Page 48 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“I saw Jehan at the coffee cart a while back, and she mentioned that you two went to a place in Oakland,” Grant said, absentmindedly steering them toward the park.
Sam felt heat creep into her cheeks. That trip had been a month ago. Grant had retained that little bit of information about her just so that he could recall it if the opportunity to make her happy ever magically presented itself. She was making a mental note to add it to the astonishingly fast-growing list of nice traits about Grant when she checked herself. How did she know he was listening for details about her? For all she knew, her overly enthusiastic roommate shipped them so hard that she’d cornered him and drilled it into his brain.
Clearing his throat, Grant asked, “So how did you get roped into throwing a party for your mom?”
“Oof. Long story,” Sam sighed.
“We’ve got time. Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”
She rarely wanted to talk about her mother, but something in the way Grant said it made Sam want to be honest with him. After all, their situations were different, but if anyone could understand struggling with family expectations, it was him. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I love my mom. I have to start with that, because otherwise the rest of this sounds kind of ...” Pausing for a moment, she nodded her head a fraction of an inch from side to side until the right words came to her. “It just sounds mean.”
“Okay,” Grant said, stopping with his ice cream about six inches from his face to look at her. “Mean how?”
“She wouldn’t admit it, but my mom thinks of her kids as extensions of herself. She is proud of us, but she doesn’t actually want us living separate lives away from her. Our lives are her hobby and, in some ways, her personality. She gets super worked up if we deviate from her plan.”
“What do you mean bydeviate?”
“She was convinced I should be a biology teacher like her and stay close to home. Even when I was accepted to medical school, she just kind of pretended I wasn’t becoming a doctor. Then when I left Ohio ...”
Sam paused, and Grant looked over at her. Grimacing, he asked, “Was it yikes?”
“Worse. She refused to speak to me for two months. That would have been fine. But with her it isn’t just silence. She does passive-aggressive stuff like getting my dad to encourage me to ‘see her side,’ like I’m the one being ridiculous.”
“All this because you moved?” Grant said, doing his best to keep his shock under wraps.
“It gets weirder. She started leaving me off the group chat, so my brother had to screenshot or call with important updates. For example, when their basement flooded and they needed to stay in a hotel for a couple days. Or when Mom needed to get a mole checked out. According to my father, hearing my voice was too painful. But like all things with my mom, eventually she gets tired of whatever punishment she has imposed and comes up with a reason to reengage with us. It’s weird, but stuff like helping her throw a party puts her at the center of attention and reminds her that we love her. The parties are my and Isaiah’s way of compromising with her.”
“I think being starved for attention happens to a lot of moms. In my case, my mom just has a job that gives it to her, so our family isn’t her only source of specialness.” Grant’s voice was gentle, as if he were holding a delicate idea on the tip of his tongue and speaking too plainly would cause it to break. In some ways, her and her mother’s relationship was as fragile as he made it feel. Realistically, Sam had nearly shattered it just by moving to the Bay Area.
Trying to laugh off the uneasy feeling, Sam said, “Grant, we may not always agree, but when we do, it’s because of our mothers.”
“Probably.” Grant shrugged. “What do you think caused her to behave this way?”
Sam took a big chunk out of her ice cream to buy herself thinking time. Eventually, she said, “My parents married young, and my dad was in the navy, so we moved a lot. Her kids were her social life, which I kind of understand. Creating rich friend connections is hard when you move around a bunch, so she has tons of casual friends but can’t really call anyone to dish about her life. I think that by the time we settled down, she’d forgotten how to develop hobbies or deep friendships, so she just kept leaning on Isaiah and me.”
“Where is your dad in all of this?”
“Possibly willfully oblivious but stepping in with the occasional reality check when her demands get too outlandish. Since she hasn’t asked for an animatronic elephant for the party, he isn’t required to speak up yet.”
Grant looked over at her to judge how serious she was about the elephant, so Sam did what anyone with a deadly serious friend would do—kept a straight face for exactly five seconds, then burst into laughter.
“So I take it the elephant isn’t an actual demand then?”
“Not yet.” Sam shook her head and crunched down on her cone.
“Good, because I was gonna say that the Lost Key was very clear about not being able to do that.”
“But wouldn’t you love to see that person at the front desk’s face if we tried,” Sam chuckled.
“Talk about a catastrophic request.” Grant laughed. “We’d probably stop her heart.”
“Which is fine, because you told everyone that I’m a doctor.”
Grant tilted his head back and let out a big rumbling laugh. “I won’t apologize for that.”
“I would never ask you to.” Sam smirked, then looked over at him.
Grant’s features had softened again, as if he was thinking about something he held close. After a moment he said, “It’s not my place to tell you how to manage your relationship with your mom. But if you want a boundary, it seems like you may need to set it yourself.”
