Page 63 of Odin
“No, thank you.”
“Alright. Water then? Or tea?”
“I drove all the way here to tell you that you can’t get married. I forbid it. I gave you time to come to your senses, but this isn’t the future that you deserve. Come home to LA. I’ll help you raise the baby.”
My whole body is instantly flooded with tension. Not at the thought that Odin might have woken up and heard that either. If he is awake and he knows that my mom is here, he’ll give us a few moments together to sort things out. I do know that if for a second, he thinks I need backup, he’ll be out here in an instant, offering me his silent, smiling, polite support. He’ll make my mom a cup of coffee whether she wants one or not, and honor her like an expected, long awaited guest. I know that he’ll only ask her to leave if lines are crossed and she hurts me.
So far, none of that has happened.
I no longer need any caffeine, though. I’ve been cutting way back, just having a small cup in the morning and drinking peppermint tea throughout the rest of the day when I need something warm and soothing. This is just my mom being my mom, expressing herself in the only way she’s seemed to be able to do since my dad died, but I’m jittery enough.
The matching black loveseat sits across from the couch, a rectangular coffee table in the middle. I sit down across from my mom, so we’re facing each other. I rest my hand on the swell of my stomach. We found out we’re having a boy, and we decided on a name instantly. Caden, after my dad, although we haven’t picked a middle name yet.
Caden is still sleeping. He likes to kick rambunctiously all night long and then fall asleep first thing in the morning, when it’s time for me to get up.
“Mom. I appreciate the offer of help, but we got married almost six months ago,” I point out as gently as I can. “I’ve done a lot of living in that time, and my home is here. What happened with your job?”
“I took some time off. Vacation days.” She takes that tone that says she doesn’t want to talk about any of that. “Don’t worry, I haven’t quit or lost it. I don’t need you to look after me.”
“Okay.”
She’s more defensive, her fingers picking up the pace as they drum against her knee, even though I haven’t tried to argue with her. “I’m worried about you.”
“I know you are. You’re my mom.” She blinks at that, like she expected that I’d tell her she’s no longer any parent of mine. “The baby is healthy. Everything is going well.”
“You panic married your ex-fiancé’s father, who is twice your age, because you got knocked up after a one-night rage revenge stand,” she snaps, throwing us right back into hostile territory, erasing all this time and how I’ve tried to move past the hurtful words of our last conversation a few days before the wedding.
Still, I’m not going to rise to it. I don’t know if that’s what she wants. Her words might be harsh, but her tone is laced with worry and her face just looks… tired. Way older than the last time I saw her. Like she’s spent every single second of these months apart worrying about me.
I don’t want to drive us further apart. I want to fix this. I’m still hopeful that despite everything, we can. “I did tell you before that none of that was how it happened.” Being patient doesn’t mean not telling the hard truths. In the past, I might not have been able to, but I need to be firm about this. “I’m going to have to ask you to be respectful of Odin and me, or I’m not going to be able to continue this conversation. I’m your daughter and you’re my mother, and I love you, but I feel like we haven’t understood each other in a very long time.”
Mom rears back like I just struck her. “You didn’t even try. You had your own trajectory and that’s all you cared about.”
My heart aches. This is exactly how I didn’t want this to go. “I hope that you know that’s not true. It’s one thing to be angry, but it’s another to say things that aren’t true and will hurt another person for years if they think that you really see the world that way.”
“I did what I had to do to keep your life from falling apart. I knew you were always going to go back to school. You had no interest in being the kind of wife that Preston wanted.”
I really don’t want to go back to discussing this. We’ve all moved on. “You’re right. I didn’t want to quit school. I didn’t understand just how deep his insecurities went. I thought that we’d fall deeper in love, and we could be honest with each other about what we wanted and support each other’s dreams. Letting someone else tell you that you aren’t doing it right unless you’re making a certain amount of money, have a house with x number of square feet, a woman on your arm who looks and behaves a certain way—that’s not living.” That’s all I want to say about that, but Mom hasn’t run out of arrows to fire yet.
“He’s engaged. To a politician’s daughter.”
“His mom did send me the link to one of the news articles when it happened.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t blocked her.”
“I haven’t blocked anyone. I’d already moved on and found my own happiness. It wasn’t hard to just ignore the text. It was only one. It was meant to hurt me or prove something, but all it did was make me glad that Preston found happiness. He’s Odin’s son and no matter what he did, that’s always going to be true.”
“That’s such a naïve way to look at betrayal.”
“You betrayed me as well, but I still want you to be happy.” That earns me a gasp and at last, a little bit of Mom’s genuine pain slips through the mask she wears so well, even for herself. “I want your world to grow beyond the knowledge and emotions that you had at that time. It’s in the past. I’ve worked hard to move on from it. Being angry and holding onto bitterness only poisons you.”
“So does lying to yourself.”
“That’s the opposite of what I’ve done. I think that I’ve been very honest with myself and everyone else in my life. I want to be honest with you as well. I’m not exactly sure why you’re here and I do sense quite a lot of hostility and unhappiness. It’s not fair that I take your burdens on any longer. I can be your friend, but you have to be accountable for yourself.” The words pour out of me, even, steady, and so long overdue.
I continue, “If you want to be in my life, you have to learn to honor my boundaries and respect me. I would love nothingmore for you to know your grandchild right from the start. Dad would have wanted that. No matter what happened between us, he would have wanted us to stick together. He valued and loved us more than anything. You can always miss him, but you can’t use that as an excuse to not live your life any longer. The world can be mean and harsh. It can hurt and wound more than it ever brings happiness, but you’re alive. You’re healthy. You’re here right now. I think that’s because in some way, you want to fix this, and you know that talking in person is the right thing to do. You were never a perfect mom, but that’s okay. I still love you, and I miss you. I’d like things to be different going forward.”
The room is quiet for a long time. Mom sits there, frozen in place, but I know that’s because she’s thinking. I don’t rush to fill the silence. I’ve said what I needed to say, and she needs to turn that over before she responds.
