Page 80 of My Favorite Bad Decision
* * *
I dutifully puton an outfit slinky enough that my mother won’t criticize it and head to her home that afternoon, though I know how it will go: she’ll be snippy; I’ll be snippy back. I’ll make several good points and she’ll make several nonsensical ones, and in the end—questioning how I could share half my DNA with someone so illogical—I’ll apologize just to make it stop.
A maid smiles as she lets me in. It’s undoubtedly the last pleasant moment of this visit.
“I couldn’t believe how you behaved at the hospital yesterday,” my mother begins when I walk into the kitchen.
I go to the Keurig and open the cabinet for the coffee pods only I use. “You let me fly all the way home, panicking, knowing you were fine. It was shitty and selfish.”
“Your coffee pods were moved to the drawer on your left,” she says. “And I didn’t know I was fine, or I wouldn’t have stayed at the hospital. You act as if I just love drama.”
I arch a brow at her.
“Idon’t,” she insists.
“You should have told the hospital about the diet pills, Mom.”
She shakes her head. “I couldn’t. I’m pretty sure they’re not legal.”
I groan. “You weren’t being interviewed by the FBI, Mom. No one was going to raid the house for your ephedra or whatever it is that you don’t actually need.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she replies. “You’re still thin.”
Like I said…nonsensical. There is no point in arguing.
“Did you solve the IRS thing?”
My mother’s shoulders sag. “No thanks to you. Roger is so mad at me.”
It’s Miller’s voice I hear in my head.“Your mother is a fifty-five-year-old woman who’s been working since she was sixteen. She didn’t need you to fix anything.”
I press my hands to the marble island between us. “Mom, don’t you think we’re both a little too old for me to be fighting your battles? That was crazy. I mean, I was hours and hours away, enjoying a much-needed vacation?—”
“You’d justreturnedfrom a vacation!” she cries.
I frown at her as I go to the fridge for oat milk. “You go sleep in twenty-degree weather on the ground for a week with no showers and tell me how much of a vacation it feels like to you.”
“I’ve done plenty of things like that and loved it. I went to that place in Italy where they made us hike every morning and?—”
I shut the refrigerator door with a laugh. “Are you really going to tell me that your room with a private plunge pool and daily massage was the same as sleeping outdoors for a week with no shower?”
“We weren’t allowed to drink the entire time. No coffee either.” She nods at the oat milk in my hand as if it’s proof of her personal fortitude. “It was incredibly hard. If you were going to go anywhere, that’s where you should have gone. I lost ten pounds.”
I fight a grin and take a sip of my coffee. “Everyone else told me I came back from Kili too thin, while you’re trying to say I should run off to fat camp.”
“It wasn’tfat camp,” she says. “It was a resort devoted to the fitness journey. And I’m not saying you need to lose ten pounds, but my God, think how thin you’d be if you did. I still don’t understand why you’re not modeling. You’d be just as successful as Maren, but the clock is ticking.”
I shake my head, carrying my coffee over to the table. I’ve never wanted my entire life and income focused on something I won’t be able to hold onto…because that turns you into my mother: diet pills from China and plastic surgery she will lie about when people ask. “I don’t want to model.”
“You don’t want your father’s job either,” she says, which is perhaps the most insightful thing that’s come out of her mouth in a long time, “but you’re still pursuing that. Not that I’m complaining. You’ll be the one who can afford to buy me a private plane when I’m retirement age.”
Possibly not, Mom.
“That doctor sure was cute yesterday, wasn’t he?” she asks changing the topic.
I sigh. I like Roger—he’s kind to my mother and puts up with her bullshit—but what my mother likes is excitement. She wants a man who will worship her, then treat her like shit, then apologize with jewelry. She confuses emotional upheaval with passion, and she’s had just a little too much stability with husband number five.
“I thought he was a condescending dick, actually.”
