Chapter 18 Anne
Anne
One weekday afternoon, a sweet couple checked in and immediately left to see the volcano. The next morning at breakfast, the young woman had a huge rock on her hand that hadn’t been there the day before.
Claire sat across from them, picking at her food. She brightened when she saw the ring.
“Did you get engaged?” she asked excitedly.
“We did!” The girl’s grin was huge. “It was so romantic! And so dark that I couldn’t even see the ring until we got back to the car, but look! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It’s so pretty! I’ve never seen a purple engagement ring before!”
“Amethyst is my birth stone.”
“It’s also the six-year stone,” her fiance added, “and that’s how long we’ve been together.”
“That’s lovely,” Anne said as she set two plates of ‘ulu waffles down in front of them.
Zoe rolled her eyes. She stood behind the guests, mashing avocados at the kitchen counter.
“Could we actually get these to go?” the young man asked, glancing at the kitchen clock. “I’d like to get to the beach before it gets too hot.”
“Sure, I can pack these up for you.” She took the plates back and threw together a quick picnic breakfast. “Enjoy the day!”
“Thank you!” they chorused on their way out the door.
“Gross,” Zoe muttered under her breath.
Anne did not respond with, ‘What’s your problem?’ – but apparently her face gave her away, because Zoe sneered at her and rolled her eyes again.
“Marriage is such an antiquated concept.”
“You sound bitter and ignorant,” Dawn told her.
“Tell me how you really feel,” Zoe quipped.
“I feel like you’ll be a lot happier when you let your walls down a bit.”
“Maybe. But I can let my walls down without selling myself into marriage.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Now really…”
“What’s wrong with marriage?” asked Claire.
“It was literally just created to sell women into slavery,” Zoe told her sister.
“That’s absurd,” said their grandmother.
“Exactly,” Zoe said, deliberately misunderstanding her. “What an absurd concept.”
“You’ll change your tune once you find a good man.”
“How very antiquated.”
“I mean it.” Dawn fixed her with a steady blue gaze. “Your grandfather was my good right arm. My better half. A life lived alone is a life half lived.”
“Men are more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Only the bad ones.”
“They’re all bad, Gran. At least the guys my age.”
“How would you know? You’ve never given any of them a chance.”
“I’m fine as I am, thanks.”
“But are you happy?”
“Halia doesn’t date, and she’s the steadiest of any of us. Look at all the women who wind up at her shelter. Look at Laurie. Men are bad news. Anne knows it.”
Anne winced. She hated hearing her daughter call her by her first name.
“Don’t you, Anne?” Zoe taunted her.
“How can you lump them all together?” she asked quietly. “You grew up with Kimo. You and your dad are buddies. There are plenty of good men.”
“I don’t know about plenty. There are a few. Maybe. I’ve never met one my age that’s worth anything.”
“In all your vast and worldly experience?” Dawn challenged.
Zoe smirked. “You’re mean today.”
“You’re mean every day,” Claire muttered. Anne stepped between her daughters, heading off a retort from Zoe – but she was still looking at her grandmother.
“I know you got a good one. But they don’t make them like that anymore. There’s nobody like Grandpa left in the world, and you know it.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“See!”
“But I still think that someone will come along and change your mind.”
“That’s so old fashioned!”
Dawn chuckled. “Darling, I was born in the sixties. I grew up in the era of feminism and free love. You think that your ideas are new? They’re not. But in all that chaos, I never saw any real happiness. Not like the life I built with your grandpa.”
“Great, so I’m doomed to misery?”
“I never said that.”
“I broke the family curse, didn’t I?”
“What curse?”
“I didn’t get knocked up as a teen.”
“Now really–”
“If Claire makes it through her teens without becoming an unwed mother, then you’ll know we really beat it.”
“Babies are a blessing,” Dawn ground out.
“Careful what you say in front of the fourteen-year old. You’ll give her ideas.”
“That’s it. I just can’t with you today.” Dawn put her hands up and walked out of the kitchen. “Grab your bag, Claire. I’ll drive you to school.”
Claire slung her backpack over one shoulder and bolted.
Anne just stood there, staring at her eldest. She had always assumed that her daughter’s bad attitude was reserved entirely for her. Zoe kept to herself so much that Anne hadn’t even seen her interact with anyone else for more than a minute or two at a time.
Now she wondered if this was how she was with everybody, just lashing out all the time. She wanted to ask her mother… but she didn’t suppose that Dawn would ever admit to it.
She had been there for Zoe when Anne wasn’t… but at the same time, Anne knew better than anyone how divided Dawn’s attentions always were, how present and available she was really capable of being with foster kids flowing through the house like a stream of sardines.
Then again, it always came back to Anne.
She had known what her mother was like, what that house was like… and she had left Zoe there anyway. Just another unwanted child.
It was supposed to be a temporary measure. Dawn was good with babies – great with them. Anne wanted to go get an education, build a life for herself, and then send for her daughter.
But she hadn’t fully understood how formative those early years were.
She had been less present in Zoe’s life than an auntie.
She hadn’t built a bond or earned her trust. And so when she tried to convince her daughter to come and live with her in California, Zoe sobbed and screamed, and Anne had backed off.
Maybe she should have fought harder.
She didn’t know anymore.
At the time, leaving Zoe in the home that she loved – surrounded by people who loved her – had seemed like the kindest thing to do.
It was all such a jumbled mess now. Thinking back on Zoe’s childhood made her sick with guilt and grief. It always had, and it was ten times worse now that she knew the full severity of her daughter’s trauma.
They needed to move forward. But she had no idea how.
“Mom?” Pete shouted from the top of the stairs. “Are the guests gone?”
Anne jumped, and suddenly she realized that there were tears on her cheeks. She dried her face and called up, “All clear!”
He came thundering down the stairs. “I’m starving!”
“You can always eat when they do,” she chided him gently.
“You said that we’re not allowed.”
“I said that Rikki can’t come to the table when guests are here. That doesn’t mean that you can’t come eat whenever you’re hungry.”
“What? And just leave him?”
“Yes.” She set a plate down in front of her son. Rikki was balanced on his shoulder. She wondered how much longer they would keep doing that; the mongoose was getting big.
“I can’t,” Pete said dramatically. “It’s too cruel.”
“How about you come down when you’re hungry, and you can both have your breakfast on the back porch?”
“I guess we could do that.” He paused with a fork halfway to his mouth. “Are you and Zoe done fighting?”
Anne bent and kissed the top of his sandy blond hair.
“I hope so,” she told him… but she knew that they weren’t.
The dynamic between Anne and her daughter wasn’t going to change… not unless she found a way to change it.