“I want to do everything I can to support you. So does Perry.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “And I think it’s time to start talking about what things are going to look like after the wedding. It’s only a couple months away.”
Perry is slightly younger than my mom. It’s only an age gap of five years, but Perry has identified as nonbinary since their early twenties. They’ve had their entire adult life as an out and proud member of the queer community and honed their style (well-tailored androgynous clothing, a very expensive and hard-to-maintain undercut) over time. In contrast, my mom could be considered a late bloomer. She’d been married to a man, had a child, spent a lot of her life playing the role of mother. Living with Perry for the past year has helped my mom define herself.
But I can’t imagine how a legal document will alter our day-to-day lives.
“Are you kicking me out of the office or something?” I give a little chuckle but Mom’s not laughing.
“Perry gave up their condo to move in here. I want us both to feel like this isourhome where we have an equal—”
“All done,” Nick calls from the bathroom. I wonder if he made the announcement in order to give us some warningbefore walking into some heated mother-daughter argument.
“Here, let me get you a bagel,” Mom says, pivoting back into a gracious hostess.
“Really, don’t worry about it,” Nick says. “I usually don’t eat breakfast.”
She ignores this and hands him a plate. “We saved you the sesame. It’ll just take a minute to toast. Now, how old is your little girl?”
“Nine,” he says. “Actually, we met Sam at the pool yesterday. Kira loves swimming.”
“I love that there’s a pool here,” Mom says, even though she rarely uses it. “It’s so important for kids to feel comfortable in the water.” She places his unwanted bagel in the toaster oven and turns to me. “Remember how scared you used to be to get your face wet? We had to practice by dunking your head in a plastic tub next to the sink.”
I stare at her, praying that she can pick up my telepathic message tostop embarrassing me in front of this near stranger who I’m bound to encounter in the breezeway, taking out the trash, in the parking deck, the mail room.
“It’s not a problem anymore,” I tell him. “I wash my face now and everything.”
Nick smiles. My mom pours him some orange juice.
“I think it had something to do with holding your breath,” she says, ignoring my brain waves. “They wouldn’t let her take advanced-beginner swimming lessons until she would go completely underwater. I was so worried she had some kind of phobia.”
“Oh my God, Mom.”
“Well, you were a really good sport with Kira,” Nick says, glancing atme.
“Really?” Mom exclaims, placing a bowl of fruit salad infront of Nick. “You’re always complaining when kids are at the pool.” I mean, I do complain about kids at the pool, but does she have to point that out in front of a literal parent? “You barely tolerated kids when youwerea kid.” The timer on the toaster rings. “I’d send Sam to camp and she’d make friends with the staff members instead of the other campers. Maybe it’s an only-child thing.”
Can I help that I was mature for my age? At least at that point in my life.
“Kira’s an only child,” Nick says, “but she’s pretty outgoing.”
Mom nods approvingly and places the lightly toasted bagel I wanted in front of him.
My face feels hot. I’m makeupless, braless, lacking any maternal instinct, and possibly a recovering aquaphobic.
There’s a lull in the conversation as Nick politely takes a bite of the bagel and I sense my mom’s unease with just a few seconds of silence.
“Nick, could you use a Bundt pan?” My mother squats down and begins rummaging through a lower cabinet. “I have two and I’ve been trying to downsize.”
“Does anyoneneeda Bundt pan?” I ask, reaching for a speckled banana from the fruit bowl.
“Maybe he bakes.” Mom stands up with an armful of baking implements that she hasn’t used since the nineties. “Do you bake?” Before he can answer, she adds, “Does your daughter like to help in the kitchen?”
“I don’t do a lot of cooking. Kira mostly survives on chicken tenders and mac and cheese,” he says. “We’re working on it.” And then, as if to reassure her that he does know how to mix ingredients together and heat them up with an appliance: “I make waffles.”
“Well, I’m sure I have something that would be useful foryou.” She pushes an assortment of cookware across the counter. “I have all these extra mixing bowls and sauté pans since Perry and I combined households. You already have a colander, right? What about a lemon juicer?”
“She won’t stop until you accept at least six useless kitchen supplies,” I say. There’s a whole My First Grownup Kitchen starter pack stored in these cabinets that was meant for me. And now she’s determined to offload it onto someone who actually has their own kitchen. “I don’t really cook.”
“That’s not true, honey,” says my mother. “You made all that bread.”
