wide to give me a hug. “Just a little business I have to take care of.” Leaning away from me, he looks over my shoulder at my car. “Did you bring Lily with you? If you did, I might have to cancel my meeting. She’s better than any business associate I’ve ever met.”
I shake my head and smile at how cute he is about my daughter. “No, she’s with Marius while I’m here to talk to Mom.”
A slow smile lifts the corners of my father’s mouth, making the skin around his eyes crinkle. “Here to put your mother in her place, huh?”
It only takes a second for guilt to wash over me. “It’s not like that, Dad. You know that, don’t you?”
Shrugging, he says, “I’ve let your mother dictate things for years because it was easier.
It may not have been right, but after all she’s had to put up with from me, what do I care if she says she needs to get new china sets each year or the house must have a redo every decade?
It’s the least I can do. You don’t have anything to atone for, though, honey.
I think it’s fine if you want to put your foot down about what’s going to happen with your wedding.
It’s your life and your marriage. You should have the final say. ”
I glance over at the front door, dreading what I have to do in a few minutes. “What do you think Mom’s going to do when I tell her?”
When I look back at my father, his expression is one of pure discomfort. “If I know your mother, it’s going to be like a volcano erupting. Don’t let that stop you. She wouldn’t let my mother or her mother choose the big things when we got married. I’m betting she’s forgotten that, though.”
“Really?”
I’m stunned by this news but file it away in my mind. I have a feeling I’ll have to use it today.
Smiling, he shakes his head. “Your grandmothers were quite bossy, but then again, you can’t plant peas and get corn. Your mother comes by it naturally. So do you.”
“I just don’t want to hurt her feelings. That’s all. Mom’s always been there for me. Making her upset is the last thing I want to do.”
My father waves away my worries. “She’ll be fine. How about I make sure she has a terrific dinner out tonight? That way, she can have something to take her mind off your news today.”
I level my gaze on my father. “That means she’s going to talk about what happens between us all through dinner. You never even listen to her, so that’s going to make her more miserable.”
“Nonsense! I listen to your mother. Just because I don’t argue with her doesn’t mean I don’t hear everything she says to me.
I simply choose to be very selective in what I answer with her.
Trust me. All husbands get to that point in their marriages.
You women get upset about hundreds of things a day.
We can’t take care of all of them, so we have to just listen and let most slide. ”
“You know, you’re supposed to care about what your wife cares about.”
He rolls his eyes before giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Wives care about so many things husbands don’t. Good husbands just let them get upset and make sure they have surprises to make sure they’re happy again. Bad ones fight them on those things that bother them, and then nobody’s happy.”
There’s no point in arguing with him, so I kiss him goodbye even as I think that I don’t want a marriage to a man who simply lets me rage about things and then gives me surprises to manipulate my happiness back to where he wants it to be. I’d rather Marius fight with me than do that.
My feet feel like lead as I slowly walk into the house I grew up in.
I call out for my mother, and although I would have preferred if the answer was silence, she yells that she’s out on the back porch.
I steel myself for the conversation that’s about to occur as I walk through the house, hoping she takes it better than my father predicted.
When I step out onto the screened-in porch, she looks up from watering her plants and smiles. “I was surprised when you said you wanted to come over today, but I’m so happy to see you, Eden. I have more ideas I wanted to bounce off you. Here, come sit down.”
By bounce off me she means demand I agree to. Clearly, she has no idea what’s about to happen.
I take a seat at the round wrought iron table and force a smile. I don’t want this to be a negative experience. I don’t know if I can make it a positive one, but nothing I’m about to say is meant to be mean or cruel.
Marius and I simply deserve to make decisions about our wedding that we like. Now I just have to remember that when she begins to pout or plays the martyr.
I start to broach the topic I want to discuss, but she immediately cuts me off. “Would you like a drink of anything? Iced tea? Lemonade? It’s a warm day out today.”
“No, I’m fine, Mom. Please, sit down with me. I want to talk to you.”
She’s instantly wary, but she sits down across from me and folds her hands in front of her. “Oh, okay. What’s going on? Is Lily okay? Did something happen when Marius was babysitting her?”
I bite my tongue for a second before answering, “He’s her father, Mom, so it isn’t babysitting. It’s merely taking care of his daughter, just like when she’s with me. She’s fine, though. In fact, she’s been doing much better with him than with me.”
My mother scrunches up her face in disgust. “Nonsense! You’re her mother. Of course, she’s better off with you. That’s why I didn’t think you should go back to work so soon. I don’t understand why you have to work at all. Isn’t your husband a billionaire?”
Already, this conversation is off to a bad start. If I don’t get things back on track, we’ll be here all day talking about her idea that men aren’t very good parents.
“Mom, I wanted to go back to work. Now that I know why, I might decide to change my mind, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”
Again, she cuts me off before I can actually tell her why I’m there. “What do you mean you know why? I thought you wanted to go back to work because you love your job.”
“I do, but I found out I’ve been suffering from postpartum depression, which made me feel like I wasn’t very good at being a mother to Lily. So I thought she’d be better with Marius, and I went back to work. Now I’m rethinking that, among other things.”
She stands up from the table and returns to watering her plants. “Good. A mother shouldn’t be at work when her husband is at home, not working.”
How she could have entirely missed the point I was making impresses me, but I need to get this conversation refocused to why I came here in the first place.
“Mom, please sit down with me. I have something I really need to talk to you about, and it’s harder with you flitting around the room watering your plants. ”
Frustration begins to fill my voice, so I quickly but more calmly add, “I just want to talk to you. It’s important, Mom.”
That stops her dead, and worry fills her expression. “What’s wrong, Eden?”
I pat the table in front of her chair. “Sit, Mom.”
She does as I say, which is probably the first time ever. “Are you okay, honey?”
My hands begin to tremble, so I place them in my lap and take a deep breath to calm myself so I can say what I have on my mind. “I’m fine, Mom. I want to talk about the wedding. Now before you say anything, please hear me out. It’s important to me.”
My mother nods, but I get the sense she’s chomping at the bit to ask more questions. As much as I wish I could let her do just that, I need to tell her what I came here to say.