40. Emmy
“Jeff and Jordan are coming over for dinner,” my mother says. “This place needs to be cleaned up.”
I went straight to Liam’s yesterday and came home after she was already in bed. This is the first thing she’s said to me since I got back. In fact, it’s the first thing she’s said since last week, when she told me to stay in the car during PT.
“I’m not the help, Mom, and I’ve got a full day of work ahead. If you want it cleaned, then clean it.” She is perfectly capable of walking around to dust and pick up her coffee cups, though she hasn’t been doing it. I wish I’d said it weeks ago.
“That’s why you’re here,” she snarls. Her hand trembles slightly no doubt with the urge to hit me. I’m an adult and she’s not all that mobile, but she’s still clearly wondering if she can get away with it.
“No, I’m here to drive you to appointments and make sure you’ve got food, though you’re well past the six-week point and should be driving yourself.”
I open the door for Snowflake and keep walking, drawn like a magnet toward the sight of Liam in the yard, talking to one of his guys. The moment he spies Snowflake, he turns toward the house and the slow smile on his face is precisely the antidote I needed.
I meet him a couple feet from the bottom of the deck. He reaches out and presses a thumb to the space between my brows. “That little worry line is showing. What’s wrong?”
I bite my lip. “It’s stupid. My mother is having Jeff and Jordan over for dinner tonight. She seems to think I should spend my day cleaning.”
His head tilts. “I’ve never seen you struggle to tell someone to fuck off.”
“It’s different with her,” I say, my voice dropping though I know she can’t hear me. “And she and Jeff tend to gang up on me, so tonight was already going to suck, but now—” I shrug. Now it’s going to be unbearable.
He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one’s looking, and then his hand reaches out to slide over my hip. “Invite me.”
“To dinner?”
He laughs. “You don’t have to look so horrified. I promise I’m not going to tell them I’m your boyfriend or something.”
They’ll want to know what he is, though, if he’s not my boyfriend, and there’s no answer that will suffice. She’ll be livid that I’ve invited him, the help, to dinner.
“Invite me,” he says again. “You want me there.”
My mouth opens to make a polite excuse, but just the thought of him by my side makes me feel a little less alone. And his presence there will force her to at least be civil.
“Get ready for lots of stories about my weight.” I try to laugh and it comes out shaky.
He steps close and leans down until his mouth is beside my ear. “Tell Sandra to bring out every one of them,” he says. “I’m fucking ready.”
It’s going to be an absolute shitshow, but I’m smiling as I walk inside.
* * *
My mother’sexcitement about seeing the son who lives less than thirty minutes away is palpable. It would be easier to bear her hatred if she adored Jeff slightly less.
Was I always so unlovable? I don’t know. My father didn’t seem to hate me, but look at how he left. And he must not have been much of a judge of character anyway. He married her after all.
She hands me a shopping list. There’s not a single item on here she wouldn’t judge me for eating, but she’s more than happy to serve them all up to her beloved son, which leaves me increasingly okay with the fact that I haven’t told her I’m bringing a guest.
I drop off the groceries and spend the day in town simply to avoid her, arriving at the house just as Jeff and Jordan are walking in.
I take after my dad, but Jeff is an Atwell, through and through. He came out of the womb looking like a mid-level manager and that’s still how he looks. “Hey,” I say, nodding at him as I kneel to greet Snowflake.
Jordan enters the room a moment later.
“Hiiiiiiiiii!” she cries. “Oh my God it’s so good to seeeee you!” She throws her arms around me and I respond tentatively—I’m really not much of one for hugs, obviously, but it’s more that I now know she’s the kind of girl who’d abandon her dog with my mother, a woman no one should even entrust with a plant.
My mother tells me to set the table while Jeff and Jordan take a seat on the couch, like fucking royalty.
“You’ve got to start dusting those figurines, Mom,” Jeff says as I cross to the kitchen for the flatware. “They’re disgusting.”
It’s the kind of comment that would leave her not speaking to me for a week, but when Jeff says it, she just shrugs. “I ought to just throw them out.”
“You collected them for so long, though,” he argues.
She shakes her head. “That was your father’s doing. I wanted one and he just kept buying them because he didn’t know what else to get me.”
I sort of doubt this, especially given the way she collects everything. “Then why’d you get us angels the Christmas after Dad left?” I ask.
Her lips purse. “I have never bought you angels.”
“You did. I remember it.”
Jeff frowns. “Em’s right. I got one too. I didn’t know what the hell you were thinking.”
“They weren’t from me. Someone left them for you at the front door—everyone was treating us like a charity case after your father took off.” My mother turns from Jeff to glare at me. “Why are you setting five places?” she demands just as the doorbell rings.
I smile. Relief is whipping through me and he’s not even in the room yet. “Oh, didn’t I mention? I invited Liam.”
“You did what?” she snaps, but I keep moving toward the door.
She will be awful to me all night, and she’ll be awful to Liam, but once he’s within hearing distance, she won’t actively protest his presence.
I open the door and the hit of relief is instantaneous. I don’t ever want to look at anyone but him. It’s a ridiculous thought and I dismiss it fast, but I’ve never seen Liam in anything but sweats or shorts or jeans, and the sight of him in khakis and a button-down is making my brain short-circuit.
I’d like to maul him right here, in full view of my family.
“Do you own a suit?” I ask as he steps inside.
His mouth falls open. “Was I supposed to wear a suit?”
I go on my toes to press a kiss to his cheek, right beside his ear. “No. It just occurred to me how much I’d enjoy taking you out of one.”
His hand lands on my ass, which he pinches hard. “Do not start with that shit right before you introduce me,” he growls.
We walk around the corner. “Guys, this is Liam. Liam, you’ve met my mom, of course. And this is my brother Jeff and his fiancée, Jordan.”
My mother lets the pan she’s holding slam down on the counter. “Liam. What an unexpected surprise.”
The words drip with what she really means, which is that it’s an unpleasant surprise. I guess I warned him, though.
Jeff is reserved, taking his cue from my mother, while Jordan’s hug is overly friendly and her smile is slightly too wide. Jeff better be careful or Snowflake’s not going to be the only thing Jordan ditches at my mom’s house.
I open the bottle of wine Liam brought and pour two glasses. I hand one to Liam and when I start to sip from the other instead of handing it to Jeff or Jordan, my brother rolls his eyes and gets off the couch to retrieve his own.
“So, you two are…dating?” Jordan asks.
Liam and I glance at each other and he grins. “Yeah, Emmy,” he says with a low laugh, “we’re dating. Don’t try to walk it back.”
“I wasn’t,” I argue, though that’s precisely what I’d been hoping to do.
“Emmy’s dating half the town, apparently,” my mother says, turning to Liam. “She’s also dating my doctor. Were you aware of that?”
I roll my eyes. Maybe this is why she was so awful last week, though I guess that still doesn’t explain the preceding twenty-eight years. “I went out with your doctor once, and it was nearly a month ago, Mom.”
“Well, back in my day, we had a name for a woman who’s dating multiple men and doesn’t even come home ’til morning.”
“Popular?” I ask.
“No,” she replies with a mean smile as she takes her seat at the head of the table, “that wasn’t the word I had in mind. My knee is starting to ache. Emmy, finish up in the kitchen.”
Well played, Sandra.
“I’ll help,” says Liam, rising when I do.
“Don’t trust me with the knives?” I ask. Behind us, my mother’s voice drops to a whisper.
“Just want to make sure you poison the right person’s food,” he replies under his breath and I laugh.
My mother’s head jerks toward the sound. She suspects we’re laughing at her, and I guess we are, but for the first time in ages, it doesn’t really matter that she’s mad. It doesn’t matter that she basically called me a whore a minute ago, that she’s probably bitching to Jeff and Jordan about me right now.
It doesn’t matter what she says. It doesn’t matter what she thinks. With Liam here, I have an ally for the first time since my father left, and it’s shifted the balance in some way I can’t put my finger on.
Maybe it’s just that, for the first time in ages, I don’t feel so alone in my family home.
The food is mostly ready. I put it on platters, finish the potatoes, and make a quick salad while Liam starts carrying things out. We’re in the kitchen getting the last two dishes when my mother starts serving the food.
“Should we wait for Liam and Emmy?” Jordan asks.
“I’m not waiting for someone who wasn’t welcome in the first place,” my mother replies.
Before I react, Liam’s hand wraps over mine—his way of telling me it doesn’t matter. And the fact that he’s here, that he’s in this with me, makes that almost seem true.
We go to the table, and Liam and I begin serving ourselves.
My mother is in the middle of a story about some supposed friend of hers who hasn’t come by once in the weeks I’ve been here, but stops in the middle of it when Liam hands me the potatoes.
“That’s going to go straight to your ass. Restraint has never been a strength of Emmy’s,” she adds for Liam’s benefit.
Ah, excellent. A joke where I am the punchline.
Jeff laughs and Jordan, who’s already taken a large helping, looks confused but sort of laughs. Only Liam remains silent, staring at my mother, then me, in turn.
Suddenly there’s a lump in my throat that makes it hard to swallow around. What is it about him that makes me so soft?
“I’m confused,” Liam says. “Emmy has plenty of restraint. So is all this commentary based solely on the fact that she weighed more in high school?”
My mother laughs again. “She simply weighed more—is that what you think, Liam? I should show you some photos. Remember how big she was, Jeff?”
Jeff nods like a good little boy, though he’s apparently slightly uncomfortable doing it with witnesses.
“Well, I think Emmy looks great,” Jordan says.
“Go get the photo album, Jeff,” my mother says. “It’s on the bookcase in the upstairs hall.”
Jeff, dutiful son that he is, rises.
“Are you serious right now, Mom?” I demand. “You want to pass a photo album around the table during dinner just to show everyone how disgusting you found me?”
“No,” she replies. “I want to pass the photo album around because two people here seem to think I’m lying.”
Jordan looks from me to my mother. “Sandra, I wasn’t trying to say you were lying. I just meant that Emmy looks good now.”
“I know, dear. But Emmy wants to sell you all a story about how cruel I am, as if she just had a little baby fat, and it was far more than that. Even she seemed to think it was no big deal, marching around with her chin up like she was better than everyone.”
I swallow hard over the lump in my throat.
I walked around with my chin up so no one would think they’d gotten to me. I walked around with my chin up as if I hadn’t heard them, because I couldn’t think of another way to survive. But my mother has always found a way to see the worst in me in every single thing I do.
“So you’d have preferred it if I slunk around apologizing to everyone for something that was none of their business?” I demand as Jeff re-enters the room. “You’d have preferred to have me ashamed?”
“I’d have preferred it if you weren’t fat in the first place,” she replies.
Jordan’s eyes widen, but it’s Liam who breaks the stunned silence after she speaks.
“Are you serious right now?” he finally asks, his voice hoarse.
“Jeff, hand the album to Liam,” my mother insists.
“Hand me that album, Jeff, and I will shove it down your fucking throat.” Liam reaches for my hand, his fingers tightening with mine. “Em, let’s go.” He rises, pulling me with him.
“Go?” I ask.
“Go.”
He squeezes my hand. Everything he hasn’t said is in his eyes: You’ve given her enough. You’ve given her enough chances, enough of your time. Stop trying.
There’s a part of me that wants to argue—that same part of me that’s spent twenty-eight years trying to convince her to like me, that’s tried to convince her I’m worthy of her care. But I’ve jumped through every fucking hoop, and it never changes. Liam’s right. It’s time to go. She’s had her last chance.
I rise and my mother gives an exasperated sigh. “This is ridiculous. Emerson, sit down.”
But we’re already past that. I’m already past that. In that moment when Liam told me it was time to go, a door shut, and it’s going to stay closed.
“I need to get my stuff,” I tell him, and he nods. Snowflake rouses from her nap and comes bounding to my side.
Shit. I can’t leave her here, and I won’t. “Snowflake’s coming with me too,” I announce, which is when they finally seem to believe I’m not coming back.
“You can’t just leave,” Jeff says. “Who’s going to drive her to PT?”
Liam is already leading me away. “You seem eager to assist, Jeff,” he says over his shoulder. “Consider it a promotion.”
We go upstairs. Liam blinks in dismay when he sees the bedroom I had to cut a path through in order to reach the bed. “I can’t believe you’ve been living like this.”
I guess I’d stopped seeing it. I’d stopped seeing a lot of things. I’d grown so accustomed to my mother’s disdain and her commentary about my weight that I became blind to it.
If I hadn’t had to view my life through Liam’s eyes just now, I’d still be sitting down there trying my hardest not to eat the potatoes.
I throw a suitcase on the bed and begin to pack. “I have a huge favor to ask. Do you mind taking Snowflake? I can’t bring her to a hotel, but I’ll look for an Airbnb in the morning.”
Though God knows what I’m going to do with her in New York. I’m barely ever home.
He frowns. “I assumed you’d just stay with me.”
I freeze halfway through rolling up a jacket. “You mean tonight?”
He laughs ruefully. “Em, we’ve spent every day together for weeks. Would it be so terrible just to stay at my place until you’re done here?”
“I never said it would be terrible. I just didn’t think—” I hitch a shoulder.
“You didn’t think I’d want you there?” he asks, pulling me toward him with his hands on my waist. “Then you must not have noticed I can’t stand having you anywhere else.”
His lips brush against mine, then move to my forehead and hold there.
“She’s right, you know,” I say quietly. “My mom? You like me the way I am now. You wouldn’t look at me twice if I gained all that weight back.”
“Try me, Emmy. Regain every pound. Because there’s a long list of things about you I adore, and your weight has never, ever been on there. I was crazy about you before I’d ever even seen your face.”
I blink back tears as I stare at his chest. I don’t want to be the weak girl who just admitted to an insecurity. I don’t want to be the formerly chubby girl he’s forced to reassure.
“What about my mean mouth?” I ask, the words a little hoarse. “Is my mean mouth on the list?”
He laughs and presses his lips to my neck. “When you run that mean mouth, I’ve got this almost irresistible urge to bend you in half and fuck you until you can’t stand up straight, so yeah, weirdly, the mean mouth is on the list.”
“I’m suddenly tempted to say something mean.”
His smile is gentle. “Don’t do it,” he says, pulling me back to him. “That’s not what I want right now. I just want to hold you for a sec, and then I’m gonna take you and Snowflake home.”
I’d rather feel used and punished, but that’s not who he is.
I’ve accidentally fallen for a guy who can’t stand to see me hurt, who wants to ease every ache and pain.
“I guess I can live with that,” I whisper, relaxing against him.