Chapter 23 #4
Bunny’s mouth was hanging open, eyes filled with tears, hand pressed to her chest. “Maddy, honey. Oh, my baby. I didn’t—” She shook her head. “I had it the other way round. This whole time..”
Maddy’s eyebrows pulled together. “What?”
“Oh honey, you were this serious, brilliant little person from the time you could talk, and you and your father had your thing going, your competitions and your flashcards and your reality television, and then I’d come in too loud, and you’d get a look on your face like I was embarrassing you just by standing in the room.
And I tried, you know.” Bunny laughed, and it broke apart halfway.
“In my way. I tried so hard to get us to bond, to pull you into my world so that we could have our things too. And you’d pull right back, every time.
And I thought, well, I’m just not the kind of mother she wants.
She wants a quiet one. A serious one. One who’d sit and read those trial transcripts with you and not turn them into a one-act show.
” She reached out and squeezed Mddy’s arm again.
“And I didn’t have the first idea how to be that, baby girl.
I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am.
And so I joined more clubs, to give you more time alone with your father, to do the things you loved, without me coming in and ruining it for you. ”
Maddy sat with that. She’d spent her whole childhood believing that every adoring look on her father’s face aimed at Bunny, that every bit of attention her mother pulled, was attention being taken from her.
And Bunny had spent those same years thinking Maddy was rejecting her.
And maybe she had been. But she also knew her mother was right.
Bunny didn’t know how to be any other way.
And once she let herself see it from Bunny’s side, the rest of it started rearranging too, fast, one thing after another.
The fake emergency because she’d completely run out of other ways to try to get her daughter to come home.
The Cup that had ballooned out of a backyard barbecue into a three-day production because her mother was keeping her father’s memory alive the only way she knew how, which was loudly, with the whole island watching.
Bunny grieved by building things too big to look away from. Maddy grieved by packing a car and driving north without ever looking back.
She placed a hand over the top of Bunny’s, that was still on her forearm. “I went to see Dad this morning.”
Bunny’s head came up.
“That’s where I was.” Maddy dragged the heel of her hand across her face. “I almost didn’t make it out of the car.”
“Oh, honey.” Bunny’s whole face crumpled.
“I would have given anything to go with you. Anything in the world.” A tear slid into the corner of her mouth, and she ignored it.
“I wouldn’t have said a word, I promise you, I know you wouldn’t have wanted me out there making it a thing.
I’d have just stood next to you and held your hand and let you do it your way.
Just so my baby wasn’t standing out there all by herself.
You have been doing the hard things all by yourself for fifteen years, sweetheart, and I just want to be there for you. ”
Maddy hadn’t known how badly she needed to hear that until it was said. “I’ve got eight days left. We could go together before I head back, if you want.”
Bunny squeezed her arm again, her eyes softening. “I would like that more than anything in the world, honey.” She pushed off her stool and wrapped Maddy in a hug.
For a moment, Maddy didn’t move. She let herself be hugged without reciprocating. Then slowly, brought her hands up, turned her body in her mother’s arms, and wrapped her arms around Bunny’s torso, resting her head on her shoulder.
Then Bunny, because she was Bunny, sniffed hard, dabbed under both eyes with the cuff of her robe, and rallied.
“Now.” She straightened and sat back on her stool, and the brightness came back up.
“If you and Aspen are gonna be spending more time together, I am going to need to know whether that girl still can’t have cilantro, because the last time I forgot she was very polite about picking around it and I felt terrible for a week.
” She set the glasses back on her nose and peered at Maddy over them, the corner of her mouth lifting.
“And let me remind you that this is a very old house with very thin walls, and sound carries, so do try to show your mother some mercy.”
A wet laugh came out. “Mom!”
“What! I am only thinking of your comfort, darling.” Bunny pulled the laptop back in front of her and tapped a key. “And the structural integrity of my drywall.”
Maddy huffed, wiped her face one more time, and wrapped both hands around her coffee. Across the island, her mother went back to the email, lips already moving around whatever she was firing off to Glenda.
A week ago, Maddy would have taken the exit up to her room to be alone. This time she decided to stay here for a while longer and listen to her ridiculous, impossible mother narrate a passive-aggressive email to an eighty-year-old woman.