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She ignored my jab. “Well, let me inside and I’ll watch my grandson while you put on something decent. Really, Zoe. Your child doesn’t need to see your stomach.”
I wanted to argue that there are way more traumatic things in the world than a few inches of exposed midriff, but I’d learned to pick my battles. And I knew I was in for a lot of them today.
“Where are your eggs, Zoe?” Mom asked, rooted through my fridge while I went to change into a pair of nice jeans and a blouse.
“I used the last of them making Rex’s breakfast,” I informed her.
“Well, how am I supposed to make waffles?”
“I told you. I already gave Rex breakfast.” I picked up Rex’s empty plate as proof and stuck it in the sink. “You don’t need to make anything.”
“Nonsense.”
She poked through my cupboards until she found some flour and baking powder. I sighed. At least busying herself in my kitchen kept her quiet. For a moment.
“I saw Desmond the other day,” she said, finally.
“Oh.”
“He looks well.”
I nodded. “He does.”
I guess screwing every grad student at the university gives him thatglow.
She looked me over and shook her head, disappointed.
“You know, if you had just—”
“Mom, we’ve been through this before, no amount of my dressing nicer or dying my roots or putting on makeup can make someone love me when he doesn’t,” I stated, firmly.
“But you look like you don’t even try. You spend your life in those ugly scrubs.”
“For my job. As a nurse.”
“I’m just saying.”
My mother and I had been having this argument for almost fifteen years now. She genuinely believed that if a woman dressed nicely, behaved a certain way, and catered to her man like a king, that a marriage would stay happy and loving forever. Divorce to her was a sign that I’d failed as a woman. And God help me now that I was a single mother.
“Do you have any prospects?” she asked.
“Prospects?” I wondered.
“Men who are interested in you, Zoe,” she clarified. “Are you getting back out there? The dating scene is not kind to women over a certain age.”
Don’t I know it.
I thought about Mark constantly pestering me to go out for drinks. That was the closest offer to a date I’d had since my divorce.
“No, Mom. No prospects. No dates. But, you know what? I think that might be good for right now,” I explained gently. “Maybe it’s a good idea for me to just be single for a while.”
She made anI’m not so sureface and placed her hands on her hips.
“What?” I asked.
“I talked to Desmond,” she started.
“I know. You mentioned. And I—”
