Page 21 of The Painter and His Poet

“I love your mother. I want her to be my wife. Will you give us your blessing?” he asks.

“You’re adults, you don’t need my blessing,” I reply, wincing at how awful that sounds. I can see that he’s trying here.

“Well, that is very true,” my mother points out. “But itwouldbe nice.”

I momentarily consider laying my thoughts bare, then decide against it as I force a smile on my face. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

My mother nods, and Robert’s smile widens. “Well, I think we should celebrate our engagement. How about dinner tonight, just the three of us?”

“Oh Robert, I was hoping we’d spend our last night together…alone,” my mother says, cutting a look my way.

“I have plans tonight anyway,” I reply, getting the hint loud and clear.

I try not to let the disappointment settle inside of me, but it happens anyway. It’s not as if I want to spend time with them both fawning over each other, it’s just… I just wish she’d at least talked to me about it first, or had considered how I’d feel about having yet another step-dad. Then again, what did I expect? My feelings never factor into my mother’s decisions about anything, least of all something as important as a new husband.

Besides, I don’t have any plans. I never have plans outside of spending time in my room, writing songs when I’m not organising the minutiae of her life. She’s the sociable one with lots of friends. Any friends I had have long since given up on me, my mother’s unreasonable requests often preventing me from having a life of my own.

For a brief moment, I remember that night I’d spent in the arms of Sterling, a man I’ve thought about every day since. There’s a dull ache in my chest, and I absentmindedly press the palm of my hand there, trying to soothe it. I made the choice to slip away whilst he was sleeping, knowing that whatever passed between us would be better remembered with fondness, thantainted with the possibility of my mother ruining any chance of happiness. It’s why I gave him a false number, because I knew even before I agreed to spend the night with him that there could never be a future between us. My mother would make that impossible despite her constantly needling me about being a ‘spinster’.

“That’s a shame. Next time I visit then?” Robert adds, cocking his head to the side as his gaze flits over me.

“Sure. Next time… Will that be all?” I ask, itching to get away.

“There is one more thing,” my mother says, smiling sweetly.

“Yes?” I ask, my heart plummeting into my stomach.

“I need your help planning the wedding.”

Help? I know my mother well enough to know that she won’t be lifting a finger, that it’ll be me organising everything. It’s my job after all. Another well of sadness rises inside of me. If she were different, if our relationship were different, then perhaps arranging this wedding would be fun, something to bring us closer together as mother and daughter rather than employer and employee.

“We have lots to arrange since we’ve decided on a New Year’s wedding,” she continues, “And there isn’t anyone in the world that I trust more than you.”

“New Year’s Eve, but that’s in three months' time?!” I point out, ignoring her attempt at stroking my ego.

She might trust me, but she doesn’t appreciate me. Asking me to organise their wedding is just another way to keep me so busy that I don’t have time to live my own life. I’ve been trying, and failing, to extract myself from her grasp for a couple of years now. Every time I get close, somethingpressingcomes up and I’m reeled back in, doing her bidding once again.

Could I choose to get away from her by giving up my position as her personal assistant? Yes, but would that mean a lifetime of listening to my mother guilt-tripping me? Most definitely.Maybe her marrying Robert will finally give me the way out I need. That gives me hope, and it’s the only reason I entertain the thought of pulling off this wedding.

“Yes, we didn’t want to wait,” my mother explains.

“Three months to organise a wedding isn’t a lot of time, but I think I could do it,” I reply.

“Excellent!” Robert grins. “And I, of course, have the funds and the contacts to ensure that this wedding will be the best Princetown has seen. Whatever you need, you contact me, and I will make it happen.”

“Princetown?So you’re getting married in England?”

“Of course we are. It’s Robert’s home, and soon to be ours,” my mother adds.

“Ours?” I flinch, cold dread skirting down my spine. “Yours, you mean?”

“Ours,” she insists. “You’re my personal assistant, Harlow. Of course you’ll be moving in with us. I need you by my side, darling.”

“I’m your daughter,” I remind her, my voice rising in pitch no matter how much I try to remain calm. “Don’t I have a say in where I live?”

She glares at me. “Perhaps this is a discussion we’ll pick up once Robert has returned home, yes?”

In other words, do not embarrass me, and do what you’re told. I blow out a breath, forcing myself to stay calm. I’m twenty-eight years old, not a goddamn child for Christ’s sake, but try as I might, I can’t seem to extract myself from her controlling ways. I also can’t blame my mother for everything that’s wrong between us. I’ve allowed her to treat me as no more than an employee. I’ve let her walk all over me for the last seven years since I’ve been her personal assistant, and this toxic relationship we share is as much my fault as it is hers. It’s unhealthy, bordering on abusive, and deep down I know the real reason that I’ve put upwith her shit. I had once believed that being her assistant would bring us closer together, that she’d actually appreciate me as a person, see me as an individual, as hergoddamn daughter. So far she’s always disappointed me, and it has to end.

---