Page 19 of Hate You, Maybe
I almost drop my brush.
Start the countdown to another maternal heartbreak.
“He asked me last night,” she gushes, “and I couldn’t wait to call you this morning!”
“Eugene.”
“Well, of course, Eugene.” She pauses for a moment. “Whoelsewould I be marrying?”
Oh, I don’t know Mom, I think.After twenty-eight years, I stopped keeping track of your Rolodex of relationships.To be clear, she doesn’t date multiple men at the same time. My mother’s problem is the opposite. She’s a serial monogamist, falling fast and hard, giving her whole heart to men who don’t really want that level of commitment. And after every breakup, she’ddraw up stakes and drag us away from whatever living situation we’d established.
We moved a lot.
For the record, my mother’s not a terrible person. She’s just reckless, as a woman and a parent. So my goal has always been to be the opposite of reckless, whatever that is.
Full of reck? Let’s go with that.
Thanks to my mother, I am totallyreckfull.
And yes, I realize reckfull isn’t a word. But maybe it should be, because I sure felt fully wrecked by the upheaval in my childhood. And that’s the reason I don’t date. Especially not colleagues. Workplace romance is my mother’s kiss of death. And I mean that literally.
Kissing coworkers killed every single one of her jobs.
“So I was really hoping you’d be my maid of honor,” she says, and the note of wistfulness in her voice sends a pang straight through my middle.
“Of course, Mom.” I tuck a stubborn piece of hair back up into my ponytail holder. “When’s the big day?”
“Oh. Well. That.” She stumbles over her words, and I can’t help thinking this means her plans aren’t totally solid. “We haven’t landed on an exact date for the ceremony yet. Some of that will depend on the venue. But Eugene wants us to tie the knot as soon as possible.”
“I’m sure he does, Mom.”
“But I told him I can’t say ‘I do’ without my best girl by my side.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. This is a road we traveled together so many times when I was young. She ended up hurt every time. Me? I just wanted to save her from the pain, and to save myself from the unmooring that followed. Mostly, I just wished she hadn’t been so lonely with me.
That I could’ve been enough for her.
“Of course I’ll be your maid of honor,” I say. There’s a longstretch of silence, so many things I want to tell her. But I can’t. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go, Mom.”
“All right, baby. Have a great day at work. Your mama loves you so much!”
“I love yo?—”
She ends the call before I can say the whole thing back to her.
So I grab my bag and wheel my suitcase out to the kitchen, where Loren’s waiting for me with a green smoothie. I’ve got five minutes before Dexter’s supposed to show up.
“Bless you,” I say.
“No more breakfast burritos for you.”
“Word.”
In between gulps of smoothie, I fill Loren in on my mother’s engagement.
“I think it’s romantic,” she says on a sigh. “Finding your happily ever after at her age.”
“She’s not a hundred years old,” I snort.
