Page 190 of As They Are
Mom laughed. “Then I don’t know how you got yourself into a love triangle. Unless all of it is fake, of course. I know about Jude. Madison told me it was for the cameras. But Henry?” She leaned forward. “There’s just no way.” There it was. The plummet to earth I was dreading.
“Did you bring me here to insult me?”
“I’m giving you some motherly advice.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because you gave me a lot of that over the years.”
“You’re the one who acted miserable around me.”
“You made me miserable!”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure, make it all my fault.”
“You didn’t evenreach out.”
“How was I supposed to know your number? You could have changed it!”
“Ineverchanged my number. I was always waiting for you to call.”
And I had been, whether I knew it or not. There was always a version of me, a little girl in overalls and pigtails, that waited for the mother I wanted to have.
Over time, I shut her away. I had thought she would never get her dream. Now I knew for sure.
Her eyebrows shot up. “You kept the number your dad got you in high school?”
“I did. Spam calls and all. And you never once tried to reach out. Not even on social media.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t come here to do this.”
“Then why did you come here?” I asked. “Why do any of this?”
“Because I was hoping you wouldn’t be the same stubborn girl who never did what I said!” she snapped. “And yet you are. You’re wearing cargo pants!”
“They’re practical.”
“You’re just like your father.”
“And? Unlike you, he was there for me.”
“And he diedalone.”
Rage made my spine go rigid. Had she really said that? “He hadme.”
“And who will you have, huh? Henry isn’t gonna stay.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I heard about him. I heard he’s a doctor who came to see you at the same time every day. How he swept you off your feet with little stolen moments, but he’swayout of your league. He’s the kind of man youmarry,and no man would ever want this.” She gestured to all of me again.
My rage turned into hurt. Here my mother was, sitting in front of me for the first time in over fifteen years, and she hated me all the same. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I? It’ll start with resentment, Wren. How you mess up his schedule.” Which I’d done. “How you never listen.” He had toorderme sometimes. “It might be cute now, but as the years pass, he’ll hate you. He’ll hate what you do. How you are. I know it’ll happen, because it’s what I did.”
I didn’t have an answer for her. I couldn’t speak.
Suddenly, I would take Jude’s comments. I would take them and be happy. I would take Madison’s eye rolls. They were nothing compared tothis.
“Save him the trouble, Wren. If you’re so dedicated to being dusty from construction, constantly battling the kind of woman youshouldbe, then you’re not worth it.” She stood, grabbed her purse, and left.
