Page 59 of Love is Angry

Rhue raises an eyebrow. “That is–––”

“Strange,” I chuckle. “Very strange. He even has few Polaroid shots of him and your mom from high school, somewhere in a shoebox. I’ll gladly fish them out if you want to see them.”

“Nah, I don’t think—” Rhue cringes.

“Yes, please,” Laura cuts in, giving me a pleading look. “We don’t have many pictures of mom as a kid. Our maternal grandparents, they… Well, we’re not really in contact. They cut us off a while back.” There’s an underlying current of true emotional agony in her words.

“They cut you off?”

Rhue sighs. “Ever since Mom died. It’s like we’re radioactive. They text back and whatnot, but we haven’t seen them since the funeral. And anything Mom or Dad related is immediately shut down. Maybe it’s not even their fault. Das has been horrible to them.”

“It’s not just our grandparents. Mom’s sisters won’t even acknowledge our existence anymore,” Laura adds. Her eyes areglassy. “The Spauldings and the Echeveria never really got along. From the moment our parents got together…”

Rhue lowers his gaze. “Some people are just not meant to be together, and some people should never be allowed to be together, to begin with.”

“You’re talking about your parents,” I say, my face burning.

Laura clears her throat. “For what it’s worth, Madison, we’re not blaming you. I know I’ve said this before, but now that my brother has joined this side of the conversation, I feel it’s important to say it again. Everything that went wrong between Mom and Dad prior to her death, it was on them. Not you. Lord knows you weren’t the only woman he… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t bring you into the conversation like this.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her, forcing myself to stay calm, though I can feel my anxiety lurking, testing the lock on my mental box. “It’s part of our reality, whether we like it or not. I’m just thankful you understand that it was never my intention to hurt you or anyone in your family.” That’s not a lie. It’s just a half-truth. Roxanne was right, in her own selfish, cowardly way. The truth very much looks like it’s on the verge of breaking them. It’s written all over their faces. Julian, as awful as he is, he’s all the family they’ve got left. Especially since he’s pushed everybody else away on their mother’s side, isolating them, too. Fucking monster. Putting his kids in such a horrible and difficult situation.

The waiter returns with our food order. The ham and mozzarella croissant for Laura and two sets of fusion crostini for Rhue and me. The table becomes loaded all of a sudden, also accompanied by a sophisticated cheese platter and a fresh fruit platter. The mimosas will follow later. For now, I’m not finding this entire outing as difficult as I originally thought it would be. I am only getting more proof that Rhue is being genuine in his sudden shift. Maybe he was telling the truth all along abouthow my mention of his mother sort of jolted him back into this elevated state of mind. I can only hope, at least.

Once the waiter is gone, I decide this conversation needs to go in a slightly better and perhaps more healing direction. “Tell me about your Mom. What was Roxanne like?” I ask, smiling gently. “I never had a chance to properly talk to her. I only know what the newspaper gossip columns wrote. Oh, and that profile of hers in The New York Times.”

“Mom was a powerhouse,” Rhue says, his voice calm and his gaze fixed on me in a way that makes me quiver in my seat. There’s an intensity in his eyes that I have never seen before. Not hostile but deeply emotional. “She had the choice of going into politics from a young age, but when Dad developed his real estate empire, she decided there would be one parent at home for the kids at all times. It’s why she split her practice between the city office and the home office. She loved to cook, though she rarely had a chance to indulge. With Dad being mostly away or always busy, it fell on her to keep Laura and me feeling like we were part of a real family without losing her own career in the process. I used to hate that when I was little.”

“Hate what?” I reply.

“Her working.”

It makes Laura chuckle. “Rhue used to rope me into his attempts to sabotage Mom’s sessions. We were maybe five and seven or something. The deadly tummy ache.” She starts laughing.

“Oh, right. Momma! I have a monster in my tummy!” Rhue tries to keep a straight face but fails miserably and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t remember the whole excuse in vivid detail. I only know it had something to do with a deep fried dinosaur I thought had evolved into a real one. Dropping on my knees and everything. The patient she was with…oh, man, hardto forget the look on his face. Laura was hard at work on the fake tears.”

“I was terrible,” Laura doubles over. “The poor guy, he didn’t know whether to laugh or to pity Mom for having ended up with us two!”

I can’t help but laugh, too. This is the most vulnerable Rhue has allowed himself to be since––since the time before things changed. It couldn’t have been easy. But right now, there’s a happiness in him, an ease that – despite all he’s done to me – I hope he gets to enjoy for a long time to come.

We dive into another conversation and then another. This feels nice. It feels like a journey to forgiveness. A new leaf. At least, it did until a voice interrupts us.

“What the fuck is this?” Julian Echeveria towers over us, his apparent calm only a façade for the storm brewing beneath. The ticking muscle in his square jaw is a dead giveaway, as is the hate in his eyes—aimed directly at me and mixed with a shit-ton of outrage. “What is this whore doing here?” he asks Rhue.

Suddenly, everything dies. The sweet melancholy of remembering their childhood and Roxanne. The taste of the ham and mozzarella croissant. The tangy aftertaste of matured cheddar dipped in fig jam. The coffee. The lemon water. The entire fucking table dies.

“Rhue?” he asks, further aggrieved by the lack of response.

Laura opens her mouth, but Julian motions for her to be quiet. It sets Rhue off. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what? What was the one and only rule I asked you both to follow?” The man is angry and then some, that much is clear. If it weren’t for the public setting, he’d probably put his hands around my neck and choke me to death.

This entire scene would be tolerable, at best, but for my mental box. It’s torn open, and my anxiety is out in full swing. Post-traumatic stress symptoms begin to rear their ugly heads,and I become helpless, a slender reed subject to wind, rain, sleet, and frost. I am cold and hot at the same time. Furious and terrified. Nauseated and afraid. Ashamed and paralyzed. There are so many sensations trying me at once that I cannot even begin to make sense of them.

My skin crawls but it also stretches and tingles. My spine stiffens, but icy rocks tumble through it, as well, sending shivers out in freezing ripples that make it as far as my fingers and toes. I should move. I should stand up. I should run away. This man…he’s the nightmare monster. He’s the beast I have been trying to overcome for so long. The root of all my troubles. The boogieman that every woman is warned against.

“Are we not allowed to socialize anymore?” Rhue asks his father. I move to get up, but his hand covers mine on the table and he squeezes in a strangely reassuring manner. Laura is shaking in her seat. “It’s just brunch. I don’t get what the big deal is.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, right now? Rhue, do you need therapy?” Julian hisses.

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