Page 81 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
Eventually, Duke cleared his throat, forcing Sam to sit up to look at him. He took the nearly empty ice cream container out of her hands as he spoke. “I know we aren’t talking about him right now, but I do have one question for you, Sam.”
She was just starting to feel happy again, and she might strangle Duke if he killed the vibe. Sighing, she said, “Okay.”
Smiling mischievously, he said, “You do know yelling ‘boundary!’ at someone isn’t how boundaries work, right?”
“Duke!” Sam’s shoulders shook with laughter as what felt like the first real smile she had smiled in days spread across her face. “Yes. I know.”
“Just checking,” Duke chuckled.
Sam wiped her palms on her pants as she stepped into the hotel bar. Part of her was shocked that her mom had even agreed to meet her for a drink after everything that had happened yesterday. Once she and her roommates had finished coming up with a plan, Sam got some sleep and a hot shower before writing down everything she wanted to say. Originally, the words were hard and angry, but as she reread them, she found herself softening the language until they were the kindest version of the truth. After she’d settled on the words she hoped would allow the two of them to reset their relationship, she’d texted her mom.
She spotted Diana tucked away in a quiet table by a big picture window. Her mother had already ordered what looked like a half carafe of wine and two glasses, which Sam decided to take as a good sign.Throwing a prayer in the air, she took a deep breath and started a slow but deliberate walk toward the table.
“Hi, Mom.” The words came out breathy and smaller than Sam would have liked, but they got her mother’s attention just the same.
“Sammy, I ordered some wine. I hope that’s okay.” Her mother tried to say all of this with a casual air, but her words felt just as shaky as Sam’s sounded. Knowing they were both unsure made the knot in Sam’s throat relax.
“It’s fine. Great, in fact,” Sam said, dropping into the cushy designer chair across from her mother. It was oddly low to the ground, and it made her feel even more off balance.
“Here you are.” Her mother passed her a glass, then tried to lean all the way back in her chair in the same silly way Sam had just tried. Something about it reminded her of how much they did have in common. Hopefully, her mom could see that too. Playing off the weird seating as if it were natural, her mom said, “So you wanted to speak with me?”
“I did.” This was it, Sam thought. Forcing her shoulders to relax, she said, “We need to talk about yesterday.”
“Sammy. Let’s call it water under the bridge. I’ve spoken with your father and—”
“I don’t think we should ignore it. Mom, I love you, and it’s time for us to work some things out.” Sam rotated the wineglass in her hands and waited while her mom worked to wipe the shocked look off her face. Clearly, she hadn’t expected pushback. “I don’t want to fight like that again.”
“All right ...” Her mother drew the words out as her skin went so pale that Sam could see even the faintest of her freckles.
“First, I owe you an apology. It was clear to me that I didn’t have time to commit to helping with your party in the way you needed. I should have been honest and said no from the start, but I wanted tomake you happy and be a good daughter, so I didn’t. So first and foremost, I’m sorry for not being honest.”
Sam paused just in case her mother wanted to say anything. She knew it was unrealistic, but in the darkest and most personal corners of her mind, she’d hoped that her mother would jump to accept her apology and admit to being too wrapped up in herself to see Sam’s limitations. But all Diana did was straighten her posture, so she took it as a sign to continue.
“I also should have been more assertive about my time constraints. That was unfair to you, and it resulted in the invitation mix-up and you not getting the kind of food that you wanted at your party. It wasn’t fair of me to get that angry when I hadn’t been crystal clear with you about my needs and boundaries.”
At the wordboundary, Diana became so still that Sam was a little worried she had stopped breathing. On the upside, she was a doctor, but as the plane up from Los Angeles with Grant had taught her, she was clearly no emergency medicine specialist.
“Mom, I know you love me, and I hope you know how much I love you, but we can’t keep going on like this. I know it’s hard to have both Isaiah and I go away. You have given up so much for us. You constantly had to control so much of our lives to keep us safe as we moved around. But I need you to let me go now. I didn’t leave home to hurt you.”
“Sam, I don’t think you and Isaiah left home to hurt me. When did I give you that impression?” Diana said, managing to look both affronted and shocked, as if Sam were in the midst of a complete fabrication.
“Mom, when I told you that I was accepted to this fellowship, you said, ‘But why would you go so far away from me? Don’t you love me?’” Sam quoted her mother but didn’t use the voice she and Isaiah typically adopted when mimicking her.
“Well, that was a joke,” Diana said with a dismissive wave.
“Was it, though? Because you didn’t act like it was,” Sam said, losing herself in her mother’s defensive argument for a moment. Remembering her goal was to settle a fight, not start a new one, she shook her head. “But what you said matters less than the fact that I don’t make decisions with punishing you as the goal. And when I say no, I’m not saying it to make you feel bad. I’m saying no because it’s time for me to make my own decisions. I know I’m not always the daughter you hope for, and that can be disappointing, but I hope you can accept this and we can find a path to a better relationship.”
By the time Sam finished speaking, her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it would give out at any moment. The pit of her stomach began to sink as her mother took a sip of wine, frown lines creasing on either side of her mouth. This was a classic unhappy-Diana expression, and it took everything in Sam not to try to bend over backward to fix her mom’s hurt feelings before she could even give voice to them.
Finally, Diana exhaled and her entire posture changed, her spine no longer rigid as her shoulders rolled forward. “Sam. I don’t want to control you, and you’ve never been a disappointment to me. I know I have never said that. Where on earth did you get that idea?”
“You didn’t have to say it. Your actions speak much louder than you think they do.”
“I ...” Diana slumped and looked out the window as if she might find the words she needed somewhere on the gray rooftops of the other high-rises. Finally, her mother looked back at her, her eyes shot through with pain. “Could you tell me what I did? I won’t do it again.”
Sam looked at her mother and wondered if she was genuinely surprised by the accusation. The kind part of her wanted to believe she was, but the part of her that had lived through years of emotional manipulation said otherwise. Sighing, Sam took a sip of her wine, then decided that she might as well try. If she gave up now, then she wasn’t really giving her mom the chance to grow into the kind of parent Sam needed.
“It’s hard to narrow it down. I don’t say that to be mean, but you’ve been trying to redirect my decisions for a long time.”
