Page 7 of Good Days Bad Days
The Betty I met today is the kind of mom I always wished I’d had. I’d missed out on that mom—the “I’ll do your makeup” mom, the “let’s play gin rummy” mom. But this coral-lipped, friendly woman isn’t my mom. I silently lean into the embrace. She smells of coffee, peppermints, and baby powder.
She whispers, “Where have you been for so long, Laura?”
I pull back without an answer.
Laura? Another random memory, but I don’t mind. I think I’d rather be Laura right now, whoever she is.
“See you again soon?” she asks. And though it’s likely a lie, I tell her I will.
Dad walks me out, past Nurse Mitchell, past the front desk girl who asks for a selfie, and back into the cold. Now we’ll visit the house. We have a meeting scheduled with the social worker and a city official for tomorrow morning, and I told my dad I needed to know what the situation looked like before I agreed to help.
“I looked Lake Geneva up. Sounds like a cool place. We should come visit ...” Olivia, my college freshman, says on the other end of the line as I drive across town to my parents’ house.
We.I loved it when she started saying “we” when referring to our little family.
She was twelve when I met Ian, and for a while we were a perfect modern family, at least when we weren’t off shootingSecond ChanceRenovationin some out-of-state locale. It all went sideways after we moved into a big house in LA and she had to get used to the little four-year-old twins that came along with her new stepdad. With Olivia in middle school, we had to leave her at home with her dad during our work trips, and because they were still so little, we’d take the boys all over the country with us for weeks at a time.
Eventually, Olivia asked to live at her dad’s since it was closer to her school, and I forced myself to understand, to accept her decision. We still have epic summer vacations and holidays together and overnights whenever possible, but a distance has grown between Olivia and me that comes from a sense of abandonment on both sides, though we definitely don’t talk about it.
Now that her dad has moved back to the East Coast, we see her more often. She comes home from Stanford every few weeks or so to do her laundry and see the boys. She’s a good big stepsister, but I know she’s always felt replaced by the twins.
“It’s nothing spectacular, really. You’ve been swimming with the dolphins in the Galápagos; I think Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, would be a snore for you.” The idea of having Olivia anywhere near this place gives me anxiety. Lake Geneva isn’t a vacation location to me; it’s more like a haunted house packed with unpredictable jump scares.
“Jeez, Mom. You make me sound spoiled,” she grumbles through the phone like I’m the most annoying human that’s ever existed. “I’d love to see where you grew up. I have a break in a few weeks. I could come out and help.”
“Oh, God, no. I should be home by spring break. Besides, there’s really not much to see.”
Silence on the other side of the call, and I know I’ve pissed her off, again. God, I make all the mistakes. But she doesn’t realize I’m saving her from a genuinely unpleasant experience. My mom was interesting and innocent today, but what will she be like tomorrow or the next day? And the house—I haven’t even seen the house yet. No. Thisisn’t a bonding opportunity for me and Olivia. I will spare her what I wasn’t spared.
“We can go to Cabo for break, if you like. Or how about we go back to Venice this summer?”
Olivia sighs and changes the subject.
“Sorry, Mom. I gotta go. I have a study thing in a few minutes.”
“All right, honey. Sounds good. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she says, but not with feeling—more like it’s a sentence she’s practiced so many times that it’s become automatic. “Oh, and Mom ...” she calls out as I’m about to hit the end button.
“Yeah?” I wait, hoping she says she understands why she can’t visit.
“Call Ian,” she blurts out and hangs up before I can say anything.
Heat rushes up my neck.
So, he’s got Olivia working for him now. I hate that he’s gotten her involved in this. When Olivia’s father and I divorced, we were cordial, friendly, could be in the same room without slinging accusations. She was three years old at that time, but still—we never put Olivia in the middle. Just because she’s technically an adult doesn’t mean that should change this time around. Ian knows how I feel about keeping the kids out of our disagreements. What an asshole. I know I have to talk to him eventually, yell, curse, cry and then listen to his apologies and promises, but I flew halfway across the country to escape that confrontation—I definitely won’t be inviting it today.
I drop my phone on the seat beside me as I turn onto Main Street. Another rush of nostalgia washes away the flash of anger brought up by the mention of my husband’s name. The snow-trimmed storefronts, the neon signs that speak to another era, the lake peeking through each lane like it’s calling to anyone driving past. Even in the winter I can almost understand Olivia’s desire to visit this town. Anytime a tourist kid found out I stayed in town year-round they’d give their parents a look, disappointed to have to go home to some boring Chicago suburb.
I allowed them to think my world was as perfect as it seemed.
Even if my house didn’t feel like home back then, the town did—especially in the summer. I’d walk with my dad to his antique shop every morning and do my daily dusting while imagining who might have used the ancient treasures that filled his store. Around lunch, I’d pop into Annie’s for a half-price cone and then linger at the bookstore until closing, where Mr. Tom would let me read the newest books without paying a dime.
In some ways it feels like I only left a week ago, especially when I pull up to the detached two-car garage on Lake Shore Drive.
Though the house is an inanimate building, it’s hard not to have complicated emotions about the thing my parents chose over me, their own child. Dad says we can clean it out now, that we have to—thirty-one years, five months, two weeks, and three days too late. It still hurts. I can’t imagine it ever not hurting, but curiously, as I climb out of my rental car, it seems a fragment of the bitterness sitting in my chest like a lump of poisonous lead has been lightened.
Today, for one hour, I had a mom.
