Page 102 of Love & Other Disasters

“I don’t understand how.”

“Well, when I’d express an emotion about something you’d tell me I was wrong and then tell me how I should feel.”

“Oh, Vi, everything upset you. As a mother you can’t stand to see your child hurt. I was teaching you to be happy.”

Violet took a deep breath and recalled how Dr. Haytko had taught her to express her truth.

“It taught me to hide my feelings to make you happy. I’m not blaming you. That’s just how I interpreted it as a kid.”

Her mother studied a slice of pizza. “Well, sorry for all of that,” she muttered.

Across the table Jill smiled.

“I wasn’t around a lot,” her dad said, making her jump. She’d forgotten he was at the end of the table. “With work keeping me away and all, but I’m sorry for anything I did.”

Violet wasn’t aware that her dad had done anything, except by omission. But an apology from each parent in a minute was something she never thought would happen. She swallowed, hands trembling.

“Thanks,” she whispered, sagging back in the chair.

The need to escape and hide ran through her, but she finished the slice and the family dinner.

The streetlights blurred yellow across the roads as Violet drove home in the rain. The understanding weighed heavily on her mind that her mom believed she was teaching her to be happy. Jill sat next to Violet engrossed in her phone.

“I owe you an apology, too,” Violet said.

“For what?” Jill said, staring at her phone.

“For years I’d written you off as overdramatic, but it was me. I’d been the one who suppressed my emotions for so long that I didn’t understand someone who used all of them. I don’t quite understand that…”

She sat her phone next to her leg. “As numb as you were, I overcompensated and was overdramatic.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, I do. There’s a happy medium that I’m trying to reach in appropriately expressing myself.”

Violet laughed. “It’s working. You’re much more tolerable these days.”

“Right back at ya,” Jill laughed.

“Do you think mom meant her apology?”

Jill hesitated.

“I figured it wasn’t sincere. But, I will let that go for now.”

“Can’t control everything.”

“Only myself and my responses.”

“Oh my god. We may have had too much therapy,” Jill exclaimed. They both laughed.

Had she taken J.P.’s feelings about her giving him a fake name seriously? Maybe she hadn’t understood his side of it. If she could go back in time, she’d have stopped Elle from giving out that fake name or corrected her right away. Or if she’d given more weight to his feelings at finding out. Either way, he wouldn’t have needed to have her investigated and none of this would have happened. Her stomach twisted threatening her dinner.

All of the trash from the kitchen and living room filled the dumpster to the brim. At least the bedrooms, bathrooms, and third floor bonus room remained uncluttered. The company hauled away the dumpster, placing it on the back of a flatbed parked in the street. And once again, the front yard appeared. There were a million projects to do inside the house. But, he moved the yard project to the top of the list when the roofers dumped a mess in the front hedges.

J.P. took his industrial trash bag, electric hedge trimmers, and gloves purchased at the local hardware store. He’d become a regular who asked dumb questions about home repair. Until he discovered online videos that could keep him from looking like a total idiot. He’d gone from business suits and meetings, to handyman in the past few months. Still, he didn’t know what he was doing half the time, but he plugged his way through each project, tackling what he needed to learn when he came to it.

Outside he took the trimmers to the hedge and started working.

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