Chapter 1
CHAPTER
“DINNER OUT TONIGHT?” I ask. It’s our anniversary and we always go to Oscar’s for Italian, followed by the best tiramisu in the city.
Bruce adjusts his tie. He’s a partner at Crosby & Stone Insurance, believes if he doesn’t dress seriously, why would their clients trust him. “Can’t tonight. Partner meeting with Hal. We’re opening a new office in Chicago.”
He forgot? This is the first time, and it lands like a sucker punch. Bruce is under a lot of stress. But he wouldn’t forget. Would he? Uneasy, I tap the icon I recently created and installed on my phone. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out?” I repeat.
My husband gives his head a quick shake, the way he does when he thinks I’ve missed the obvious. “Penn, hello?” he jokes. “Work meeting. New office in Chicago.”
“Got it. Sorry.”
“No worries. Your head was in the clouds.”
Irritation chafes. I don’t like it when he makes me sound like a space cadet.
Bruce’s phone rings, he glances at the screen—Potential Spam—declines the call.
His screensaver, a photo of him with our daughter, Circe, at Alpine Meadows, reappears.
The setting sun casts them and the mountain in alpenglow.
That shot got 4,500 views on LivLoud and earned three gold medals, meaning more than three thousand people actively engaged to like it.
“I can make a late meal.”
“Up to you, hon.”
“I don’t mind.” I could remind him it’s our anniversary, but don’t want flowers or a gift out of guilt. Plus, if he does have something planned, I’d be ruining the surprise.
I sip my coffee. “You get so much spam.”
“’Tis always the season for scams,” he replies, then downs the last of his cappuccino, pushes back from the breakfast table, leaving half the caramelized onion, roasted red pepper, and Havarti cheese omelet I made uneaten.
Bruce grabs keys to his new BMW, hanging on a hook by the back door. “Can you pick up the dry cleaning? I’m running low on shirts.”
“Sure.”
“You’re the best.” He slips out to our garage.
I flick on the TV to fill the silence. A self-help show plays, though it’s a repeat. “You can’t change what you don’t admit,” Dr. Bob tells Bill and his wife, Shelly, who are fighting nonstop.
Circe lopes into the kitchen, a long-legged gazelle dressed in ripped jeans and an oversized black hoodie.
Yesterday it was a short skirt, high socks, and a white blouse tied at the waist that showed a peek of her midriff.
My daughter is trying to find her style—all part of being fourteen. I’m glad she has choices.
She passes a wall hung with yellow-and-white painted disks of tiny hand- and footprints, a framed paint-by-number of a sailboat that we made when she was eight, and a glass shelf lined with some of the mother-daughter art projects we’ve done over the years.
There are decorated Easter eggs set on silver stands and coffee filter butterflies, along with Circe’s first Popsicle-stick bird feeder, painted a shocking pink that stained our hands for days.
“You should throw all that crap out,” Circe says, then plops onto a kitchen chair, takes a sip of OJ, squeezed fresh, bites into the sunflower spelt bread I learned to make from Ken Bianco’s Best Bread Ever book.
“Never,” I reply. “They remind me of all my favorite times.” Circe rolls her eyes but can’t help a half smile.
On TV, Dr. Bob listens to Shelly talk about how insensitive Bill is, how she does everything and it’s never enough, then remarks, “No matter how flat you make an omelet, it’s still got two sides.”
“FYI, that guy you’re watching is a has-been.”
Fact? Teenage girls believe they know everything, and that their mothers are fools.
I study my only child. Her blond hair is shoulder-length, and she has her father’s light-green eyes, something I’d hoped for when I was pregnant.
Mine are a muddy greenish-brown. I’m not sure when Circe turned from a little girl who loved craft projects, bike rides, and snuggling to a tween with braces and now an opinionated young woman.
But I’m glad she’s found her voice early on.
The has-been, according to Circe, tells Bill and Shelly their problem is that they don’t like each other. “You can glue feathers on a dog,” he explains, “but it still doesn’t make him an eagle.”
“Seriously ridiculous,” Circe commentates.
I turn off the show and pivot. “Did you finish your computer science homework?” Two weeks ago, one of her teachers called to say Circe was handing in half-completed assignments.
Circe makes a face. “Done. But I still don’t get why I need C-Sharp.”
“Once you have a handle on it, you’ll be able to learn other computer programming languages more easily.”
“But I have no interest in coding, and—news flash—I’m not you.”
She’s right, programming does come easily for me, even after all these years.
It just makes sense. For fun, I visit sites like HackerRank and Codewars to see if I can solve their challenges.
I don’t know all the newest languages but always figure out a creative solution.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” I say with encouragement.
“What are you two lovebirds doing for your anniversary?” Circe asks to change the subject.
She remembered. But there’s a good chance Bruce has something up his sleeve.
He’s always been a surprise kind of guy—hand-drawn coupons for foot rubs, ice cream sundaes, breakfast in bed.
Uncertainty stresses me out, though. I’d gladly trade a romantic surprise to know the truth about Bruce’s plans for tonight.
A muscle twinges in my low back. Lately there have been moments between us, slightly off-key notes that pass quickly enough that I’m not sure I’ve heard them at all.
Maybe I should talk to Bruce about it, but I don’t want to rock the boat when it’s probably my own insecurities and childish paranoia.
“Mom?” Circe prods.
“Your dad needs to work late.”
“No Oscar’s?” Circe arches one brow. “But you do that every year.”
I focus on scrubbing a pan. “No big deal. We’ll celebrate another night.”
“I was supposed to go to Emi’s, but I could have dinner with you and watch one of those old movies you like?”
The gesture catches me off guard. That’s the way it is with teens. One minute you’re radioactive, the next they shock you with kindness. “That’s okay,” I say with a sunny smile. “Just call when you get to Emi’s house, make sure you do all of your homework, and curfew is nine thirty tonight.”
“If it was up to Dad, he’d let me stay out later,” she wheedles.
“Nine thirty,” I repeat. Even though it’d be nice to be the easier parent.
Circe shoulders her backpack, then grumbles, “Sometimes it’s hard to like you.”
It’s one of those offhand remarks teenagers make, especially girls, to their mothers. But it still leaves an invisible bruise. “I love you, too!” I call after my daughter as the quiet of our home, far beyond my wildest childhood dreams, brings on a wave of claustrophobia.