Page 81 of Canadian Boyfriend

“I do, though,” I said calmly. “You’ve given me a lot. You’ve invested money, and time, and emotional energy in me. Not lately, but when I was younger. I understand that. I see it. And while I can appreciate that there was a cost for you, there was also a cost for me. Whatever it was you thought you were doing, the cost was too high for me. I’m still untangling myself from that cost.” But Iwasuntangling myself, that was the important part, and it was such a relief to be on my way out of this web I’d been caught in for so long. “I’m not a dancer anymore, or at least not the kind you wanted me to be. I think it would be great if you could try to be OK with that, if not for my sake, then for yours. Because what you are right now is a dance mom without a dancer, and I don’t think that’s good for anyone.”

Shaky, I turned and met Mike Martin’s kind eyes. He was looking at me the way he looked at Olivia in class, busting with pride. “Can you drop me at a car rental place?”

“Sure can.” He held his hand out, not in a romantic way, more in aCome along; you’re with us nowway. So I took it, and I walked away from my mother, maybe for the last time.

It felt amazing.

As we were pulling up to the restaurant we’d settled on for dinner, I started feeling a bit sheepish. “I should have driven the Normal Sedan. I should have known I wouldn’t want to drive back with my mother even if we hadn’t had that confrontation.”

“I like the way we name our cars,” Olivia said from the back seat, and something in my chest squeezed at her use of the wordwe. At that pronoun that wasn’t really correct but sounded nice all the same. “We never named this one, though,” she went on. “What should it be?”

“The Getaway Car,” Mike Martin said as he cut the engine and turned to me, his smile and his eye twinkle both calibrated to maximum stun.

I cracked up. “Perfect.” I turned to encompass both of them. “And sorry again about…” I waved vaguely. I’d known exactly what to say to confront my mother, but apparently I’d used up my allotment of the right words for the day.

“Don’t be,” Mike Martin said. Over dinner, I told Olivia a simplified version of what my beef was with my mother, and Mike Martin turned it into a lesson about boundaries and how some families had more problems than others, but I was still embarrassed now that I’d transformed from Hulk Rory back into my usual unassuming self.

“Hey!” Olivia exclaimed as she tucked into her chicken fingers. “I have a great idea! You should camp with us!”

I smiled and shook my head affectionately at her. When I looked to Mike Martin, he was striking an exaggeratedWhy not?sort of pose.

“I can’t camp with you! You won’t have enough space.”

“Not true,” Olivia said. “We have a bed and then these two mat thingies.”

And so, a few hours later, I found myself sacked out on a“mat thingy.” It was atop a wooden bunk and decently comfy. Olivia had the proper bed, which was tucked into the foot of the wagon, and Mike Martin was on another bunk parallel to mine.

I was having trouble falling asleep, despite the cozy setup and the lulling sound of crickets outside. I wasn’t agitated, though. I listened to Olivia’s breathing lengthen as she fell asleep, and I felt calm—and free.

I rolled over to find Mike Martin looking at me from the other bunk. I’d thought he’d fallen asleep, but nope. He was lying there all tousle-haired, and he shot me a lazy smile by the glow of Olivia’s bear night-light perched on the foot of her mattress.

“Did I just fire my mom?” I whispered incredulously.

He reached his hand across the few feet between our bunks. I followed suit. He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “You did, and you were glorious.”

A month later, Gretchen came for a swim, and Olivia regaled her with tales of our pioneer adventure. “It was great!” she said in summation as we floated on inner tubes.

Mike Martin, sipping a Labatt Blue from his own tube, said, “Also great was that Aurora told off her mother.”

“I heard.”

“I wish you hadactuallyheard. It was epic.”

“Ding-dong, the Wicked Witch of Wayzata is dead!” Gretchen trilled.

“There’s a pioneer village near where my grandparents live in Manitoba, too,” Olivia, apparently determined to keep the conversation focused on her favorite subject, said to Gretchen. “But it’s just a generic one.”

I was about to object that it was probably more authentic than Laura Ingalls land, but Olivia shrieked and said, “Hey! Rory, you should come with us and we can compare and contrast!”

This girl could be so sweet, with her big heart. “I can’t come to Canada with you!”

“Why not?” Olivia said.

“Well, I have a job, for one.”

“I happen to know that your boss wishes you would take a vacation already,” Mike Martin called from his inner tube, which had drifted pretty far from us, but clearly he was still tuned into the conversation.

“Yes!” Gretchen said. “Go!”

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