“No great-grandmother of ours ever considered marrying a Callaway. Are you nuts?” Marcy bites back.
“Maybe I am. What’s so terrible about us anyway?”
Marcy lifts her chin, and Willow rolls her eyes. With a deep sigh, she says, “Supposedly you guys stole from us a long, long time ago.”
Not this again.“Stole… what?” Better to play stupid than to explain how this is not relevant.
“Land,” Marcy drops. “Like you didn’t know that’s why you’re so rich.”
I want to tell her we’re not rich. At least not in the way she thinks—the way Gail does, where money can be spent without counting. We are land rich and asset rich. But some years that means we are cash poor, trying to cover all the associated expenses. “I—I don’t know that anyone can actually steal land that easily. I mean there would be a trace of that… I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Mrs.—Marcy.”
“That’s enough,” Willow snaps before her mother can answer. She pushes her chair back and stands, makes quick work of removing our unfinished plates, clears the rest of the table, loads the dishwasher, and wipes the table in no time.
I risk a glance at Marcy, but she’s looking at her daughter with something like sadness and envy. There are a dozen things a normal son-in-law could say right now, including a promise I can’t hold (“I promise to make your daughter happy”), a minefield of a question (“What can I do to make this right?”), and the cowardly and untrue, “It was her idea to fly to Vegas.”
I settle for the innocent, blanket, “Can I see Willow’s baby photos?” accompanied with my best impression of an enamored smile toward my wife. Surely bringing back happy memories will salvage this evening.
Marcy exhales an exhausted sigh, and I regret the question. Who knows where she needs to dig them out of? “Didn’t have time for no photos. But lemme ask you a question, Noah Callaway. What’s in it for you?” Her eyes are narrowed on me. “’Cause she’s always sworn she’d never get married. To anyone. Now, I can see how you might turn her head, but what could you possibly see in her?”
“Gee, thanks, Mom,” Willow says before I can come up with an answer. She barely glances down at us from where she stands, arms crossed, leaning against the sink.
“Don’t get all high and mighty, Weeping,” Marcy retorts. “It’s not like you bring anything to the table, like they say.”
As Willow’s eyes blur with unshed tears that she swiftly blinks away, a cold wave descends on me as I battle shame mixed with a dose of anger. “I’m not sure where to start, Marcy. Maybe with her generosity? She spends her winter weekends as a volunteer teacher of adaptive skiing, after all. Or her courage? Talking here about her being a thru-hiker. But if you’re insisting on something she ‘brings to the table,’ let’s see. She makes me laugh, her beauty makes me look good just by being by her side, her magic touch is already turning the store around, and she makes a mean oatmeal. I could go on all day.”
Marcy grunts, seeming unsatisfied, then stands, fists on the table to stand up.
My wife’s cheekbones are red, and she struggles to keep her voice soft. “Let me help you,” she tells her mother. She avoids my gaze as she helps her mother down the hall.
“Thank you for dinner, Marcy!” I holler.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving back as she disappears in the dark hallway.
My heartbeat is still out of whack, and I hope my anger didn’t show. When Willow comes back minutes later, I feel her shake as I set a hand on her arm.
Marcy’s illness is taking a toll on her, physically and emotionally, and she seems to have her reasons to be upset at us. At me. But I hate how it’s affecting Willow.
We dash under the rain to her car. “Why don’t you let me drive,” I offer, expecting her to say she’s fine.
But she hands me her keys, and I open her door, watching her ball onto her seat.
I quickly round the car and get in. “Hey,” I say softly.
She looks up at me.
“I’m sorry,” we both say.
“Come here,” I add, taking her into the most PG hug.
She leans into me, letting me rub her back, burrowing her face deeper in my chest. I drop a kiss on the top of her head and she lifts her face to me. “You give really good hugs.”
“So I’ve been told,” I say smiling.
“Can we go home now?” she whispers, rubbing her arms and staring out the windshield.
I drive us in silence, desperate to make her feel better. But sweeping this under the rug won’t do it. Willow is embarrassed, and she needs to know she has no reason to be. “We should talk about what happened,” I say as we both walk into the kitchen.
She shrugs, the look of defeat in her eyes undoing me. “As long as you don’t try to fix it,” she says.
