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I love you,
Max
Elana read the email, practically hearing his voice in her head, and smiled. Max was certainly good to her! He had sent her roses, more lipstick than she could wear in years, an orange sweater for Velma, followed by an orange lace slip that looked like lingerie. He was always cutting up, cracking jokes, and making her feel loved at the same time that he made her laugh.
Max brought joy to her life, and she couldn’t imagine a world without him.
And she sighed happily, hesitating as her cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Elana, it’s your mother,” her mom began, and she rolled her eyes. “I thought I would call to remind you of what my phone number is.”
“Mom, I have your phone number. I’ve just been busy at work.”
“And with your new husband, I suppose.”
“Well, if you had come to our wedding, you would have seen him in his Air Force uniform – and I would have explained that he is stationed overseas…”
“I thought you were smart?” her mother interrupted.
“I’m going to pretend that you intended to rephrase that so it wasn’t rude or abrasive toward your only child,” Elana flinched and retorted bluntly, not holding back.
“It’s just being truthful. Why would you marry someone who didn’t live here? That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve heard.”
“Sometimes the truth hurts, and it could be presented differently.”
“Says the lawyer…”
“Yes,” she replied and changed the subject. “What’s going on, Mom?”
“Well, I wanted to see if you wanted to have dinner tonight so we could catch up.”
“I would love to, but I already have plans.”
“So cancel them.”
“How about we meet tomorrow evening instead?”
“I can’t tomorrow night. I have a date with a friend…”
“Ah,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean by ‘Ah’?” her mother questioned. “You found someone to marry you… and I can, too, you know. Besides, I’m done having children and don’t envy you.”
“Why?”
“Well, usually a man starts pressuring you for sex, then it’s kids, then the next thing you know you’re pregnant, and your body starts morphing into something you don’t recognize anymore, getting all chunky or…”
Her mother’s voice faded as a voice inside of Elana started to make noises of fear, doubt, and desperation, and everything came crashing down with a sudden, horrifying clarity.
“Mom, I know you mean well… but stop!” Elana rasped painfully, trying not to let her words impact her. It had taken years of counseling to identify when she felt weak, when something wasn’t good for her mentally – and right now, this wasn’t good!
As a teenager, she’d had a measuring tape hidden in her room, marking where her waist was reading, along with her closet divided by sizes. Smaller sizes were on the left, and her mother used to joke that the ‘fat girl sizes’ were on the right, claiming her own closet was set up like Elana’s.
“I know you know what I’m talking about because…”
And Elana hung up on her mother in horrified awareness. She pressed both of her hands on her mouth, staring at her phone like it was a snake about to bite her only to hear it ring again.
