Chapter 3
THREE
“I decided I wanted to be famous in the second grade when my teacher, Mrs. Pool, told me that all of us girls would grow up to be very good wives. My whole life has been about proving her wrong. I am very petty.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
Grumpy Kevin, the cat who basically owned our house, sneered when I opened the door.
“And thank you for your birthday wishes, Kev.”
He pranced past me and out the door to do his business.
Kevin was once Mae’s cat and, before that, our grandmother’s cat.
Just like this trailer had been, too. Grammie hadn’t had much but she’d always had a place for Mom and us girls.
As the story goes, my father left just before I was born and, months later, still hadn’t returned, although he did clean out their bank account one last time.
He didn’t meet me until I was almost two.
With two kids, no money, a minimum wage job, and a missing husband, Mom’s options were limited. Exhausted, she’d scrounged up enough gas money to drive to her mother’s home in Two Harts. Grammie hadn’t even hesitated; she’d made up the beds in the guest rooms and that was that.
Grammie had always been like that. I don’t think I ever heard her say, “I told you so,” and I’m sure we all gave her reason to say that many times over.
I’d spent a lot of time with her when I was small since Mom worked so much.
She’d known me best of all, more than Mae or my mother.
I was in high school when she passed away after a battle with cancer; I missed her.
I dropped my keys in the small ceramic bowl with bunnies painted around the edges—Grammie had had a thing for rabbits—and placed the pickle jar gently on the kitchen counter.
After a long shower, I settled on the couch with a bowl of ice cream to watch The Philadelphia Story, the one from the forties with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.
Mom came home an hour later, carrying what I hoped was leftover cake. She set it down on the counter and plopped next to me on the couch. “I saw your car.”
I paused the movie. “Would you believe it’s a new parking spot?”
“Kinda far away.”
“I’m trying to get my steps in. For heart health.”
“What is it this time? Is it making that clanging noise again?”
“Just a little smoke.” I waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
“Of course you will,” she said under her breath.
I narrowed my eyes. “What was that?”
She shot me a radiant, lopsided smile. Seven years ago, I’d come home from school to find her sprawled on the bathroom floor, unable to talk or move.
It had been the most terrifying moment of my life.
The stroke had affected her left side and brought with it weakness in her left arm and leg and a slight droop to her mouth.
With hours of therapy and time, she was almost back to where she’d been before.
Except for her smile, which seemed permanently crooked.
But I didn’t mind that. That smile was a reminder that I’d almost lost her and to appreciate every single one she gave me.
It had only been in the last year when she’d gone back to work fulltime as the receptionist at a dental office in town. Before the stroke, she’d been a nursing assistant, but with her physical limitations, it wasn’t feasible anymore.
“So, you survived another birthday,” she said, changing the subject.
“Barely.”
“Poor baby.” She laughed softly and patted my leg. “Everyone wants to be nice to you on your birthday, and you can’t stand it.”
“I know. It’s the worst.” I shoved a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth.
She knew how much I hated my birthday. Every year as a kid, I had hoped and prayed and yearned for that one time when my dad would come knocking. But that never happened. Dad was in the wind most of the time. This day always reminded me that I’d never been enough to keep him around.
Mae had memories of our parents together, a few of them happy even.
But since they’d broken up right after I was born, personal memories of our whole family could fit in my hand.
If I was honest, I resented that. I knew he’d made a lot of bad decisions, knew he’d hurt my mom, left us when she was most vulnerable, but I’d never been given the chance to know my father.
Mom put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me into her side.
I pretended to resist, but my heart wasn’t in it.
I could use a Mom hug. She was the one person in this whole world I knew would always love me even when I was a bratty teenager or a sobbing mess after my break-up with Aidan.
Growing up, she drilled into my head this one saying: “There’s nothing you can say or do to make me love you more or less. ” And she meant it.
“Cheer up, sweetie. I brought home all the leftover cake.”
Inside, I pumped my fist. Outside, I shrugged. “Cool.”
“I saw Aidan. That was a… surprise,” she said, choosing her words carefully.
“Yep. Definitely a surprise.” I gave her a small smile. “It was nice to see him.”
“How is he?” she asked, a slight edge to her voice.
I’d never shared much about my relationship with Aidan both pre- and post-break-up, but Mom had figured out something was off.
It probably helped that I lived with her, and she’d been around for the days I pretended everything was fine only to cry alone in my bedroom at night.
She also saw the other things—our late-night phone calls, the pink roses he’d had delivered for Valentine’s Day after we’d already broken up, the random cards he’d send for no reason, the too-long hugs, how he still found ways to touch me when we were together.
She’d never said it out loud, but I got the feeling she wasn’t exactly an Aidan fan.
“Seems happy.” I picked a piece of fuzz off my pajama shorts. “They moved the wedding up to July.”
She pulled back to look at me, her eyes widened in shock. “That’s next month.”
“It sure is.”
Mom had an otherworldly ability to look directly into my soul. I was a good liar, but not good enough to fool Lucy Sampson. “I don’t think you should go.”
“It’ll be fine.” Another long look. I wanted to squirm, but I doubled down on looking unbothered.
Mom sighed. “I don’t understand why you do this to yourself.”
“Do what?”
“Act like nothing matters.”
I knew what she meant. If nothing mattered, nothing could hurt me. I’d been hurt enough—an absent father, Grammie’s passing, Mom’s stroke, and Aidan. He’d been the last straw. The one thing I couldn’t seem to come back from. So now, indifference protected me like a shield.
“Aidan’s getting married. I’m very happy for him.”
“You hid in a closet to avoid him at your own birthday party.”
“I wasn’t hiding,” I said indignantly. “I needed a break from all the excitement. It was great to see Aidan. And Missy, too. I don’t get to see them enough.”
Mom shook her head. “One day, Iris, you’re going to have to admit what you’re really feeling inside.”
“I am not. Take it back. I’m exactly what you see.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to admit my feelings. It was that I couldn’t. Feelings made me vulnerable.
“Sure. I believe you.”
“As you should. Would I lie to you?”
“I’m going to ignore that.” Mom’s face said she remembered all the times she’d caught me in lies. “But speaking of your birthday, I haven’t told the story yet.”
I groaned. Loudly. With feeling.
She tucked me back into her side. “I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday.”
“Do we have to do this every year?”
“Yes, we do. See, you decided to come three weeks early. I was at—”
I cut in. “The tire shop.”
“Exactly. Your father was supposed to take the car for a new tire, but… well, I went instead.” What she wasn’t saying was that my father had disappeared three days before, leaving his very pregnant wife with a bum tire, a nine-year-old, and a month’s rent missing.
“There I was, talking to one of the mechanics. His name was—”
“Carlos.”
“Yes, Carlos. Very nice man. He has five kids, you know.” I did know. Because I heard this story every birthday. “I felt a little pop and then water trickled down my leg. Now, I’d been having some lower back pain since the day before and, looking back, that was probably the start of labor.”
“You think?”
I yelped when she pinched my arm. “Stop the sass. I am your mother, and I have earned the right to tell this story. Carlos was concerned but I waved him off. It would be fine. I’d get in the car and drive myself to the hospital. I was in labor for hours with Mae, you know.”
“I know,” I said smugly. “And she had a big head, too.”
“I almost thought that plan would work but the second, the very second, I sat down in the car, the first contraction hit me like a freight train.”
This was usually the part that came with way too much detail. I rushed to cut in. “And the next thing you know, Carlos was there to catch me.”
“That’s right, honey. You were all pink and squalling. Someone found a clean pair of work overalls to wrap you in.”
“A pretty undignified way into the world.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice thoughtful. “There was something special about it. You are never one to change your mind. You decide something, you do it. You decided you were going to be born that very minute, and that was that.”
“Good thing I make excellent choices.”
My mother hummed. “Mostly.”
I sat up slowly. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Well, good, because—”
“Except that, you may make your decisions with all the confidence in the world, but even you can get it wrong sometimes. Don’t get so stuck on one thing that you can’t see there might be something better for you.”
More fortune cookie wisdom. Twice in one day.
“Where is this coming from?”
She patted my cheek gently. “Just being your mom.”
“You’re being weird.”
“I am not. I am imparting excellent life advice right now.”
“So, so weird.”
“Oh, before I forget. When I saw your car, I called Ali and got her brother’s phone number since he’s a mechanic.
You know, I remember him from when he was a teenager.
He was always a sweet kid. It’s a shame that he and his father had a rough go of it.
Sad when he left. I don’t think that family ever got over it.
Well, I called him and told him your car was having trouble, and he said he’d stop by tomorrow to take a look. I gave him your number.”
“Abe Ramos? You called him? I could have taken care of it,” I grumbled.
“He didn’t seem to mind and it’s good for him, you know. He’s going to need clients when that shop opens.”
I nibbled the inside of my cheek. Between my closet freakout and my car, Abe was going to think I was one of those high maintenance, emotional women who needed someone to change a lightbulb.
“This is where you say, ‘Thank you, Mommy. You’re the best.’”
“Thank you, Mommy. You’re the best.”
She grinned and stood. “I’m headed for bed. A postcard came for you. It’s on the counter.” She paused and gave me one last, long look. “Sleep tight, little one.”
“You, too, Mama. But you are being weird,” I said to her back as she walked away. She laughed in response.
After I finished the movie, had a piece of leftover cake, and I locked up for the night, I paused at the counter to pick up my pickle jar. Next to it was the postcard. I flipped it over and read the short message.
“May you have the happiest of birthdays.”
Some years my father sent me a note on my birthday. But it looked like this year wasn’t one of them.
The postcard was signed, Love, Carlos.