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“You don’t mean equality; you mean parity…”
Their voices are getting louder, which is why I can hear every word. And the louder the voices, the closer they come to blows.
Suddenly Josh is standing and grabbing his coat. “It’s late; I better go,” he says grimly, reaching into his wallet for cash, but my mom refuses to take his money.
“My treat,” she says, hands clasped, although she’s anxious about the new tension at the table, and her eyes dart from Tessa to Josh.
“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Bishop. I had a wonderful time.” Josh leans forward, gives my mother a kiss on the cheek and, with a nod to me and hardly anything at all to Tessa, leaves.
Tessa sticks around another five minutes, but the mood has changed, the fruity tropical cocktails seem dense and sickeningly sweet now, and even the band is playing the crowd favorite, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” which makes me want to gag. It’s definitely time to go home.
Tessa tries to give Mom money as well, which Mom again adamantly refuses, firmly conveying that this is her night, her party for my special friends (I cringe at that part), and Tessa goes.
Mom settles the bill. She won’t let me contribute, either, and tonight was expensive, each cocktail around ten dollars, but Mom’s in her element. She loves being able to provide, loves feeling useful and needed. But even though she’s paid, we don’t immediately leave.
Instead we sit there, listening to the band and the rain and what I’m sure are exotic birds, but that could be the fizz of rum in my veins or in my brain.
“Ah,” Mom sighs, a pleasant, perhaps slightly tipsy look on her face, “this was fun.”
“It was. And thank you for being so nice to my friends.”
She gestures with a don’t-even-mention-it shake of her hand. “I hope you’re happy.” She tips her head back, regards me for several seconds. “Or happier. Although I really don’t know what will make you happy.”
Something in her tone hits me funny, and I sit up in the red booth. “What do you mean?”
“I just don’t think anything will ever make you happy, Holly.”
It’s funny, but when I get mad at work, I feel as though I can explode, fast. Sharp and hard. But when my mom upsets me, it’s so different. With Mom it’s an intense heat, a slow, hot burn that comes from deep inside me.
“You had everything,” she continues. “The most wonderful man—handsome and charming, kind and generous—”
“He didn’t want me, Mom.”
“Why not? What did you do?”
I look away, hurt, so hurt. What did I do? “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just myself, Mom.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. He loved you! He married you. It was a beautiful wedding, and you two made such a lovely home together.”
“It was a lovely home, but we weren’t happy.” I stand up, reach for my coat, my purse. “We should go. It’s getting late and I have to work in the morning.”
Leaving the Fairmont, I realize that neither of us should be driving after so many drinks, so I tell Mom we’ll leave the cars and we’ll get them in the morning, and we hail a cab to my apartment after Mom retrieves her suitcase from her car.
Mom and I sit stiffly side by side in the back of the cab until Mom finally breaks the silence. “I don’t know why you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad,” I say wearily. “I’m hurt.”
She makes a soft, hurt sound of protest. “Why are you hurt? I was just trying to reach out to you, Holly.”
I tense, close my eyes, hands in fists in my lap. I know her too well. I know every sound she makes—the way she swallows, breathes, eats, exhales.
I know maybe too much about her. And there are times I think I could annihilate her with my knowledge. Destroy her with my hands, or with the cruelty of my tongue.
It’s terrifying to feel that kind of emotion, that kind of power, particularly toward your own mother.
I don’t know if it’s the same for other mothers and daughters, but my mom and I hurt, each other sometimes just by being alive. And yet it’d kill me if she were dead.
“You make it sound like I was so lucky to get a guy like Jean-Marc.”
