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“You should eat something,” Mara said without taking her gaze off the child. “Coffee isn’t breakfast.”
“I’ll grab something on the way to work.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I promise to eat lunch.”
By then she should be hungry. The disquiet of her late-night conversation with Allison had already lasted more than a day. It was time to let it all go.
“You’ll get used to having her in the house,” her mother told her. “In time.”
“It’s not her so much as the idea of her,” Erica admitted, crossing to the table and sitting across from her mother. “She told me how they met.” She briefly recounted the car-breakdown story. When she was done she blurted, “He rescued her,” then wished she hadn’t.
Mara, of course, knew exactly what she meant. “And he never rescued you.”
“I don’t need rescuing.”
“That’s not the point.” Her mother wiped Jackson’s face with a napkin. “You’re doing so good. You’re a big boy, aren’t you?”
Jackson beamed at her, then returned to his eating.
Her mother looked at her. “You’re capable. You’ve always known what you wanted and gone after it. Peter said he liked that about you until he didn’t. He never played fair.”
True but painful words, Erica thought. “My goal was never to be capable. I wanted to be his wife. I wish I knew what went wrong.”
“You do know.”
Erica wondered if that was true. “I don’t think he ever loved me. He loved the idea of what he thought I was, but not the me inside.” She sighed. “Maybe I wasn’t completely honest when we first met. Maybe I pretended to be more what I thought he would like. Not on purpose but because I was tired of being alone.”
“I’m not sure you have the acting skills for that. You put yourself out there. And you’re equally guilty of loving who you thought he was rather than who he really was.”
Jackson dropped his spoon. Mara picked it up, wiped it off and handed it to him.
“Or maybe you wanted him to be more like you?”
Erica tried not to flinch. “That’s not true. I wanted him to have a successful business because it would make him happy.”
Mara didn’t say anything, leaving Erica to squirm.
“Fine. I’ll say it. I didn’t like him being a junior accountant with no ambition. I mean at first it didn’t matter, but later...” She looked away. “I made him start his own business. He never wanted to and he resented me after that.”
“He was always going to end up resenting you,” her mother said flatly. “You were too strong for him. You’re right—he started out admiring you, but then ended up resenting you for an assortment of reasons, most of which are on him, not you.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
She thought of all the evenings she’d worked late, how she’d been so busy growing her business and being there for Summer. She’d still loved Peter and had thought they would be together always, but toward the end, how much had she shown up?
“I’ll accept my responsibility for what happened, but I’ll never forgive him for trying to turn Summer against me.”
“He does need to own that.” Mara smiled at Jackson. “Did you finish your cereal?” She passed over the sippy cup filled with milk. “Here you go.”
Jackson grabbed it with both hands.
“Summer’s not gone,” her mother added. “She adores you.”
“She won’t let me cut her hair. She has her friends do it. She disses what I do. Her friends would be thrilled to have me as their mother. I always thought we’d play with makeup and go shopping together. She doesn’t want to.”
She had once, she thought bitterly. But since the divorce, Peter had been not-so-subtly trying to turn her away from all that.
