Page 31 of Red Mountain Burning
“Believe me, they’re very sweet. But once you’ve been thrown off, you like them better when your own feet are on the ground.”
* * *
The visit tosee the animals hadn’t lightened up Carly like Margot had hoped. As they returned to the house, Margot said, “All this arid land here is where Remi and I would like to plant some grapes. Once we’re caught up with everything else, of course. It’s project after project around here.”
Carly nodded, and Margot decided she’d had about enough. “Look, Carly, let’s talk. Woman to woman.”
Carly let out a sigh, as if she wanted to say, “What now?”
They both watched a tumbleweed roll by in the breeze.
Margot crossed her arms and faced the girl who looked so much like Remi. Before Margot spoke, she reminded herself how much she loved him. That gave her the courage to say exactly what she needed to say.
“I get it, Carly. This probably sucks for you. I can only imagine what it’s like to suddenly have a stepmom in your life. Especially when you haven’t seen your dad in a long time.”
Carly turned away, looking up toward Col Solare. She puffed on her cigarette.
Margot continued, “I keep trying to put myself in your shoes. Wondering what it would be like to have someone else love my dad. I’m not sure I would have liked it, especially at your age. But it’s the way it is. Your father and I have something very special, and I hope you can find comfort in the fact that no woman on earth will ever love him like I do.”
Margot realized what she’d said and backpedaled, throwing up her hands. “I mean, other than you and…I’m sure your mother loved him with everything she had. But that’s over, and your father deserves to be loved. I didn’t know him before, but he came out here to rediscover himself, and I think that’s admirable. The man I know deserves all the love in the world, even from you.”
Carly took one last puff of her smoke and tossed it to the ground. Stomping on the burning butt, she started to speak, then shook her head instead, as if Margot could never understand.
Margot reached down and picked up the butt. “We’re family now, and we need to figure this out. Whether you like it or not, I will be your stepmom. Not that you have to call me that. You can call me Margot or Remi’s wife or whatever. But there’s no sense us spending a lifetime angry at one another.” She sighed. “I don’t want you to hate me. And maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re in your head for other reasons. I was a mess at seventeen. But I really feel like you walked off that plane already hating me.”
Carly scoffed, still looking up toward the top of the mountain. Finally, she turned to Margot with venom in her eyes. “Good for you that you’ve found the love of your life. I honestly don’t care. No matter what you say or do, no matter how nice you are, I’m not going to like you. You’ll never be my mom, and you’ll never love my father like my mother did.”
Margot lost her breath, like she’d been punched in her stomach. Tears collected under her eyes, but she strained her face to fight them off. “Look here, you ungrateful shit,” Margot said. “Do you know how lucky it is to find true love? I’m sorry if it gets in the way of your precious little life, but…”
No, she didn’t say that. But she wanted to.
Pushing her anger aside, she said, “I get all of that. It must be impossible to like a woman who is jamming her foot into your life. But I’m not trying to replace your mom. You don’t ever have to look at me like a mom. What if we were just friends? I’m just in this to love your father with every part of me.”
Carly shook her head again in disgust, then reached down for a rock and cast it out over the vines. “Are we done yet? I’d like to go back.”
Margot bit her tongue, knowing that she might say things that would ruin their relationship forever.
As the two women returned to the house, Margot couldn’t ever recall having felt so deflated. She thought back to the lonely days before meeting Remi, wondering if she’d ever love and be loved again. And then, after braving the online dating market, she’d finally found Remi—the one, and everything would be perfect.
But life never is perfect, is it?
Once they got back, Margot marched up the stairs, pulled the cork on a bottle of merlot, and drew a hot bath. Sitting against the tub so that Carly couldn’t hear her voice over the running water, Margot called Jasper.
“Mom! What’s going on? I can’t wait to see you.”
The whole world could be at war, but the moment she got him on the phone, everything seemed to be okay. “I’m counting the days. Are you sad to leave?”
“Forget that,” he said. “How’s Carly? Are you two getting along?”
Margot burst into a foot-long cry, splashing tears all over the bathroom tiles. “She hates me. I don’t know what to do, Jasper. I haven’t even done anything to her, and she hates me.”
“Oh, Mom. She doesn’t hate you. Whatever she’s going through hasnothingto do with you.”
Why was it that speaking with Jasper always made her feel as if she were visiting with some wise man at the top of a mountain?
“I know that, but—”
“Do you, Mom? Seriously. No one on earth hates you. What was it? Were you too nice to her? Did you cook too much good food for her? Or was her room too clean and the bed too comfortable?”
