Page 148 of Sweet Everythings

My mother grinned at me and shrugged. “He’s not going to take no for an answer. If you don’t give them to him, he’ll bring the portable tank and fill it up that way.”

I smiled ruefully.

He’d done it before.

“In my coat pocket. Thanks, Dad.”

“Right-O!” he yelled back, the front door slamming behind him.

Alone with my mom, I wondered if I’d made a grave mistake in going home.

Best Bitches

Hope

Nerves assailed me as Mom took a seat on the opposite end of the couch. “You want to watch a movie while I play with your hair?”

I closed my eyes. A thousand lonely nights without my dad, lying on this couch, my head in my mom’s lap watching a movie while she stroked my hair back from my face.

Interspersed with crying jags and the need to blow my nose, the whole story came out.

All of it.

“The worst part is,” I sighed, exhausted from the deluge, “he said he’d never marry me.”

“And that bothers you?”

My lips twisted. “Mom. I’ve always wanted it. Up until now I’d never met anyone I wanted it with.”

Where I expected her to start offering solutions, ways for me to ensnare him in my womanly web, she offered thoughtful silence.

She began slowly. Carefully. “I like him. And I like him for you. I do see there’s something … broken… inside him.” She met my eyes. “Like recognizes like and I can see he’s like me.”

Like her? She thought she was broken?

I wanted to know her story.

Knew I should ask.

But the little girl inside me who so desperately wanted her mother’s approval demanded a different answer.

“Why are you so disappointed with me?” I whispered.

At the hurt look in my mother’s eyes, I wished I could suck the words back in.

“I’ve never been disappointed in you.”

“It seems no matter what I do, all you want is for me to get married. What if I never get married?”

She wrapped her arms around her knee, hugging it to her chest. “I’ve done some soul-searching over the past few weeks, and I think that’s more about me than you. In so many ways, I’ve always been insecure. Your father gave me much needed stability. I wanted that stability for you.”

I opened my mouth to speak but she stayed me with her hand. She’d never cut me off like that before.

“I see now you don’t need it.”

I nodded my agreement.

“I didn’t get a lot of validation when I was young. Both my parents were alcoholics, and my mother was abusive.”

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