Dana Wright turned her glare on her oldest daughter and her lips tightened. “Elissa, please…”
“I said no, and you need to listen. The harder you push Ami, the harder she pushes back. If—and I think at this point it’s a huge if—she ever wants to finish college, she will one hundred percent need to come to that all on her own. If you keep pushing, she never will.”
“You do not know Ami better than me. I know what my kid needs.”
“You know what one of your kids needs.” Elissa dug her nails into her palms, hoping the pain would stop the flood of words from flowing. It did no good. “You always know what Leo needs, and you’re well versed in giving it to him. But Ami and me, not so much.”
“That’s not?—”
Elissa ignored her mother and plowed on. As much as it hurt her to say it, as much as it would hurt her mother to hear it, it needed to be said.
“I get it, Mom. Leo needed extra help. Ami and I were fine, mostly. Easy. But when you were taking Leo to the hospital, I was the one consoling Ami. I read her stories to keep her distracted, played games in the waiting room while you talked to the doctors. No one did the same for me.”
“Lissa…” Her mom’s voice broke.
“I don’t blame you, I don’t. But I do resent it, a little. And I’m tired of being the peacemaker between you two. She’s an adult. So are you—the adultier adult. Talk to her like one.”
“I-I can’t. I look at her, at you, and all I see are the beautiful little girls who needed me. I don’t know how to be the mom of adults who don’t.”
Disappointment and anger swept through her. Elissa loved her family. She loved her mother so, so much. But she couldn’t keep doing this any more than Ami could. It wasn’t healthy.
“Then you need to make your peace with that. I gotta go.”
Elissa pushed off the wall and strode toward the front door. She kept expecting her mom to follow, but she didn’t. Instead, quiet sobs filled the hall as she left, shutting the door carefully behind her. She paused outside and let the sunshine dry the tears streaming down her cheeks.
It would be okay. Just some hard truths for all three Wright women today. They’d figure out their stuff. Probably. Maybe. Oh, please God, let us figure it out.
She approached Bertha, only to see her sister in her own car with the window open, leaning her head on the headrest. Tears and snot streamed down her face. At least Ami wasn’t a pretty crier. That would have been too unfair.
“Gonna hold this over me too, Miss Perfect?” Acid dripped from Ami’s voice, spilling out of the car and pooling unpleasantly in Elissa’s gut.
“You’re mad at Mom, not me. I don’t care what you do with your life, Ami, as long as you’re happy. You’re so not happy right now. And I’m not perfect.”
Far from it. Today more than proved it.
“Oh, you mean occasionally losing your temper and saying ‘gosh, golly, darn it to heck’? Fuck you! You have no idea what I went through.”
Years of resentment, of not living her own life, roiled inside her. Before she could raise her well-honed mental filters in place, she unloaded.
“And you have no idea of what I went through! I read you stories when Leo was in the hospital, told you everything would be okay. And last month, Leo called me, not you! How often did you take Mom for her treatments? Who do they call when they need things? Not you!”
“Yeah, they don’t need me. That’s a fucking great feeling, Liss. Way to rub it in.”
“The next time they call, you can be the dutiful daughter. I love you, all of you, but I can’t breathe anymore.”
She turned away and fumbled with Bertha’s keys, trying to open the fifteen-year-old piece of crap.
“Lissa, what?—”
“Tell them I ran off with the hot guy on the motorcycle! I’m done.”
The car door finally unlocked, and she climbed in, ignoring the heat radiating from the steering wheel from being out in the sun for longer than five minutes. Elissa slammed the door shut and started the engine.
Well, she tried. Bertha’s engine refused to turn over. Son of a bitch!
Elissa put her head down on the steering wheel and cried, the heat from the hard plastic barely bothering her. It wasn’t fair. She was owed a dramatic storm-out for all the times Ami had pulled this crap on her. Instead, her moment was ruined. She grabbed some tissues from the box she kept on the passenger seat and cleaned herself up. Her sister still watched from her car, mouth agape. Great, now Ami would have this story to hold over her, too.
Out of pure desperation, she tried cranking the engine again. It caught with a sputter, and she gave old Bertha some gas. It didn’t kill the engine, so she put it in reverse and backed down the driveway. Elissa flipped off her sister, put Bertha into first gear, and gunned the engine. Her old junker lurched along the street.
