Page 7 of I Always Will

She knocked.

It only took a few seconds before she heard movement behind the door as someone unlocked it. She was certain that if any of the neighbours were looking out of their windows, they’d think she was a salesperson rather than the inhabitants’ daughter.

The door swung open to reveal her mother—a tall woman who looked very little like Alexandria. She had inherited her mother’s height and hair colour, but that was where the similarities ended.

“Ah, Alexandria. Hi,” her mother said, pulling her into a customary hug that was quick, fleeting. They weren’t really a family of huggers. Well, Daniel was, but otherwise, their brand of affection was… the deep-seated knowledge that they were family and that was enough, she supposed.

“Hey, Mum. Nice to see you. How are you doing?”

“Good, yes. We should get you inside though, so we’re not having this conversation on the doorstep.” She set about helping Alexandria through the door with her things for the weekend. It wasn’t much, and she could have done it herself, but this was how her family operated. They weren’t huggers, but they helped you with practical things. And they commented on things they shouldn’t. “Have you put on weight, Alexandria?”

Alexandria closed her eyes and took a breath. They had this conversation every time they saw each other. It was part of the reason she didn’t come around much. She hadn’t put on weight, she was perfectly healthy, and she worked out regularly. She just happened to be a little fat. Alexandria liked how she looked. Her mother liked to comment on it. “No.”

Once they were through the door, her mum stepped back and looked at her, doubtful, but didn’t say anything.

There was a time when the comments had bothered her, back when she was an impressionable teenager, surrounded by kids who could be nothing but cruel if you didn’t look a very specific way. She’d been stuck contending with the comments from them and the ones from her mother. The only one who had told her she was perfect exactly the way she was, and that beauty looked more than one way was… Hailey Davis. Her best friend in senior school and, if truth be told, her sexual awakening.

It was impossible to be back here and not think of Hailey. They’d basically been stuck together for most of secondary school. Half of who Alexandria was as a person was built on a foundation of her and Hailey. Most of the confidence she had in herself was built on that bedrock.

She wondered whether she should have just gone straight to Daniel’s place, but she knew that wouldn’t have gone over particularly well with her parents. They were already being weird about the fact she was spending the night there rather than at home. She was sure that, once they heard Daniel’s news, they’d know why she was staying there, but they still wouldn’t like it.

She didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, though. They only had a little time before dinner and at least she had come here first, to say hello and to have a chat while watching her mum silently critique everything she was doing.

It wasn’t always bad, exactly, sometimes, she was filing away the things she liked. It was only bad when she then used them to criticise Daniel’s choices. Ironic, really, since she also used Daniel’s choices to berate Alexandria when it suited her. It was like the child they wanted was some impossible combination of the two of them and all of the other parts of them had somehow gone so far off the rails as to cause the most ridiculous consternation in their parents—Daniel lived nearby and visited often. Alexandria didn’t. But Alexandria had a respectable job in the public sector. Daniel didn’t. He was close by and a good son, visiting often, buthow could he possibly have taken up as a freelance food photographer? He could have done so much more with his life.

It annoyed them immensely that he managed to make so much money from it—more than Alexandria and her “proper job” made. Alexandria and Daniel had long since stopped being bothered by the comments. They mostly found it amusing these days. Amusing, and a little sad, but it wasn’t important. They both knew who they were and what they wanted, regardless of what their parents thought.

As her mum bustled off to make tea in the little kitchen, Alexandria stepped through the doorway into the living room. She’d expected to find her dad in there, watching the TV that she’d heard chattering away, but he wasn’t there.

She sat down on the sofa. It wasn’t the same one she’d grown up with. After she and Daniel had moved out, their parents had redecorated a couple of times, to keep up with the fashion of the time according to their mother, and they now had aversatilecream couch. Every time she sat on it, Alexandria was struck by the fact that while, yes, cream was a versatile colour, it was still a cream couch. People sat on it in jeans and dark pants, they’d come in from the outdoors before sitting there, they drank tea and coffee whilst sitting there, ate biscuits covered in chocolate on it… To her mind, there were a great many things that could go wrong with such pale fabric and she wasn’t sure the versatility was worth the trade-off.

More than once, she’d wondered whether her parents put down towels to sit on when they got new jeans.

She couldn’t deny it was comfortable, though.

Wearing safe, non-colour-leaching work trousers, she settled into the corner, hugging one of the cushions to herself and staring at the TV without taking it in. As she sat there, she heard her dad moving around upstairs and assumed he must be getting ready for later. The place they were going was casual, but she hadn’t gotten her need to dress properly from nowhere. Her parents always put on the nicest clothes they could get away with.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, her mum arrived back with the drinks and her dad came down the stairs wearing black trousers, a shirt, and a lightweight jumper.

“Hello, Alexandria,” he said, leaning in to briefly kiss her cheek. “How was the journey home?”

“Uneventful. The train wasn’t too full for a Saturday, honestly,” she replied, accepting a cup of tea from her mum and thinking about how formal and stilted conversation was in their family. She was used to it, but every time she came back, it caught her attention all over again.

She couldn’t wait to be on their way to the restaurant. At least once they were with Daniel, she’d be able to relax a little, have a conversation about something other than the news and how her train ride was, or about one of the neighbours attempting to get planning permission to change their backyard into a driveway. That was an ongoing saga Alexandria didn’t totally understand the problem with. They needed permission to put a tiny ramp in. The street was a narrow, terraced one, and one less car parking on it could only be a good thing. But apparently, her parents disagreed. Or, at least, her dad did and her mum went along with that. It wasn’t even about the loss of biodiversity. That, she might have agreed with. The neighbours already had flagstone paving in their backyards and little-to-no plants. But, her father didn’t like it, so her parents didn’t like it. She was fairly certain they were disagreeing just to disagree, but they would never want to hear that.

After finishing her tea quickly, her mum dashed upstairs, changed into a tea-length skirt and seasonal turtleneck jumper, and was ready to leave.

As Alexandria stood and caught a view of the three of them in the mirror that hung on the chimney wall, she was aware they were all dressed too formally for The New York Pizza Parlour, but it was very them.

Besides, they were heading to a pizza place named after New York despite being in Newell and having owners who had never been to America, so it was hardly one to judge.

The place hadn’t changed and neither had Daniel, but it was still like a breath of fresh air seeing him. He jumped up from the booth he and Esme—Alexandria assumed—were sitting in and jogged over to them, set to a background of annoyingly loud music blaring from the jukebox in the corner. This place was ridiculously cliche.

He pulled her into a hug and she allowed it happily, wrapping her free hand around him and keeping her overnight bag firmly in the other. She needed that if she wasn’t going to get dragged back to her parents’ tonight.

“It’s good to see you,” she said in his ear as they hugged. He was quite a bit taller than her, even with her inheriting their mother’s height, but he bent graciously to hold her.

“You too. It’s been too long.”

---