Page 38 of Of Literature and Lattes
She then fussed around the kitchen, straightening already folded dish towels and wiping pristine counter tops. Hand-clasping containment wasn’t working. “I’ve stocked the fridge. I made a few of your favorites—those muffins you love and a wonderful chicken stew I just discovered that’ll last a few days. I’ll stay as long as they’ll have me to give you time to settle in and feel comfortable.” She gave a sweet self-deprecating smile that Alyssa had never seen and laughed at herself. “If it were the old me, I’d give your brother two or three hours tops before he should kick me out, but last time they put up with me for four days and I thought it was lovely... Maybe if I take Rosie on long walks and stay out of their hair, I can stretch that.”
“Mom.” Alyssa still didn’t know what she had planned to say. Only the one word had escaped.
Janet waited, watching, and when Alyssa said nothing more, she opened the back door and paused in the open doorway. “I want to give you everything you need, Alyssa, and the fight is over.” She took a deep breath and said it again. “The fight is over. When I get back I hope you can see that, trust that, and we can become something new.”
Her mom turned away, and with a blank mind, Alyssa called after her with the only thing she could visualize, her brother. “Tell Chase I said hi.”
Remembering it now, it sounded heartless to her own ears. It was an inadequate response to her mom’s vulnerable words.
But if Janet felt the same that morning, she didn’t let it show. She simply nodded. Then she raised her hand, and Alyssa knew she had meant to step back into the kitchen and give her a hug. She read it in her mom’s actions and her expression. She also read the moment her mom caught herself and stopped.
In the end, Janet only nodded once more before walking out the door.
And that’s why Alyssa hadn’t betrayed her mom just now, and wouldn’t at dinner tonight—no matter how Grandma pushed and needled.
She had desperately wanted that hug.
Chapter 17
Alyssa was sitting at her dad’s old desk sorting through her notes on Jeremy’s data when her mom walked through the back door and into the kitchen.
She stood to welcome her—or at least try—when Janet’s voice dropped her back into her seat.
“I didn’t know it was a problem. Don’t say that. Jasper runs a great business... I was giving her some time... Yes, perhaps I was wrong... I’m sure you’re right... I’ll call again soon. I love you, Mom... I—”
At the silence, Alyssa rounded the corner.
Janet sighed and waved her phone. “She hung up on me.”
“I’m having dinner with her tonight.”
“She said that and that she ‘found you’ today working at Jasper’s gas station.” Janet made air quotes with her fingers.
“Is that a problem?”
“It surprised her.”
Alyssa leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s not like I have choices. I’m sorry to be such a disappointment, but after seventeen interviews and resumes to forty-six companies, Jasper was the only one who would hire me.”
“No one said that and I don’t think that.” Janet pushed two grocery bags onto the kitchen island. “I didn’t know you were going out tonight, so I stopped at the grocery on my way back. I wasn’t sure how much food you had left.”
“She’s still mad you moved her out here.”
Janet turned, and her whole body seemed to sag. She leaned against the counter top. “What was I to do, Alyssa? The house was overrunning her, and I’m her only family. My dad’s been gone twenty-five years. Do you know how dangerous an old house can get in that time? I hoped she’d actually enjoy being close to me, maybe Chase too, and now that you’re back...”
“I’m not back, Mom.”
When Janet didn’t reply, Alyssa felt something within her tell her to back away. Something felt different. The air hummed with a different emotional cadence. But she couldn’t trust it. For something to be true, it had to be proven true. The warning to back off warred with the compulsion to push, and she recognized that the slow-burning ember inside her only needed a little oxygen to ignite. With its flash, she would know. She would know that years of discord didn’t resolve in a few short months and people didn’t, couldn’t, change in such a short amount of time either. Or perhaps that people could never change at all.
“Did you ever think it wasn’t your call to make? That it was her life and her decision?”
“Every time she tells me.” Janet placed a head of lettuce on the counter and faced her daughter. “But you weren’t there and she couldn’t see it. You didn’t see how run-down things had gotten. When November hits northern Michigan, you have to be prepared. She wasn’t, and that scared me. After my first winter alone here, I finally got it. It’s not easy at my age, much less your grandmother’s, to shovel the walks, set up the plowing schedule, salt your steps without slipping, get your car winterized... Cold is terrifying in many ways. So no, I didn’t wait for her to tell me or to fall down her front steps or freeze to death if she slipped on the way to her mailbox. I did what I thought was best. I did what I could to honor her, protect her, and show her I love her.”
“So no matter what the rest of us think or want, we’re wrong. Glad you got all your virtue back after that blip of yours.”
Her mom turned red and Alyssa waited, poised on the edge of the knife. Despite feeling ashamed of her own words and actions, she stood still, unsure which way she wanted the moment to go. Either everything Janet professed was true, or everything was the same old lie. One better, granted, but one consistent and expected—and there was comfort in that too.
When Janet didn’t reply, Alyssa doubled down in her own desperation. “So you’ve gotten Grandma settled, good daughter. You’ve gotten your husband back, despite your affair, good wife. You never really lost Chase. And now you’ve got your cute granddaughter to show off on Instagram. Perfect little family for the doting grandmother. But there’s still me, the disgraced XGC employee now back living in her old bedroom, wearing her high school wardrobe, and working at the local gas station. Can’t take these hands to a dinner party, can you, Mom?” Alyssa held up her hands. Despite scrubbing with the kitchen sink’s vegetable brush, grime still trailed each cuticle line.
