Page 18 of When It's Us
“Yes, Mom.”
“Well, that’s fantastic, truly. It’s about time. Really, Ginger, you need to get out more. Sitting at home alone every weekend isn’t good for you,” she chides, and I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
God, how embarrassing.
“You work too much,” she sighs before barreling on, “but it’s good you’re out. Even better if it were a date. Is it a date?” she asks.
I groan quietly, and even if she doesn’t hear it, Hutch does. He glances at me, eyes narrowing faintly. Not in judgment but in recognition. Like a piece of a puzzle that only he can see just slid into place. I quickly avert my attention back to my phone. I’ve got bigger problems.
“No, Mom. It’s not a date.” I have zero desire to tell her I’m actually on a road trip and decide to keep things as vague as possible.
“Well, maybe you should put yourself back on the apps,” she says, acting as if she knows anything about dating in this day and age. If she did, she wouldn’t give me that advice. It’s a literal dumpster fire out there.
“Oh,” she exclaims, “that reminds me, there’s a new neighbor you should meet the next time you’re in town. He’s fifty-six and awidower.” She says the word all giddy-like, as if the news should appeal to me. “Very upstanding and veryaffluent. Rumor has it he’s got heart problems, but no one has been able to verify that yet.”
“Oh wow, that’s too bad,” I say dryly.
My mother huffs out an exasperated breath. “Ginger, you don’t want to be single forever. He might be older, but you know what they say…”
No, I didn’t, in fact, know what they say…
It’s my turn to sigh. “I’m fine, Mom. I don’t have time to date.”
Having raised me to believe that I needed a man, my mother was sure my life would be better if I married well and early, preferably to someone well established with a boatload of money. Someone like my dad.
“You mustmaketime, Ginger. You’re not getting any younger.” Her tone is patronizing and more than a little insulting as she prattles on, and now Ireallywant the seat in this shit box to open up and swallow me whole.
“Speaking of, did you buy that eye cream I sent you the link for? I saw those pictures you posted of you and the boys last weekend and I think it would take care of the bags under your eyes. Patricia Livingston’s best friend’s sister has been using it for a month, and you wouldn’t believe the difference. She looks ten years younger!”
I slide my eyes closed briefly and give my head a small shake. I have no idea who Patricia Livingston or her best friend’s sister is, and I don’t really care. So I nod along and ignore the jab—like I do with all her others.
“How’s Dad?” I ask to steer the conversation away from the bags under my eyes and my lack of a love life. I do not need this right now. Especially with Hutch not so subtly eaves-dropping.
“Oh, you know your father; he’s golfing, having lunch daily at the club.” She launches into a story about a scandal at the country club involving a regular member and one of the tennis coaches, but I’m only half listening.
“I still can’t believe you agreed to let those boys go off by themselves for weeks. Poor dears are probably terrified.”
I force myself to speak evenly, through slightly gritted teeth, though it’s the last thing I want to do.
“They aren’t by themselves, Mom, and they aren’t terrified. They’re with Peter,” I say.
I can feel Hutch’s eyes on me, but I don’t look over. Turning my body in the seat, I angle away from Hutch, hoping that this will be a little less painful if he can’t see my face.
My mother has never approved of my ex-husband. It’s not that Peter is a bad guy, he’s not. And he’s a great dad, but my mother has always been hard to please.
When I left for California at eighteen—to which she’d been adamantly opposed—she’d assumed I would finish school and come back home, marry some rich, old dude, and start popping out babies. Had I done that, my life in Florida would never have been my own, and I was determined to stay as far away from the life she wanted for me as possible.
Needless to say, she’d been ‘displeased’—her words—when I’d met and fallen in love with a broke college student. She even tried to talk me into taking back my maiden name after Peter and I split; she told me I was ridiculous for keeping his last name for the boys' sake.
But again, that was my mom. Any idea that wasn’t hers was ridiculous.
“Still, I don’t like it,” she continues.
Scrutinizing in almost everything she does, my mother has managed to criticize every decision I’ve made for as long as I can remember. Sure, she slaps a pleasantry on it from time to time, so she doesn’t come offcompletelycrass and condescending, but anyone who knows her knows that part is all for show. It’s one of the reasons my father worked himself to death for most of their marriage, and the reason he spends ninety percent of his retired life on the golf course.
I press back into the bucket seat, rub my forehead with my fingers, and try to keep the irritation from my voice. “People take road trips, Mom. And kids fly all the time, too. It’s perfectly safe. They’ll be together and Peter will be with them the entire time.”
Statistically, they’ll be safer in the air than riding in the car around town, so my mother’s claims have no basis. I seriously don’t know why I argue with or try to explain myself to her; she’s never agreed with how I parent my boys.
