15. Meredith #3
“Where’s Richard?” June cuts in, scanning the room like she expects him to appear.
“He was working,” Eleanor says, glancing around. “He was…right here. He must’ve stepped out.”
“I’ll find him.” June’s already on her way out the door.
“Let’s get your hands under the faucet.” I help her to her feet and guide her to the sink. She flinches as the cold water hits her skin, so I turn to my youngest sister and ask, “Soph, can you find the first aid kit?”
Sophie hovers, clearly rattled, then quietly steps back and disappears down the hall.
“Did the pan slip?” I turn my attention back to my mother.
“No, I just…” Eleanor exhales. “Mer, I was being clumsy. No need to make a fuss.”
“What do you mean?”
“I forgot my oven gloves,” she says, like that explains everything.
“You…” I breathe in, steadying myself. “You pulled a hot pan out of the oven with your bare hands.”
“I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t tell the others. They’ll think I’ve lost it.” She tries to smile, but it falters.
That uncomfortable wave washes over me again, telling me something isn’t right. “Mom.”
“I’m fine, Meredith. Really.”
I swallow hard, pushing down the tight knot in my throat. “Okay.”
The water runs between us, steam curling into the air. Then she glances at me again, sheepish. “I’m just sorry about the pie.”
“Eleanor?” Richard promptly enters the room with June right on his heels, who has one hand on his shoulder as if to hold him back from sprinting toward his wife.
“I’m fine, Richard, really,” Mom tries.
But then Richard is there, shouldering me to one side to take a look at the damage for himself.
I step aside, fighting the urge to run while being unable to look away.
It’s a cruel, uncanny valley sort of thing, the way my mother looks up at Richard like that.
How his face softens in a way he only seems capable of doing when Eleanor is around.
It feels like I’m intruding on something private, like I’m watching something I was never meant to see because it was never supposed to happen.
In another reality, another man kisses my mother’s fingers tenderly, and it doesn’t make me feel sick to my stomach.
A glance at June’s grimace makes me feel less isolated in my thoughts.
“Found it!” Sophie bursts in, thankfully breaking the moment with a flailing of the first aid kit.
“Keep running your hands under the faucet,” Richard instructs my mother, ignoring Sophie completely.
Mom shakes her head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Eleanor.”
I bristle at his tone, and June shudders at it.
“Where were you, Richard?” June squares her shoulders, and suddenly, everyone knows she’s gearing up for a fight. “She could have been seriously hurt.”
“I had to take a call,” Richard seethes back.
But it’s Eleanor who speaks up before June can get a word in. “I don’t need babysitting in my own kitchen, June. It’s not his fault.”
“Eleanor, please.” Richard raises a hand to gesture for her silence. “You shouldn’t have been cooking alone.”
“And where do you get off telling her what she can and can’t do?” June says as if she weren’t arguing a double standard. But to be fair, his gesture was infuriatingly rude.
“I get off, as you so crudely put it, on keeping your mother safe,” he snaps. “If she hadn’t been trying to keep up with all your fanciful antics, this never would have happened.”
June’s face reddens. “Don’t talk about her as if she’s not standing right next to you!”
Knowing better than anyone how to read the writing on the wall, I step into June’s warpath. “Let’s just go. Richard has it handled, clearly.”
It takes a moment for her to tear her eyes from her target and meet mine. They scan my face as if searching for something. Mom’s hazel color to Dad’s deep, dark brown. And there, lying within the reminder of our parentage, is the source of her anger.
The letter. The betrayal of it. The secret of it.
Richard is an easy antagonist because he’s never been anything else.
But today, there’s something else we’re fighting, and it’s not here in this room.
We can’t share it now, in front of our wounded mother or the man who will take credit for reaching the conclusion first. We certainly can’t say it in front of Sophie, who clings to the first aid kit like a lifeline while her eyes dart frantically between us all.
This is something we need to carry alone. The two of us. If only for a little longer.
Because the truth is, if I say it out loud, I’m not sure what will happen. I’m not sure if I’ll recover. I just need more time—and for June not to punch Richard in the face, because she needs time, too.
“Let’s go,” I say again, but this time, it’s a plea.
I’m not sure what June reads in my expression, but after a moment’s hesitation, she nods. “I need to make sure we have ice for tomorrow anyway,” she mutters before glancing over at Mom. “Don’t worry about the pie. We’ll manage.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
And as we leave, taking a silent Sophie along with us, it strikes me that my mother could be apologizing for more than just the baking.